Alcove Covid-19 Virtual Care Case Studies (1/7) - Positive Futures in Northern Ireland: Stacey's Story

As part of Loneliness week we are bringing you beautiful examples every day of how the Alcove Video Carephone is being used to connect families, carers and communities.

Alcove have been working with Northern Irish disability care provider Positive Futures since 2018, supplying assistive technology to keep their Clients safe and connected. In response to the Covid 19 situation Positive Futures moved quickly to roll out Alcove Video Carephones:

"At Positive Futures, we’re positive about people. People with a learning disability, those with acquired brain injury and people on the autistic spectrum. The current Covid-19 situation has only underlined the need for digital support solutions... (The Alcove Video Carephone) has become an enabler in maintaining vital face-to-face contact between Positive Futures staff and the people we support and for the people we support and their loved ones." 

Stacey's Story: Stacey is a girl with a learning disability whom lives independently/In a scheme with care provided by Positive Futures, and has heart problems which means  she is in a high risk category for Covid 19.

Her parents are also high risk due to their age, so as she’s isolating, so she was given an Alcove Video Carephone as her carers were conscious of coming and going too much in case one of them transmits. She hadn’t seen her parents for 3 weeks and is now able to see them on a video call.

With the video carephone in place, the team have reduced the visits Stacey normally has from 24/7 live in reduced to 4 visits a day, and she is receiving daily video calls from parents and carers.

“Thank you for your support, you’ve made Stacey’s family very happy. Your video care devices have played an important role during the corona virus, in helping the people we support stay safe and at home. Our plans are to extend the reach of our video care across Northern Ireland to keep the people we support connected. Additional benefits to the people we support are maintaining health & well being, and easing the pressure on families to stay connected during the isolation period, especially to those who are most vulnerable”.

Additionally, as part of the video carephone rollout, we were delighted to receive even more feedback from other carers using the system to support their vulnerable Clients:

"A person we support used the Alcove Video Carephone you installed to contact his mum.  He had not seen her for a number of months.  He was so pleased to see her and was touching her face on the screen it meant so much more than a phone call.  You have no idea how much this means to that person to be able to connect with family."

"A person we support was due to spend Easter Bank Holiday weekend with her mum.  We installed the AlcoveVideo Carephone so she could still see her mum and spend time with her face-to-face over the Bank Holiday."

"A person we support & her parents were delighted to see each other in a video-call.  She hadn’t seen her mum for 10 days due to the isolation restrictions."

#PioneeringIndependentLiving #LearningDisability #VirtualCare #IoT #CareTech #Families #Love