About Me - Mike's story
This case study focuses on a 32-year-old Mike, diagnosed with autism and a learning disability. In 2022, Mike moved into his own bespoke home from a secure inpatient hospital where he had spent 9 years of his life. Havencare worked with his family and local authority to plan his move, find suitable accommodation with bespoke adaptions for Mike to live safely.
Using the About Me Standard via Multi Me WIKI to share timely information on how to best support Mike was key to meeting his needs and providing him with the best care experience possible.
Multi Me is a secure online platform for individuals with disabilities and the circle of people that support them in their daily lives. They have achieved conformance with ‘About Me’, which shows their commitment to standards excellence and robust information sharing, resulting in better health and care outcomes for people.
On this page
The challenge
Mike carries significant trauma from his extended stay in a secure environment where there was high use of physical interventions and very limited human interactions.
If Mike needs to interact with unfamiliar people (especially involving physical touch) or engage in things he does not understand or be in unpredictable environments, he can become highly distressed, resulting in harming himself, others, and property.
In 2024, Mike moved to his own bespoke home and is supported 24/7 by Havencare staff. His support team started to notice that Mike was displaying signs that could be related to pain and distress, and they needed this to be further investigated. There were serious concerns that Mike could become distressed and retraumatised if he needed to visit a hospital or engage with hospital staff.
The solution - 'About Me'
The PRSB’s About Me Standard includes most important details that a person wants to share with professionals in health and social care. This information might include how best to communicate with the person, how to help them feel at ease or details about how they like to take their medication.
It is intended to be generic and apply to everyone, from those who have complex care and support needs to those who rarely require care and/or support. Using ‘About Me’ information has been shown to achieve huge benefits for people including supporting them through hospital appointments or other care which might not have been possible or resulted in adverse outcomes without understanding key ways to work with the person.
The process
Planning | Mike’s Havencare team planned how best to support him to hospital for health investigations. This involved collaborating with his Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT), which included the Intensive Assessment and Treatment Team, a senior nurse practitioner, psychiatrist, GP, occupational therapist, and his family.
The information in the ‘About Me’ section of his support plan (Multi Me WIKI) helped with essential planning for his hospital appointment. Wikis are accessible, and easy to build personal websites. They can be used to create multimedia person-centred plans that use pictures, words, video and sound to capture the aspirations and needs of the individual. |
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Information sharing | Mike needed visual aids and social stories explaining the process of the appointment and expectation of procedures. His ‘About Me’ information was shared with the hospital team which enabled informed reasonable adjustments to be made.
As a result of this information being shared in advance, the hospital arranged for the use of a separate room to reduce the potential for unpredictability. |
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Improving Mike’s care | The ‘About Me’ information enabled hospital staff to be prepared, in advance, on how best to communicate with Mike. This included information such as what is important to him, what he likes and is interested in (to help calming with predictable conversations about familiar interests), what potential triggers of distress might be and how to avoid these. |
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The results | Mike successfully attended his appointment early May 2024 without any incident. This would have historically never been thought possible without sedation and a general anaesthetic. |
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Resources
The About Me Standard
View the full standard and supporting documentation, examples and other resources.
Conformant partners
Find out which of our PRSB Partners have successfully achieved conformance against the About Me Standard.
Support services
Proactive support for our standards and ongoing maintenance and release management of published standards.