December 9, 2013

Our Values Award Winners 2013

In the Summer edition of the Loop and through email requests and your team meetings we asked you to submit nominations for our Values Awards 2013. We wanted to know how you are living our values and asked you to tell us stories which related to any one of the six. During the recent roadshows we announced the winners and runners up but only on the occasions where the majority of the winning team were in attendance. Therefore, most of you won’t know who won and what the story behind their success was. So read on and find out what your colleagues and their teams did this year to make them worthy of a Values Awards trophy and certificate.

We’re brave enough to take risks

Winners: Shared Lives Merseyside

T was homeless when she was referred to Shared Lives Merseyside and was battling with drug and alcohol misuse. In her earlier days T had been in an extremely violent, abusive relationship and had sustained severe head injuries leaving her cognitively impaired, with short term memory loss and mobility problems. Her children had been taken into care and T had a very chaotic and erratic lifestyle moving from one place to another.

J worked in different roles within the Shared Lives Scheme for over 20 years and made the bold decision to become a Shared Lives carer because she thought the role would be “a good change” and she would find it “very rewarding”.

After a full assessment of T’s needs and as part of our matching process J and T were introduced and T said she would like to move in with J on a trial basis. The Scheme was taking a measured risk because T had not experienced family life and she had not been used to routine and stability.

J had not supported anyone in her home 24/7 before and it was a culture shock for them both. The first couple of months presented a series of challenges as adjustments were made. T wasn’t sleeping and J was beginning to realise the demands of supporting T in all aspects of her daily life. The team visited them both regularly and provided support and advice when issues arose.

Over time with the guidance and support of the team J gained T’s trust and she settled in very well. A routine has been established and T’s confidence has grown and she now takes pride in her appearance. She lives a healthy lifestyle free from drugs or alcohol and appreciates “the quietness in her life”.

J says that becoming a carer presented her with challenges she could not have anticipated and it has definitely been life changing but in a good way. T says that she likes the stability in her life and “she would be lost if she didn’t have J”.

Runner Up: Shared Lives Wirral

We seek to understand needs and find a way to help

Winners: Family Impact

Family Impact work with what could be argued the most vulnerable children and their families: children affected by drug, alcohol misuse and parental imprisonment. As Seamus the Service’s Manager says, ‘the team are the eyes and ears for social workers to safeguard children and their families’. One member of the team Lorna is currently undertaking a PhD to enable her and the team to identify needs and find evidenced based practice to support children and their families and help to bring about change.

They have devised ‘letter box contact’ for children that social services have identified as too high risk to visit their parents; this work is underpinned by the knowledge that children need a ‘sense of identity to enable them to make sense of their world’. The staff identified the need for children to have an influential voice regarding information sharing within schools etc. The team have supported children to be keynote speakers at conferences to teach professionals what is like to have a parent in prison and have teachers and other professionals sharing information inappropriately. This training is called hidden sentence training.

The team identified the need for parents and carers to attend courses to promote their parenting skills to enable them to support children more effectively. The Nurturing Programme was chosen by the team as this programme also promotes the needs for parents to nurture themselves to enable them to help their children.

The team are proactive in service user engagement and regularly hold consultation events to enable children and their families to share their views this enables them to help shape the service.

Runner Up: Shared Lives Wirral

We recognise potential

Winners: Liverpool Health Trainers

A client who felt at their lowest, struggling at home with children and housework felt they had nothing to look forward to or focus on. She became involved with the Health Trainer service and they encouraged her to access a walking group, then the walk leader course and then she independently set up her own walk.

From there the Health Trainer referred her to the ‘knowing yourself’ course and she began to have dreams and felt inspired to do more. She has now started up a project called the ‘parent hub’ allowing parents to access outreach projects such as Addaction, Citizen’s Advice, fitness and beauty treatments and an area for children to play. The client described the HT support as empowering and now believes ‘anything is possible’. She has gone on to win the Spirit of Merseyside ‘Cohesion award’ beating a host of other agencies in Liverpool and last year she won the individual ‘Unsung hero award’. The project has been so successful that it has been replicated in another local centre.

Runner Up: Family Impact

We get even better at what we do

Winners: People and Culture

Every year hundreds of PSS Supporters volunteer across the UK, helping us achieve our goals and change lives for the better. Recently we ran a series of recognition events with the clear message to all our Supporters across the country of “thank you, we couldn’t do it without you”

In line with the theme of National Volunteers week 2013, ‘thank you’ and ‘recognition”, the Business Partner Team (People & Culture) organised Supporter events which enabled us to share stories, celebrate the achievements of our Supporters and to thank them for their vital support. In celebrating their achievements, we also wanted to appreciate the growing potential of Supporters, in terms of how they support us. We also wanted to recognise individuals and groups who, through their performance, attitude, behaviour and actions, live the PSS values.

To achieve this, we thought it would be a nice idea to replicate the ‘Values Awards’ that were held for staff last year and subsequently asked for Supporter nominations from staff teams across the regions.

The many moving and inspiring stories we received, demonstrated enthusiasm and a real commitment to the work of Supporters. We were able to share these stories throughout the events run both in Merseyside during National Volunteer Week and more recently in Barnsley and Scotland. The events gave Supporters the opportunity to share their experiences with other Supporters and the wider PSS team. They also provided inspiration to those services still looking for ideas of how to engage Supporters, giving some real examples of roles that are carried out by Supporters. From these events, Supporters have been spreading the word that we’re a great place to volunteer; we’ve even had new Supporters wanting to get on board as a result! The overall feedback from the events has been excellent and Supporters have fed back that they feel valued and recognised for the volunteering they do with PSS. We recognised that due to other commitments, not all Supporters may be able to attend one of the three celebratory events; therefore we felt it was important that everyone received a personal thank you letter from Lesley.

In incorporating the ‘Values Awards’ , we have been able to make sure our values are ‘kept alive’ through our service teams, by not just thinking about what it is that supporters are doing, but just as importantly, thinking about ‘how’ they are carrying out their particular roles. Within our team, we are always striving to get better at what we do and these celebratory events, which were organised in a short amount of time with limited budget, have made significant inroads to recognising and thanking Supporters for their valued contributions.

Runner Up: Barnsley Health Trainers

We encourage independence and choice

Winners: Shared Lives Wirral

R was referred to the service a couple of years ago when he needed emergency respite but his placement quickly become long-term once everyone could see how much R was benefiting from his placement. R had previously lived at home with his mother and sister who constantly criticised and made fun of him, he was neglected, shy and really unhappy.

R’s social worker explained that R was riding around the community all day and half the night on his bike to keep himself away from the house but the local community had began to make complaints saying that he was causing trouble. All R’s benefits were paid to his mother and R never had any money of his own.

The team began by getting all his benefits in his own name and supporting R to open his own bank account. When R’s money began to come through it was magical to watch his amazement of having money and being able to spend it on what he wanted. R bought some new clothes; he had always wanted nice clothes as his clothing often brought him unwanted attention. R bought the one thing he had always wanted but never thought he would own which was an X-box and it still remains his pride and joy.

R’s carer and the scheme worked closely together to educate R around budgeting and saving and using money responsibly. Again R was amazed that if he saved, over time he could buy himself a television and a computer, he is now an avid saver and a great spender.

R grew from strength to strength, he ate properly and the team encouraged him around healthy eating. A year down the line and you would not recognise R as being the same person. When R came onto our service full time he told us his main interests were gardening (as he wants to grow things) and computers. This month R went for an interview for an IT course that he has applied for that is due to begin in September. After the interview the IT tutor told R that she was really impressed by his knowledge of computers and his commitment towards the course and R got a place. As time goes by R requires less and less support from the scheme as his confidence is growing more and more. R’s social worker believes that if R had been left with his family it would have been a matter of time before he would have been in trouble with the Police. The service prevented this and also gave R his dignity and respect back.

Runner Up: Shared Lives Wirral

We earn people’s trust

Winners: Aspire

To develop our work in schools, the Aspire pilot in Yorkshire has had to earn the trust of many people including teaching staff and the community. Some members of the senior teaching team were very unsure as to how social workers from a charitable organisation could evidence positive outcomes for the children and the school. At a time when the school was in special measures and under scrutiny, the decision to try something new was a big one.

Social workers in the local area had not had good press and the teachers within the school felt that they did not understand the needs of the children and the difficulties the teachers experienced in striving to meet the student’s educational potential. Teachers within the school felt that at times social workers let the children down, didn’t attend meetings and that inclusion staff were left to manage children with specialist needs without specialist support. Staff within the school were also concerned as to PSS’ ability to recruit the right staff for the pilot as they wanted social workers with experience and passion to work in partnership with children, families, staff at the school and professionals from outside agencies.

We earned the trust of the school team by evidencing good practice; ensuring school students took an active role in the recruitment process and the fact that it took three recruitment drives before we recruited the right people for the pilot.

Staff had to gain the trust of the school’s management team and re-assure them that the work we would be doing would work alongside and back up pre-existing models of support. They are now one of PSS’ biggest allies and feel we have brought professionalism to the role of educational welfare in the school and feel supported in the difficult social care issues they face on a daily basis. The Head of Inclusion for the school now feels she can trust PSS social workers to take the lead on the weekly safeguarding meetings and she is also happy for PSS staff to take the lead on ‘Children In Need’ Meetings and ‘Team Around the Child’ meetings. The Educational Psychologist at the school is now working with the team and is gaining trust in our ability to evidence child centred support and assessments.

The children trust us to work with them and their families even though it took a while for them to get used to our Liverpool accents (the children struggled to understand us and kept telling us to speak slower!). The children tell us that we make them believe in themselves and we have helped them to identify their aspirations and goals and they now feel that they can achieve in education. We have earned the trust of families and they are now beginning to value our support rather than feeling threatened by us visiting the family home, we have helped families to gain more appropriate housing and mediated in family disputes to gain better outcomes for the children.

Runner Up: Shared Lives Wirral