Reflecting on recent global events, shining the light on MAIA and discovering we are “Explorers of Future Rehab.”

I’m certain we can’t be the only business working in rehabilitation and personal injury who have been challenged in one way or another during this last few months, and I’m also sure we have all wondered where our service can go from here. Questions we have asked ourselves about our roles, our delivery, our purpose and ultimately, our lifespan.

Will we make it?…. Should we make it??… Are we still relevant….???

Before the upending of the pandemic, MAIA had developed a service that ensured we were socially involved in our community and our environment but within our recruitment process we knew each of our employees would need to have something different to offer. We only wanted people who demonstrated the compassion for caring and helping our clients that we did and so we increasingly reached out to those demographics that reflected our service. Within our core team we were able to build a caring, responsive professional team that reflect our service best. All this while working with the tenants of the Care Quality Commission – Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well Led.

Admittedly, we kissed a few frogs but those who didn’t demonstrate compassion, fairness and care felt the need to leave.

We wear the badge of being Disability Confident and are proud to have in our teams, PA’s who have themselves suffered with brain injuries and those who have experienced mental health issues, all having successfully received treatment. Added to that we are proud to further reflect our community and our country with employment of from ethnic minorities, and also those who can connect with the clients whose English is not their first language. We all know that matching clients and teams who have shared interests is a great way of getting the very best from all concerned but having the genuine empathy of having experienced trauma themselves or within their family and come through the other side, gives them something more. Undoubtedly, our diverse teams are reflective of the clients we serve and we have always considered these employees to be of enormous value to our company but none more than now!

The pandemic has forced us all to question our direction and our purpose and ask those of us who are concerned about our client’s ability to manage this global upheaval, if we will be good enough to survive? These soul searching questions have been in the mouths of everyday people who ponder the changes we need to make in this strange and worrying time, from buying plastic-wrapped vegetable in the supermarket to accepting an invitation to a socially distanced BBQ in a friends garden, so it no surprise that leaders in business have important decisions to make for the good of themselves but also the good of others.

Although we have always been proud of our ethos and practice, like many we were stopped in our tracks in March 2020.

Since the pandemic our team of clinicians, office and support staff have all had to rethink our working practices and wonder if we could maintain an excellent service to our clients which we have built upon for more than 12 years.

Initially, we wondered if this task might be an onerous one, but the opposite was true!

The gathering of heads from this eclectic group of rehabilitation providers and specialist support has refocused and re-energised our purpose. It has allowed us all to re-grasp the reason for choosing this line of work and the reason we launched Maia rehabilitation in 2008.

The demands were always there of course, and we have needed to catch up with digital transformations as they show themselves, and for those of us covering our grey - it was hard, however, like many others we are now welcoming remote working and seeing it as the way forward. It has enlightened us into a world of opportunity, more possibilities and sharing what we already know is a rare and equitable provision.

We know we are ahead of the game already. Alongside the pandemic we have seen the Black Lives Matter, shared on screens across the world and which has physically pulled us all aside, given us a shoulder shake and demanded we dig even deeper into our ethical compass. Yet further reflection and questions were required to see if we were doing what we should or, if we were guilty of not doing enough. These times are challenging and I for one learned things I didn’t think I needed learn.

For us, the search for answers involved discussions, and formal meetings with our core team and extended teams across the country, from the first notion of Covid-19 and from the first disturbing footage of George Floyd... but, the answers we found during these ponderous months were surprisingly reassuring.

 I, for one have seen this time as immensely positive and energising. I knew we were an already an inclusive company, disability confident (as you would imagine a rehab company to be), forward thinking and purposeful, but so many other companies will proclaim the same.

Proudly, we stand up tall and will always be extremely fair minded too and I have recently learned that we have become explorers in the world of rehabilitation, adding to our list of attributes.

We have realised we no longer have to stay close to our borders, denying those living in the far reaches of our country what we can provide them with and what they deserve. Through our deeply rooted sense of fairness, added to our agility and adaptability, we realised we are already ahead of the socio-effects of the pandemic and, we are on top of the Black Lives Matter……. This head start has given us more energy to move with the times. We have trialled a remote, case management and therapy service, interspersed with face to face sessions, and this has not only been very cost effective, it has been enormously beneficial for our clients. Improvements have been seen in building confidence, skills and managing structure, while they worked on their improving deficits, technical skills and motivation.

Preventing isolation and mental health decline, rehearsing skills and building structure and trust, has allowed our clients to take this new found confidence and explore their world once more.

By adapting our business, we have employed more, carefully selected personnel and trained them to our standards. We are governed by CQC and we have removed the geographic perimeter fence.  

Our business is growing rather than dying. We are able to help our catastrophically injured clients with case management, therapy and support and we have found not only a way through this pandemic - but a far better way! We can now work with clients as far as the under-served, Isle of Skye and Scilly Isles and we have shown that it works. Should we return to the old style of rehabilitation we asked each other? NO!

The client benefits. The funders benefit. The environment benefits. The country benefits.