Charity gets Karen back on her feet

A CARE centre for adults with learning difficulties has helped one of its residents to find volunteer work.

Life Opportunities Trust’s home in Heather Lane has also taught 55-year-old Karen Whenman,

a number of important life skills since she moved to the Hillingdon centre.

She had lived with her parents until their deaths and was then placed under an adult care scheme.

However, when Karen fell ill she was diagnosed with Coeliacs disease and her carer decided to move her to the Life Opportunities Trust’s home.

Since then the care and supervision offered by the charity has spurred Karen on to develop her daily living skills, take swimming lessons, enrol in college courses and work part time as a volunteer at Bell Farm Christian Centre.

The home’s team leader Michelle Carter said: “Karen is now able to do her own laundry and ironing, she has enrolled in college courses and when one finishes is always eager to sign up for another.

“She makes her own breakfast and sandwiches at lunch time without support and has had one-to-one swimming lessons, attends two evening clubs and is always out and about with a member of the staff team attending different activities like line dancing, clothes shopping, lunches out and enjoys a holiday of her choosing each year.”

She volunteers one day a week at the Christian centre where she serves food and drink to older users and helps tidy up. A WOMAN who worked at a care home in Hayes has been handed a suspended sentence after assaulting one of the elderly people in her care.

Susan Reed slapped 93-year-old Everline Gardiner while working at Kingsley Court Care Home in April last year.

She had denied assault by beating but after being found guilty at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court earlier in the year, the 39-year-old was handed a suspended prison sentence and community service on Wednesday, February 11.

Julie Bignell, the registered manager at the nursing home in Uxbridge Road, said: “We have got our whistle blowing procedures in place and we have a zero tolerance of any type of abuse to vulnerable adults.”

Mrs Gardiner, a great grandmother, died on June 5, a month after turning 94.

Her death was not related to the assault.