With referrals running at their highest ever level, an increasing number of senior professionals within the case management sector are becoming strong advocates for Calvert Reconnections’ ground-breaking approach to ABI rehabilitation.
Mark Pitts, Senior Clinical Operations Manager at Bush & Co, believes the service is “expanding the horizons of brain injury rehab”.
Mark met Reconnections’ Head of Service Claire Appleton at last year’s BABICM conference and went on to work with the centre.
“I’ve been really impressed by the supportive, ‘can-do’ approach of the Reconnections team,” he said. “It’s refreshing to work with such a passionate group of rehab professionals.”
The programme at Reconnections is clinically led by the multi-disciplinary clinical team and supported by the centre’s specialist rehab coaches.
Continued Mark: “I’m particularly impressed by the way in which Reconnections develop personalised rehabilitation plans for participants, working with them every step of the way to establish their goals.
“The service is very different to anything else and can be tailored to wide range of individuals. It brings together the beauty and benefits of the great outdoors with the very best in person centred care. The clinical expertise within the team is outstanding – they have a large rehabilitation toolbox and strive to expand the horizons of what’s possible with brain injury rehabilitation. Rehab fatigue amongst participants is also minimised.”
Reconnections, which opened in June 2021, has an interdisciplinary team which includes Neuro Occupational Therapists, Neuro Physiotherapists, Neuro Speech and Language Therapists, Neuro Psychologists, Positive Behaviour Support Practitioners and Rehabilitation Coaches. The team works collaboratively to deliver individual plans for participants, combining cognitive and physical rehabilitation with vocational and outdoor activities delivering with a unique non-clinical environment.
The service last year released its first evidence-based outcomes review with participants reporting life-changing outcomes.
Analysis of participants’ outcomes indicated:
- 100 per cent improved their ability to carry out everyday activities
- 100 per cent needed less support when they were discharged and 60 per cent have progressed onto independent living
- 100 per cent reported an improved hope for the future and an improved sense of purpose and direction in their life
- 90 per cent achieved their goals
- 80 per cent felt more empowered through greater participation and control over decisions that affect their lives.
Thanking Mark and his colleagues at Bush & Co for their support, Claire Appleton, Head of Service at Reconnections said:
“Case managers, lawyers, insurers and the wider brain injury community are now recognising Reconnections as a leading, specialist clinically-led rehabilitation unit.
“People with ABI can sometimes find the set procedures of neuro-rehabilitation too clinical, inflexible and impersonal.
“Our expert clinical therapy team combines cognitive and physical rehabilitation with vocational and outdoor activities delivered within a unique non-clinical environment.
“Our use of outdoor activities differentiates our service from other rehab providers but so too does the depth of expertise within our clinical team.”