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Neath Port Talbot

About

The Helping Hands Homecare and Maintenance Scheme (HHHMS) provides training in maintenance and gardening skills for long-term unemployed people, which are then used to help elderly and disabled people to access affordable maintenance and gardening services.

This project has two distinct sets of beneficiaries: those delivering the service, and those who make use of them.

For the trainees on the twelve-monht employment opportunity, the lasting benefits of this project include increased confidence and employment opportunities through increased skills, knowledge and personal potential. Training opportunities include qualifications in first aid, manual handling, lantra brushcutters, and Sage Accounts level 1. As trainees are actually employed on the project, they are able to state this as employment on their CV, which is very important as many of them have never had a job.

As far as the service clients are concerned, this project helps elderly people continue to live independently.

Mr and Mrs X are an elderly couple. Mr X has many health issues and recently started to lose his sight. Mrs X after an accident many years ago is now experiencing mobility difficulties. Their property is well maintained with the exception of the large garden. They have a lawn to the front, side and rear of the property and a hedge to the front. They have good family support much of the time and a son who works full time but does his best to keep the garden in reasonable condition. The couple were pleased to find out about the HHHMS gardening service and will use it to keep the garden under control. They do not wish to have the garden landscaped but just wish to keep the grass at a reasonable level and keep the hedge tidy. They had been concerned that if the garden became untidy and grew wild it would give the impression that they are frail and easy targets for bogus callers or burglars.

One of the initial concerns of the Local Panel was the impact that this project might have on small local businesses. Ongoing feedback has shown that the work undertaken is minor work that is too small for most businesses. The project also issues clients with a list of external service providers which have been approved by Care and Repair. A final project evaluation for the end of the initial 3-year phase gave some very good feedback from local businesses. The evaluation conducted a survey of 46 contractors on the approved list to identify the extent to which their capacity had been improved by referrals for work outside the capacity or scope of the Helping Hands scheme. Over 50% were pleased with the benefits that it brought – recommended them to new customers, given them a trustworthy name and so on. 33% thought that the service had helped grow or sustain their business, and 54% indicated that if the project was to come to an end their business would be adversely affected.

This project is an excellent example of networking in the community. Even if only a small number of lives are changed in these communities it will be money well spent, as hope and self-esteem revitalise the community from the bottom upwards. Having said this, the demand for services continues to be very high and figures for completed jobs continue to increase each quarter.

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