Workforce Insights by Community Care Community Care

When Hampshire County Council’s adult social care teams noticed a doubling of the care packages required for people within its population aged over 85 years, it found a solution through an approach called proactive enhanced care (PEC).

This approach taps into a return to ‘old school’ social work values that focus on prioritising time with the older person and focussing on a person-centred approach to how they are supported.

In this episode, social workers in Hampshire County Council's older adults teams discuss how older adults are benefitting from this approach.

We speak with Ryan Campbell, a service manager for older adults in the north east of Hampshire, and Bridget Hamilton, a senior social worker in one of the older adults’ community teams, who helped with the roll out of the PEC project.

And later in the episode, we catch up with Matt Hutchinson, head of service for South Hampshire Older Adults teams who devised the PEC project, to find out if there are plans to extend the PEC project to a younger demographic of older adults.

You can listen to the podcast using the player above, or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Spreaker or wherever you normally listen to podcasts.Here is the transcript.

Did you know podcasts can count towards your CPD?

Learn more about Hampshire County Council and see what opportunities are available.

In this episode of the Workforce Insights podcast, Community Care's career editor Sharmeen Ziauddin speaks to social workers who share their experience of working in the large rural county of Northamptonshire.

Northampton Children's Trust (NCT) serves one of the biggest counties in England. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, many families became isolated and levels of deprivation went up. The long lasting effects of the pandemic on service users are still being seen by practitioners at NCT.

Guests Brian Browne and Mason Poore, both in the safeguarding and support team at NCT, discuss the challenges families and young people face.

They talk about how supportive leadership helps them do their job better and keeps them motivated in their practice.

Cherise Campbell-Sullivan, a student social worker, is also a guest on the podcast and tells us her experience of her placement at NCT.

The importance of the visibility of senior leadership and the praise and recognition of doing well in your role, is discussed as well.

Interested in a career at  NCT? Check out the latest vacancies.
Take a look at NCT’s employer profile.

Did you know podcasts can count towards your CPD for renewing your registration?

In the latest episode of the Workforce Insights podcast, Sharmeen Ziaudding speaks to Dan Wilkins and Juliana Ameh about their work at Wiltshire Council in adult social care.

Dan is the head of transformation and quality assurance for adults and has over 20 years' experience working with adults with learning disabilities and autism. Juliana is a social worker in the learning disability and autism team. Prior to qualifying as a social worker, she was a support worker for people with learning disabilities.

They talk about how things have changed for them and the adults they support since the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020.

They talk about differences in services offered, how there is more demand for services and the increase in awareness around neurodivergence.

How can practitioners support adults with autism better? And how can local authorities support neurodivergent staff?

In the podcast, Dan recommends the book Made Possible by Saba Salman.

You can read about how Wiltshire Council is embedding co-production with disabled people in social care (mentioned in the episode) here.

Here is the transcript of this episode.

Did you know podcasts can count towards your CPD?

Learn more about Wiltshire Council and see what opportunities are available.

This Workforce Insights episode (formerly Employer Zone Insights) is in collaboration with Norfolk County Council's children's services.

Sharmeen Ziauddin speaks to Kate Dexter who is the assistant director of Family Help and High Needs in children's services at Norfolk and Sarah Hewitt is the team manager for the Life Beyond Care team.

They explain how Norfolk's children's services is embedding a relational approach to practice across the service. They talk about the benefits of a multidisciplinary approach, and give examples of success stories with the young people the work with.

Kate and Sarah mention New Roads, a service for young people in Norfolk, which is helping care-experienced young people.

They also talk about life story work and how important it is for young people and practitioners.

Learn more about Norfolk County Council and see what opportunities are available.

In this Employer Zone Insights podcast episode, Sharmeen Ziauddin, assistant careers editor at Community Care, speaks to Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council.

In 2021 Ofsted rated BCP Council's children's services as inadequate. However, many monitoring visits later, as recognised by Ofsted, the provision to children and families has vastly improved.

We find out from the new principal social worker, Leanne Morgan, what attracted her to this role, what she loves about working at BCP and what she is looking forward to.

We also speak to Jo Fry, children's rights and engagement manager, who is passionate about advocating for young people and making sure they are listened to.
She talks about some of the things BCP Council are doing to enable voices are being heard and action being taken.

Leanne and Jo both discuss wellbeing and its importance for a role in social care, and give their tips on how they cope in their demanding jobs.

Here is the transcript of Moving on from Ofsted.
Did you know podcasts can count towards your CPD?

Find out more about a career at BCP.

Read more about BCP:‘I like that everyone I meet is really passionate about what they do – it’s infectious’
Including care leavers in decision making is improving outcomes for children in care

This is a special Employer Zone Insights episode recorded at Community Care Live 2023 with Wiltshire Council.
It features practitioners and the care-experienced young people and fathers who they have supported and worked with.
Wiltshire Council started two projects called Dads Matter Too and Born Into Care which are run by two of the speakers on the podcast, Helen Tubb and Ceri Evans. Along with them is participation manager Joe Sutton who runs the Youth Voice team.The practitioners explain, though relationship-building, how they have helped fathers Arron and Luke whose respective children have been in care. Young people Holly and Cameron, and the dads, offer advice on how social workers can help to engage those who can often be difficult to engage.
This is not one to be missed.
Click here for the transcription.

NB Did you know podcasts count towards your CPD for Social Work England registration?
Find out more about Wiltshire Council here.