Patricia has been working as a practice educator in a secondment role in a safeguarding team in South Gloucestershire Council’s children’s services since July 2023. This is her fourth promotion since starting her social work career at the council in 2016.
“I like the sense of belonging that I get in South Gloucestershire,” she says. “The work environment is very friendly, open, you feel like you can be yourself – and there is always someone you can talk to.”
In June, South Gloucestershire was rated good overall by Ofsted with the report saying: ‘Staff share a culture of high support balanced with an appropriate degree of challenge and a strong sense of being cared for by managers and leaders alike.’
Feeling safe, supported and part of a ‘family’ are some of the reasons why Patricia enjoys working for South Gloucestershire Council. Another key reason is how managers have helped her to develop in her career.
Having worked across a variety of teams, including access and response, disability and, most recently, on secondment in a safeguarding team, her confidence has grown – thanks to supportive managers.
“I had a very ambitious manager who would encourage us to learn as much as possible – and I have embraced that,” she says.
“I would go to supervision after having a bad day and would finish feeling like I can change the world.
Patricia adds that when she didn’t feel confident taking on a promotion or felt frustrated about a situation with a family, her manager would listen, she would empathise and she would even be open about times she’d made mistakes or felt scared, which helped to make her relatable to Patricia and build trust.
When Patricia was supporting a child who had particularly complex physical and cognitive needs, her manager supported her to be able to separate her emotions about the child from the work she needed to do to help the child and family.
Being reminded that she was capable and had “management material” were boosts to her confidence that she now passes on to the five students she is supporting through their placements.
“I would not be able to do what I am doing now if I hadn’t had those managers,” she says.
Nurturing manager
Chloe agrees. Working in the central locality team with a nurturing manager has allowed her to progress from social work assistant to a senior social worker in five years.
“I’ve had a stable one-to-one leadership experience, which means I feel more comfortable to share how I feel about a situation and there’s a lot of individual trust between me and my manager,” she says.
“I really like the nature of the work we do in locality. I love building long-term relationships with families, I like going into family’s homes, I love being able to see the change from the beginning when we worked with a family to the end to when the family has made the changes. I feel happy and proud to be a part of that. It is super rewarding.”
So, when opportunities for Chloe to progress came along, she felt prepared to take them because she had been taking on more and more responsibilities already in the course of her career.
She has supported students on their 100-day placements, trained under a leadership programme and worked on a Department for Education practice working group designed to improve the experiences of children and social workers within the council.
She has also grown professionally by supporting children and families in more complex cases.
“I’ve had lots of instances where I’ve felt: ‘I’m going to lose a parent because we are going through care proceedings – and I’m finding this difficult, [so] I can’t imagine how difficult they are finding this.’
“And I think the satisfaction in being able to hold these parents through that and still have a relationship with them afterwards – that is probably one of the most motivating things in staying in this role.”
Supporting the next generation
She has been able to pass on these skills in developing confidence, trust and self-assurance to the students and social workers in their assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE) year whom she is supporting and is keen for them to understand that they are supported.
“I work with social workers that are really passionate and dedicated to the young people they are working with,” she adds. “We’ve all got the same vision and value of what we want to achieve for the families. If we had worries, needed advice, needed a pick me up – there’s always someone there to support you if you were on a visit or to unpick a dilemma that you had with a family.”
South Gloucestershire Council’s 0-25 service receiving a VIP (Values in Practice) Award
Young ambassadors
Shaping how social workers support children and families through the input of care experienced individuals is a key commitment South Gloucestershire Council has embraced.
Ofsted’s inspection in June found that the recruitment of three young ambassadors, and a proactive youth board, are “helping lay the foundations for children and young people to play an increased role in the coproduction and shaping of services.”
David is one of these young ambassadors. Inspired by his own challenging journey through the care system, he is passionate about making the experience the best it can be for others.
Ensuring that the voice of the child is recorded in the best possible way is how David is helping to share practice.
He believes that being able to listen to young people and capture thoughts are key attributes of being a good social worker.
“It proves that you’ve listened to that young person and understood them,” he says.
These records are written by social workers from the young person’s perspective. They are informative and detailed and can include direct quotes from the young person, which David says are vital for giving young people an insight into their journey in care.
What he hopes his work will do is ensure that these examples of good practice, which include adding more context to information shared, are the benchmark for all written records produced by social workers.
Although only six months into his ambassadorial role, David has had years of experience being a member the South Gloucestershire’s Teen Care Council (TCC) and Experienced Panel in Care (EPIC). He has been involved in recruiting social workers and has been able to channel concerns from young people to senior managers. One of those was minimising the impact that an abrupt departure of a social worker has on a young person.
“They feel upset when someone has to leave and they have to re explain their story to the new social worker all over again,” he says.
South Gloucestershire has listened. Now, if a social worker has to leave abruptly, the young person is informed in person within 24 hours by either the manager or someone else on the team whom they already know.
David adds: “I am where I am because of those things that have happened to me, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. Now I’m having a direct impact on how social workers do their jobs and this is incredible.”
Zafer Yilkan, interim service director for Children’s Social Care and Preventative Services, said: “Here in South Gloucestershire Council we are committed to creating supportive and nurturing work culture for our social workers to grow and develop their career progression. Our inclusive and collaborative leadership style is at the heart of supporting our social workers to use high degree of autonomy and trust in their professional decision making with support and guidance from their line managers.”
Find out more
Interested in working at South Gloucestershire Council? Find out more by checking out the latest vacancies here.
