Award winner (2025)13th June 2025
Over the past year, Alison Cross has gained confidence through increased work opportunities and taking on more responsibility in her roles at Dimensions as a Quality Consultant and as a member of the Discovery Council, sharing her experiences to help others. In particular, she was nominated for her work and enthusiasm around annual health checks, using creative methods to encourage others to have theirs as well as helping Discovery Board members learn more about them and people’s experiences of them.
One of the priorities of the Discovery Council, a group who represent the people supported by Discovery, was to encourage others to have their annual health checks. Knowing she had hers due, she created a photo diary of her next appointment. Says Alison,
I have a good relationship with my GP and wanted to show how it works well for me.
She shared the photo diary at a meeting with the Discovery Board as well as with locality managers. The managers in the meeting were inspired to copy the photo diary idea and share it in their area.
Alison also led a session at the Board meeting which emphasised understanding patients’ experiences, seeing the different stages of the experience through their eyes. For this, the participants split into four groups, each given a different coloured pair of glasses. The sunglasses were used to represent different people having an annual health check: someone going with agency support, someone with profound and multiple learning disabilities, someone with medical anxiety and someone who struggles with their mental. The people in each group imagined the experience through their eyes and were asked to consider what would be tricky for them and what could be done to make the experience better.
There were also posters placed around the room, each showing a different stage of going to the appointment, highlighting the amount of pre-planning and preparation that goes into it.
It was useful for Board members to see the considerations that need to be made for each person by their support team as well as highlighting great support and personalisation.
Alison
The Board were so impressed with the session that Alison was nominated for an internal ROC star award.
Alison was also nominated for her role as part of a readers’ panel, reviewing Dimensions’ easy read policies.
Alison says,
I am happy about being a Leader. It means everybody listens to me. I’m proud that my photo story idea has been shared.
Rebecca Simmonds, who nominated her says: “Changes made in the last year in her house to allow Alison to work and join online meetings, has meant more work opportunities…in turn giving her a big confidence boost. It has allowed for Alison to take on some more responsibility, co-chairing and co-hosting which she has stepped up to and taken on the challenge blossoming in newly found skills, realising she has something to say and people want to hear it.”
We’re looking forward to hearing from her more!