My daughter Jemima has Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties (PMLD) and lives in a Mencap care home in Hampshire.  One of our biggest concerns is how do we ensure that Jemima receives the best possible care? 

We rely on Mencap to train staff to look after Jemima.  Mencap use printed care manuals called ‘support plans’ to convey information about Jemima’s needs and the care and support she requires.  Unfortunately, the support plans can be long, dense and fail to give a sense of who Jemima is and what makes her tick.  As a result new or temporary members of staff may fail to see the whole person.   

We believe that Jemima, like all of us, should benefit from today’s technology.  We are creating an E-Book that includes text, film, images and an interactive element so the person reading it can check that they have absorbed and understood the information.

The E:book in addition to containing information about how best to care for Jemima will all importantly give Jemima an authentic voice.  It will be accessed on an ipad and be simple and easy to use and portable.  It will be a live document that can change and grow with Jemima over time.

We have been working with staff at Jemima’s home and a company called Evidently to create the E:book.  The cost of the project is not cheap and whilst Jemima has provided part of the funds we need to raise a further £5,000.

We want other families to benefit from what we are doing so we are using Jemima’s E:book as a pilot to demonstrate to Mencap how it can be rolled out to all the people in Jemima’s home and hopefully beyond.