Make your voice heard, shape your services & win £200

Lifeways is urging the families, carers and stakeholders of the people we support to have their say on our services to help us improve what we do and how we do it – and be in with a chance of winning £200 worth of vouchers for service funds.

Here are the key things you need to know:

• Your Voice, our annual customer satisfaction survey, goes live on 9 December 2024 for three months – our longest-ever survey window 
• We need YOUR opinions on what we do well and what we could do better to support people to live more independently. 
• We are writing directly to the people we support to fill in their own survey where we can
• If you are a family member or carer, please watch out in the post for your written invitation to take part in the survey. 
• What you tell us will be reviewed by the Lifeways leadership team and truly shape how we deliver our services in future. 
• As an added bonus, we’re holding two prize draws - one for people we support and one for family members and carers. The winner of each will receive £200 worth of vouchers to be donated to their or their loved one’s service fund. 

The feedback we receive from Your Voice has real meaning and impact. For example, as a result of feedback from last year’s survey, we have: 

• Installed ‘Talking Mats’ in a service after a request from a family member whose loved one has selective mutism and struggles to express his choices, needs, emotions and goals. The mats, which support people with communication difficulties to express their feeling and views, can be used physically or digitally and help people process concepts by breaking down information into small, manageable chunks. The mats are now being introduced into two further services in the area accompanied by staff training to enable others to benefit from this method of communication.
   
• Purchased new sensory items and communication aids for a service, including PEC (picture exchange) cards and a new machine that reads the card aloud to those with hearing difficulties. The initial feedback from families was for a sensory room to be installed however with no available room in the service a full review of sensory items was carried out as an alternative. 

Lifeways is committed to acting on feedback and ensuring the people we support feel as empowered as possible to drive the quality of our care. It’s part of the Lifeways DNA and our mantra “nothing about me, without me”.

If you have not received a letter but you want to take part, please click here to complete the survey.