Real Life Options Receive Official Autism Accreditation

Fairview House in Durham has received official accreditation by the National Autistic Society. The Autism Accreditation award provides a seal of quality and helps to provide people with real peace of mind when choosing a service for a relative or friend. Autism Accreditation has been the foundation upon which much of the successful expansion of quality services for people with autism has been built.

The National Autistic Society promote the accreditation and associated programme to improve the quality of provision for people with autism by providing a unified standard of excellence in both policy and practice, presenting a systematic framework for continuous self-examination and development, and giving guidance and support to the services who use our programme so that they can meet the established criteria required for accredited status.

The report generated following a rigorous observation process carried out by a dedicated review team identified various strengths of Fairview House – including the good relationship that has been forged between the service and the local community, stating: “the Service Users have had a positive and meaningful relationship with the wider community, assisting with the community gardens and contributing effort, hard work and passion for the projects. The Service Manager has written articles for the local Community Newsletters and articles featuring the hard work and achievements of the Service Users has been featured in local newspapers.”

The report also highlighted the person centred way in which support was delivered and the attention to detail: “Each individual with autism has a clear, step-by-step Daily Activity Support Plan in place which is very detailed. Furthermore, the guidelines are based on a sound understanding of how each individual is affected by their autism as well as his/her wishes and preferences in terms of how they want to be supported. The review team observed staff executing some of these daily routines meticulously and consider this to be an area of strength.”

Service Manager Bernice Holohan commented: “All the staff and residents are delighted with the accreditation. It’s great to be officially recognised for the hard work and determination that has gone on to ensure we provide the people we support with the high quality of care that they deserve.”  Staff at Fairview House are seen celebrating in picture left.