Read the Principal Social Worker’s annual review - part of the Local Account Summary.
As social workers we are dedicated to improving the lives of those in our community and it’s essential that we stay informed about how our services are performing and where we are heading.
The Principal Social Worker role is enshrined in the Care Act to ensure that there is professional practice oversight in place to lead, oversee, support and develop excellent social work practice and in turn lead the development of excellent social workers and social care practitioners. In Torbay the Principal Social Worker undertakes this by developing the Social workers of tomorrow, overseeing audit, promoting legal literacy and providing a link between frontline staff and senior management.
In every area, the Principal Social Worker is responsible for …..
Simon Porter is pleased to provide a social worker’s perspective which gives a comprehensive account that highlights our achievements, challenges, and priorities. This gives us an opportunity to review ourselves holistically and view our performance and strategic direction to make sure we better serve our community and continue to enhance our professional practice.
As I finished university and received confirmation of my Social Work England registration, I felt a pressure of applying what I learnt throughout my education into my professional practice. Once I arrived, however, there were new areas to navigate which as a student, I felt I took for granted. This included learning legislation at a deeper level, ensuring you use it to help people in the best possible way. I also had to learn to adapt to the cultural dimensions of the town I’m working in, such as identifying community services. I found that university placements protected you from this, with a limited number of days my focus was on social work theory, models and the breadth of legislation we need to get our heads around.
Despite these realities, I was lucky enough to be met by an experienced group of social work practitioners within the adult mental health social care team. I felt at the time each had their own area of expertise and being within my Assessed and Supported Year of Employment (ASYE), provided me with the opportunity to shadow and learn from the team. I observed their application of the appropriate legislation and questioned them continuously on practice I had either witnessed or we had worked in together, something I recommend all ASYE social workers do.
Now that my ASYE is completed, I feel it has better prepared me. A year on and I feel that I can share the knowledge I have accumulated with new members of staff, which in my opinion reinforces the support I received from my colleagues and practice educator to develop my professional identity and confidence. The ASYE is a steep learning curve, however I feel that the people around me were an important factor to completing it in a well-rounded and reflective way.
After studying childcare at college, I thought I wanted to be a teacher and started a teaching degree, however, I quickly discovered that a classroom setting was not right for me. I started working full time with children with disabilities and my passion for helping others shone. I started to explore careers within social care, specifically trying to find something that would allow me to develop in a career, without needing to go to a traditional university.
I started working as a health and social care co-ordinator for adult social care in 2018 and very quickly realised that I wanted to be a social worker. After 18 months in the job, and with support from my manager, I enrolled on the Open University social work degree. This is something that worried me initially, after my previous experience of university, however, this was so different! I completed my first year and found myself excited to learn and develop further. My manager and co-workers were incredibly supportive, and I had protected study time every week. I found that work-based learning was better for me, and I couldn’t quite believe how much I was learning and developing in such a short space of time.
Towards the end of my first year, I was approached by the principal social worker to transfer over to the apprenticeship degree pathway. I was the first person at Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust to do the apprenticeship and I found myself anxious about the unknown, but looking back now, I am so pleased that I went down this route. With the apprenticeship, I was offered extra study time, and the modules were also funded by my organisation. This meant that not only was I working full time whilst studying my degree, the degree itself was also not costing me anything. If I am honest, the jump from year one to year two shocked me, with the level of work increasing significantly, however, the support I had from my organisation was immense and it was clear that everyone around me wanted me to succeed.
Studying the apprenticeship ‘on the job’ allowed me to put into practice all the theories and models I was learning about, in real time. This led me to be able to reflect more deeply and critically, enhancing my skills and development. The placements that followed in years two and three extended my knowledge base even further and I never felt unsupported through my placements, with practice educators and placement supervisors who were evidently invested in my personal and professional development.
I am proud to say that I am now a registered social worker, supporting vulnerable adults and their families through their transition from children services to adult services. I am continuing to learn and develop through the Assisted and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE) and am so incredibly excited for my career ahead.
Research practitioners in Torbay Adult Social Care - (this is the first initiative like this in the country)
The Peninsula Adult Social Care Collaborative Project (PARC) is a groundbreaking project funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). It includes three local authorities which includes Torbay and funds practitioners to spend time developing research skills and using them to undertake a piece of research selected by the employer as of importance to the geographical area in which they work, and the needs of people using their services. PARC is one of several projects funded by NIHR and the Department of Health and Social Care to explore best practice in practitioner-led research and co-production of research as well as professional development of social workers and other social care staff.
Torbay was the first area in which PARC was able to establish the partnership with a service provider agency. This was done at a challenging time, just as the restrictions imposed by COVID-19 were being lifted, but while services were generally under great pressure.
Through partnership with the principal social worker, PARC has supported two practitioners to work in Torbay to explore the relationship between complex need and social care support, which is being written up as a report for Torbay, and to possibly share wider. A second project which is awaiting ethical approval, will consider how housing challenges impact on the ability of social care staff to address the needs of people with care needs but who do not have access to suitable accommodation.
We have also explored the knowledge and attitudes of staff using research in their work, and to develop their professional practice. We have been exploring the possibilities for future investment in social care as a research active profession as part of a nationally high-profile initiative.
We have had an established audit process for several years which looks at the overall quality of social care recording and ensure that areas such as supporting carers and using a legal framework underpins our practitioners’ written work.
In autumn 2023 we increased the number of audits that were being completed from two to three a month to seven to eight a month, and we hope to increase this more in the future.
Overall, the quality of recording is good, but we do see that improvements can be made especially when looking at carer’s assessments and capturing the relationships and details of family members who are involved in the person’s care. The principal social worker always feeds back to practitioners who have been audited. We ask that the worker and their manager investigate the findings. It is evident that positive feedback to our practitioners about the high quality of their recording resonates with them, one worker recently commented “thank you for passing this on to me, I am truly delighted to hear this, a great start to the weekend”.
We have appointed a quality assurance lead who will be focussing on the audit learning outcomes and the changes in practice that have happened.
We celebrated our social workers with an event at the Riviera Centre in Torquay where we bought together a range of services to look at how we work with marginalised groups of society to provide a better service and create a greater sense of social action.
Some of the presentations included:
Simon Porter
Principal Social Worker