Carol helps rebuild so many shattered lives
9:04am Tuesday 20th July 2010 in News
A BRAIN injury expert is expanding the business she started from her kitchen table.
Farnworth-born Carol Collins launched Northern Case Management in 1997, having worked as an occupational therapist at The Priory Highbank Centre in Bury, which offers neuro-rehabilitation services.
She now provides “case management” services ranging from recruiting care staff to helping with benefits for people who have an acquired brain injury — as opposed to a condition they were born with.
All her clients live at home rather than in residential care. Carol is also an expert witness for the courts.
Outgrowing the kitchen table, Carol’s first office was a converted garage, down a row a shops.
Now, the business occupies two units at Brenton Business Complex, in Bond Street, Bury, and with a recruitment drive for new staff underway, a third adjoining unit will be occupied from August 1.
“I thought I found something I was good at, so I thought I would have a go,”
said Carol.
“Working with people with brain injury becomes a drug — it’s fantastically complex and difficult. I found something that excited me.
“The variety is addictive.
On one end of the scale there are people who are minimally aware and need maximum care and support.
“They need high-quality equipment and housing to enable them to be supported safely to carry out simple tasks such as making choices.
“At the other end you have the very misunderstood ‘walking, talking wounded’, who lead a chaotic lifestyle.
These people suffer from dysexecutive syndrome — damage to the frontal lobe of the brain, which controls your executive decisions and alters their personality and behaviour. They require a lot of structure and support in their lives.”
Regardless of the severity of the condition, “people can make choices to enable them to have the best quality of life they can”, said Carol.
“Everybody needs a daily structure that’s worth living for. They have to have something to do and be able to look after themselves to whatever degree they can.
“And people have to have a purpose, and some fun.”
The company’s clients include children and people of all ages, from those who sustained injuries during birth to those who survived car accidents, assaults or accidents at work. They live all over the North of England and Wales.
Traditionally, it is said that young males — “the risk takers”
— are the most likely brain injury patients.
“They have a higher car accident rate, and a higher assault rate, but I think that will change,” said Carol, who believes more women and older men are now also showing signs of taking part in “risky” or “exciting”
behaviour.
Combined with medical advances, there is an ongoing increase in the number of people living with brain injury.
“People survive now who wouldn’t have a few years ago,” said Carol.
Among these is one woman who was knocked down as a pedestrian when she was in her early 20s. Carol said: “She was in intensive care for a long time, and her mum was told there was very little hope for her. She survived against the odds.”
Once discharged from a nursing home, Carol and her staff helped to have the young woman’s home adapted advised by architects, and recruited a care team for her.
Ten years on, she can stand independently again, has better head control, eats a normal diet, goes on holiday with or without her family and visits a gym as part of her physical management programme.
She also goes out in her adapted car as often as she can. Had she stayed in a residential facility, she wouldn't have had any of that, said Carol.
Carol’s office is home to 23 staff, and the company — which received a three-star “excellent” rating from the Commission for Social Care Inspection — manages 150 support workers for 135 clients. Litigation claims for damages fund the cost of the services provided. The premises are also home to the British Association of Brain Injury Case Managers (BABICM). Carol is a BABICM Council member and membership secretary.
About her ever-growing business, Carol sites the appointment in 2004 of business and finance manager Carl Todd as being “pivotal”
in the growth and development of NCM.
“We have lots of ambition to grow as big as we can, starting with the additional unit on August 1, which will enable us to make new referrals,”
said Carol.
