Parents Take the Lead on New Health and Social Care Service: Kaleidoscope Launches for Leicestershire in the Spring of 2021

• 14 Dec 2020
• |
• Great Britain

Determined Leicestershire parents are tackling the lack of local adult social care provision and have created Kaleidoscope, a specialist service to meet the needs of their young-adult children and others with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD).

The parents’ group entered into a partnership earlier this year with Praxis Care and will launch the new Kaleidoscope service early in 2021.

Praxis Care Director of Care and Development for GB and Isle of Man Richard Broughton says Kaleidoscope will operate a day care service dedicated to supporting adults from across Leicestershire aged 18+ and who are at the most severe end of the PMLD spectrum.

“These young people all have a severe learning disability, compounded by highly complex physical health care needs, which require additional levels of support from appropriately skilled, compassionate, caring and dedicated staff,” says Mr Broughton.

“There are currently limited locally accessible services that can meet this level of complexity for this group of young adults. Daily life is currently a real and ever-present challenge for the young people and for their families. Kaleidoscope has been developed specifically to respond positively to this challenge,” he says.

“Kaleidoscope will bring a high-quality, person-centred and much-needed service to Leicester and the county. We are excited to be delivering this together and look forward to our opening in the spring.”

Kaleidoscope will operate from 8:30 am–5:30 pm daily, Monday–Friday; it will be fully COVID compliant and offer support, activity, engagement and therapy for up to 10 people per day. Kaleidoscope will open in the spring of 2021 following the bespoke conversion of a property on Knighton Lane to the south-east of Leicester city centre. When it is at capacity, Kaleidoscope will create 15 jobs locally in addition to building supply and service links with the local community and economy.

Two parents from the group, Steve Dibnah and Jay Dempster, say the Kaleidoscope project will be a major boost for service provision in the region.

When our daughter, Francesca, was coming to the end of her time at Birkett House School, we were shocked when we realised there were no locally accessible services available that could meet the level of complexity she needs and provide the type of well-structured, stimulating and meaningful activities she experienced at school.

We knew it would have to be up to us and other parents to find a solution…Having had direct experience of the care provided by Praxis Care for our daughter through its young people’s residential short breaks service at the Glenfield Project, we know Kaleidoscope will benefit from Praxis’ experience and reputation for delivering high quality and valuable support to the people who will use the service and their families.

Steve Dibnah and Jay Dempster

Members of the group, Teresa and Martyn Newey, the parents of Ellie say:

We came together as a group of parents in 2015, as we all recognised and were concerned about the lack of appropriate Day Care facilities available for our children with PMLD, once they had left full time education. We have worked with Praxis Care to develop what we think will be an excellent service, that will benefit many families, now and in the future.

Teresa and Martyn Newey, the parents of Ellie

The Kaleidoscope team is keen to bring even more families on board and to open this service up to all adults with PMLD. Sessions can be booked per half-day, per day and in blocks (where there is capacity) by families and by service commissioners. The service interest/booking/waiting list is being built now.

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Email kaleidoscopeenquiries@praxiscare.org.uk to express your interest or with any questions.