Area's for improvememt

[supportman]

Following a recent brain storming session at school to come up with ideas for improvement, I have been looking at the work that I do one to one for what can be improved there.

The things that I come up with so far are:

1. Vehicle saftey checks for anyone carrying clients as part of their job. Obviously there is the yearly MOT, but that is a long time for unknown hazards to develop. At the respite centers that I have worked at we carry out a list of daily and weekly checks on the bus, but AFAIK it is not something that has to be done when working directly with families. My idea would be to remind carers to check things regually and to have, say, a 3 monthly professional vehicle inspection.

1. Another vehicle saftey idea, for all carers who drive clients to be IAM (institute of advanced motorists) trained. Something that could be introduced as voluntary initially with a compulsary date far enough ahead to give people time to take the course.

1. For all carers to keep reciepts to give to families. This is something that can be done to prevent financial abuse, but I am thinking it might be useful to show that carers have been doing what they should have been doing and not their own thing.

I don't know if there are many road accidents involving clients and if it would be a good thing to think about suggesting new policies, but seems a good idea to me to increase the saftey of clients. As for number three, I generally didn't need to give receipts as am trusted to be honest, (which honesty is a very important part of this type of work) but I insist on giving them now as I aquired a new client after it was found out that a carer was not taking a child on activities and was taking them with them and doing their own things. A policy that all is aware of would prevent this from happening to anyone else.

So what are peoples opinions on these ideas and does anyone have ideas from a parents point of view which could be implemented to improve the service that they receive?

1 and 2 are over the top.
3 is perfectly reasonable (and am astounded that not done as matter of course.You need to give them whether or not people 'trust' you.)

Thanks for the reply Moondog, yes after thinking about it number 2 seems a bit excessive. I still think that there shold be some sort of checks carried out on private vehicles that are used for this sort of work. Company vehicles have regular saftey checks and some places don't allow people to use their own vehicle if the company one is unavaliable as they can't guarentee the saftey of it, even though having the correct insurance etc. Some sort of check wouldn't cost much or take much time, something like a mini MOT for example.

And yes reciepts should always be given, but after a while of being told not to worry about giving them, one can start to not bother about it. Which I know is un-professional.

3 is good, bit 2 imo would lead to extra expense for cares and might make them think twice about doing that line of job.
1 = again the expense would put people off.

I always take the receipts and sometimes claim things back on direct payments so think 3 is very important.