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Why Us

We’re committed to encouraging positive family influences.

For Families & Carers

We understand that the well-being of your child is of the utmost importance to you, and rest assured that our team shares those values. Our staff is a skilled multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals and specialists, every one of whom is passionate about the welfare of your child, and fully dedicated to providing them with high-quality care throughout their stay.

We firmly believe that young people with complex mental health problems can achieve success and lead fulfilling lives, and we recognise that positive family influences can be instrumental to the recovery process, so we’re committed to encouraging this positive contact with families and loved ones wherever we can.

Our units have designated spaces for visiting families, and we don’t have specific visiting times, so for the most part you can visit at a time that suits you. The only thing we ask is that visitors don’t interfere with the times of planned treatment programmes, so it’s worth finding out this schedule beforehand so you can plan your visits around it.

We work with a culture of openness and transparency, so if you have any questions or concerns about our treatment or the quality of our care, please don’t hesitate to tell us.

About Our Facilities

Delivering quality care is our top priority at Aaban, and our facilities play a vital part. With individual rooms complete with en-suite facilities, we aim to provide a homely environment that affords your loved one both space and privacy, making them feel as safe and comfortable as possible as we deliver high-quality treatment that’s tailored to their needs.

These modern units, Providence and Moira, have been fully fitted with TV and music facilities, and several communal areas (including a communal kitchen and dining area) to give your loved one plenty of room and opportunities to socialise and spend time with their peers, should they choose.

Both of our facilities have been purpose-built by specialist architects, with every aspect of them designed to help aid recovery as much as possible. They’re set in the heart of an existing local community, allowing your loved one to recover in privacy but not in isolation.

Wherever possible, we aim to provide our young people with the option to visit the unit prior to admission, so we can provide a more complete introduction to what you can expect from our facilities. You’re welcome to accompany your loved one on this tour, to provide extra reassurance and support if you feel it might be needed.

Make A Referral

We aim to make the referral process as efficient as possible to ensure individuals receive appropriate care.

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Key Information

Aaban is committed to ensuring that everyone involved in the service – including staff, the young person and carers – is treated equitably and with dignity and respect. We work hard to ensure the workforce reflects the diversity within Lancashire, and that services meet the needs of all diverse service users and carers.

Aaban is committed to ensuring that all information, in particular personal information, is handled appropriately.

At all times, Aaban:

  • holds information securely and confidentially
  • obtains information fairly and efficiently
  • records information accurately and reliably
  • uses information effectively and ethically
  • shares information appropriately and lawfully

Aaban is committed to safeguarding and protecting children and adults from abuse and neglect, and there are Safeguarding Arrangements in place to protect the most vulnerable children and adults in our area. We will not tolerate abuse or neglect in any form (either of service users, employees or anyone connected with the service) and where abuse is suspected, or witnessed, then we will take immediate action.

All of our premises and practices adhere to standards set out by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The CQC is an independent organisation, and carries out regular inspections of our facilities to make sure that we’re continuing to provide high-quality care for our service users. As part of these inspections, officials will want meet our young people to discuss how they feel about their stay with us.

After each inspection, the CQC produces a report highlighting what works well, and what aspects of the hospital’s service needs improvement. With our facilities – as with all others – this regulation helps us to understand how well we’re meeting the needs of our young people, and encourages a constant improvement in the quality of our care.

Medication can be an important part of treatment, as determined by a trained psychiatrist. Before any of our young people begin a course of medication, we take care to educate them in the possible risks and side effects; these will be explained in detail by our psychiatrists if any such course is suggested.

In the meantime, leading mental health charity Mind provides information about some of the most commonly used medication (including side effects) on the Psychiatric Medication page of its website, which you can find using the following link:

https://www.mind.org.uk/medication

The Mental Health Act (MHA) 1983 is a piece of legislation in England and Wales which details the rights of those with mental health issues. Amongst the subjects it covers are:

  • Assessment and treatment in hospital
  • Treatment in the community
  • The various pathways into hospital

The Act distinguishes between those who go into hospital voluntarily – typically known as informal patients – and those who enter hospital without their consent, often because of the severity of their mental illness. Those who fall into this latter group are detained under the terms of the Mental Health Act, and are generally referred to as formal patients.

The UK’s leading mental health charity, Mind, provides full details of the Mental Health Act on its website. You can read more of these details by clicking the link below:

https://www.mind.org.uk/mental-health-act-1983/

Throughout your stay, our staff strive to provide high-quality care that meets the specific needs of each of our young people, helping them to find effective ways to overcome their personal difficulties. If you are exceptionally happy with the quality of care we’ve provided, we would love to hear it. Similarly, if you feel we’re falling short of this goal, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

We encourage feedback from both our young people and their families, so if there’s something you want to say, good or bad, you can always speak to a member of your care team, or the Care Co-ordinator. Alternatively, you can raise complaints with the manager, who will follow our Complaints procedure as they work to resolve it. We promise to make every effort to ensure your concerns are dealt with: ultimately, the welfare of our service users is our top priority.

FAQs

The duration of the stay in our facility can be around 2 years depending on individual need. This is so we can guarantee that we’re able to deliver the very highest standard of care, while you can be certain that your loved one is getting the full benefit from their treatment.

Our multidisciplinary team is made up of a number of skilled healthcare professionals and specialists, all of whom are fully dedicated to helping your loved one meet their treatment goals. Amongst this team are:

  • A psychologist and a psychological therapist, who will hold one-to-one therapeutic sessions with you as part of your individual treatment plan
  • A psychiatrist, who will work with you to create an individual treatment plan. They will also prescribe any medication that you might need.
  • A team of nurses and healthcare assistants, who will be responsible for your health and physical wellbeing around the clock.
  • An occupational therapist, who will provide helpful guidance on improving life skills you will need for independent living (for example, cooking).
  • A teacher, who will provide education on site or support the young person to access education in the community.
  • A Substance misuse practitioner, who will provide education and advice around substance misuse and signpost to community services.

We work to a Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) model of care. DBT is a type of talking treatment that’s designed to help people who experience their emotions very intensely, such as anger, sadness or fear.

DBT aims to help our young people develop the skills to manage these difficult emotions by increasing understanding and then working towards fully experiencing, acknowledging and accepting them. As they steadily improve their ability to manage feelings they become more able to change extreme or unhelpful behaviours.

Throughout your loved one’s stay with us, they will have access to both individual therapy and group sessions that will help them to develop these skills in a variety of different settings, giving them valuable practice on how to deal with almost any situation they might later face in everyday life.

They will live in our safe, purpose-built unit, where they will have their own, individual en-suite room. You can read about our facilities in more detail in the introductory paragraph above.

We recognise that spending quality time with family and friends is important. This is part of the reason why our facilities don’t have specific visiting times – so for the most part, you can visit your loved one at a time that suits you.

The only thing we ask is that visitors don’t interfere with the times of planned treatment programmes, so it’s worth finding out this schedule in advance so that you can plan your visits around it. We have a designated space for children in our unit, and can support your loved one in maintaining relationships with their siblings throughout their stay.

To guarantee the safety of our service users, and that of others, there are certain items that are not permitted. This includes drugs and alcohol, as these would affect the quality of the treatment we deliver. Our staff can give you more specific guidance on other items when you arrive.

In our facilities, we give all our service users the support to make their own meals as a community. We expect involvement from all our service users in planning menus and shopping for ingredients, as well as the preparation of the meals themselves. Many of our service users find this a particularly enjoyable aspect of life, and the skills learned are exceptionally useful. If your loved one has any special dietary requirements, just make sure to inform us, and we’ll make sure that these are being met.

Your loved one will have access to support in the application of any benefits that they may be entitled to, and help with accessing their money when they need to. If they wish, they can also entrust us to manage their money on their behalf, or assist them in working out a budget if they find this is often an area of difficulty. All young people have weekly pocket money and monthly clothing allowance.

We have a wide range of activities available in our unit, and we expect involvement from all of our young people in their planning and organisation. We also support them in accessing a range of activities in the local community. You can find out more detail about these on our Location page, which also details transport routes and motorway access.

We always welcome feedback from our young people and their families, and if you have anything you think we should hear, we’ll always make time to listen. You can read the full details on how we handle your feedback in our Key Information section above.

Our Location

Our site is situated in the village of Oswaldtwistle, between the two larger towns of Accrington and Blackburn, a little way off the M65.

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