This morning the Lead Ofsted inspector has informed us that inspectors will be on site in Cumbria from next Monday, 18th March, to carry out the SEND Local Area Inspection. The inspection will be one week long and there will be 3 inspectors.

The inspection will focus on the effectiveness of local areas in fulfilling their new duties regarding provision of support for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities contained in the Children and Families Act 2014. 

This inspection will look at SEND provision from the Local Authority, Health, schools, early years settings, colleges and the voluntary sector.

Please be aware that you or members of your team may be contacted at short notice over coming weeks to attend focus groups or respond to requests for information/evidence – thank you in advance for your co-operation with this. 

+ VIEW THE INSPECTION FRAMEWORK

Have you been briefed yet?

On Monday 4 March the first edition of the new People Team Brief was launched. Each Service Area has its own bespoke monthly briefing including items of relevance from across the directorate.

The Team Brief is sent to the Directorate Management Team who are then responsible for cascading the briefing through their management structure.

A follow up survey with a random sample of employees will happen next week to assess implementation.

Please raise it with your manager if you have not yet received the Team Brief.

Adult Social Care restructure update

All colleagues in Adult Social Care have now been informed whether they are in or out of scope of the current reshaping of the service and have been invited to meetings to learn more about what is being proposed.

The last of this round of meetings takes place on 26 March, after which information will be added to the Employee Information webpages.

+ VIEW EMPLOYEE INFORMATION WEBPAGES

World Social Work Day 2019 - promoting the importance of human relationships

19th March 2019 isWorld Social Work Day and we'll be celebrating the achievements of the profession and raising awareness of the contribution social work makes to the local community.

If you have a positive social work story that you would like to celebrate please let us know.

+ SEND TO BRIDGET.SLEE@CUMBRIA.GOV.UK 

'Very good' report for Active Cumbria

This week we got the great news that Active Cumbria have been rated as 'Very Good' in the new Quest Assessment - Quest Plus for Active Communities.

The tough assessment by Sport England’s leading national quality scheme involved a robust self-assessment, followed by a two-day external assessment and a partners forum looking at seven core modules and an additional three choice modules.

This is a great result for Active Cumbria. The new Quest standards are more demanding and challenging for the management team and staff, and it is now much more of an achievement to succeed in Quest at any level.

+ READ THE REPORT

School pupils supporting care home

Over Christmas Nelson Thomlinson School 6^th Form students held a fund raising sponsored Christmas Jumper day and visited Inglewood Care Home to entertain the service users with festive carols and songs.

Last month the home was visited by Matthew (left) & George who presented service users Edna, Sheila and Kathleen (L-R) with a cheque for £159 as result of their fundraising!

Fancy a new wardrobe for free?

Our Recycling Team are planning to carry out staff clothes swap events across residential care homes. At each event there will be a stock of clothes to get things started. Attendees can bring in their own clothes and take away what they want. Staff will also be offered top tips on healthy eating on a budget. There's already been one event at Parkview Gardens in Barrow, those who took part got some great (and free!) items for the whole family. 

The next event is at Elmhurst care home in Ulverston from 11 - 14 March. The event is open to all staff so please drop-in.

+ MORE INFO KAREN.SHEPHERD@CUMBRIA.GOV.UK

Solway Views project wins award

Colleagues from Public Health, along with members of the community, were successful last week at the North West Coast Research and Innovation Awards

These awards showcase the work of NHS organisations, industry partners, academic partners, third sector organisations, local authorities and other collaborations in health innovation.

The nomination included the work from the ‘Solway Views’ health & wellbeing research project in Mossbay / Salterbeck.  This has been a partnership project between Lancaster University, CLAHRC NWC, CCC, Allerdale Borough Council and local residents. The nomination was in the research for wellbeing category and was for the use of art and story-telling in health inequalities research.  The award recognises the partnership that brings together wisdom of local people, artistic talent and local stakeholders.

+ MORE ABOUT THE AWARDS

Anneli stars in #IWD2019 video

Last Friday was International Women's Day and female staff from the council shared what motivates and challenges them in video that was shared on social media. One of the people feature was Anneli Thomson from our Occupational Therapy team. Here's what she said:

What or who motivates you to do your best?

My mum motivates me to do my best, she has been an inspiration to me throughout my life, growing up she managed a full time job while coping with three teenagers,  mostly on her own while Dad worked abroad for long periods of time! She makes me believe anything is achievable if you put your mind to it. This is something I try and advocate to my children.

What is the biggest career obstacle that you've overcome?

I think going to university in my thirties to study Occupational Therapy was the biggest challenge I have overcome. I worked in the care sector and realised I needed to increase my opportunities. I studied while the children were very young and I worked part time. I thought if I could get through those tough years, anything beyond would be fine!  

What does success look like to you?

As an Occupational Therapist I am completely dedicated to making a positive difference to individual’s lives, it is why I chose this career. Success to me means getting to the end of a working week, and reflecting on the positive outcomes I have achieved for both my service users and myself.

+ WATCH THE VIDEO

Care staff Pension Roadshow dates

Residential care staff  in Cumbria Care will have the opportunity to find out more about their workplace pension at a Pension Roadshow being held at at Dentholme Residential Care Home in Cleator Moor on 14th March from 12pm-2pm. A presentation will be delivered that will provide useful information about the pension scheme, followed by an opportunity to ask questions and discuss queries with Pension Scheme experts.

+ MORE ABOUT PENSIONS

Book your AD Workshadowing

Take the opportunity to invite an AD to visit you to see the work that you and your team do. See below dates, times and locations that are available:

• Dan Barton; 14th May - 09:00-12:00 - West
• Lynn Berryman; 14th March - 13:00-15:00 - West & 11th April - Afternoon - Carlisle or Eden & 30th April - Morning - Countywide & 13th May - 13:30-16:30 - West & 17th May - Afternoon - West & 13th June - 09:30-12:30 - South & 8th July - 11:00-16:00 - South
• Pam Duke; 4th April - 09:30-12:00 - West
• Fiona Musgrave; 28th March - 10:00-13:00 - West & 8th April - 12:00-16:00 - West
• Colin Cox; 9th April - 12:00-17:00 - Carlisle or Eden & 30th April - 13.00-16:30 - South & 11th June - 09:30-13:00 - South
• Jo Atkinson; 15th March - 09:30-12:30 - Carlisle or Eden & 29th March - 09:30-12:30 - Carlisle or Eden & 26th April 09:00-12:00 - West & 9th May - 09:00-12:00 - South

If you're keen to get involved but the times listed above don't work for you, please get in touch and we'll look for an alternative.

Remember, we will ask you for your reflections on the visit to include in People News (and don't forget to take some pics!)

+ TELL US WHICH AD YOU WOULD LIKE TO INVITE

Would you like to shadow a colleague in another team?

Responding to the feedback from the People Roadshows that you wanted more opportunities to find out what other People people do, in the last edition of People News we asked if anyone would be willing to 'host' a colleague for a visit. 

We've had some fantastic offers from the colleagues below and now all they need are some 'guests', so if you'd like to spend an hour of two finding out more about their roles, let us know!

+ EMAIL PEOPLE.NEWS@CUMBRIA.GOV.UK TO MAKE A 'BOOKING'

Jane Davis from the Transforming Care Team:

Offer: "See how we support to the Learning Disability, Autism and Transition Teams, with respect to the Transforming Care agenda."

Julie Baillie from the Older Adults Commissioning Team:

Offer: "An opportunity for someone to shadow me and get a better understanding of the role of commissioning; perhaps attendance at a meeting."

Mark Humble from the Strategic Commissioning and Contracting Team:

Offer: "Attendance at the Learning Disability and Autism Partnership Board or involvement in a range of task groups with a focus on friends, relationships and loneliness, Hate and Mate Crime or Transport. Opportunity to work alongside citizen experts to drive local change."

Nicola Jackson from the Focus Family Team:

Offer: "I run a Practitioners Forum in Barrow and South Lakes, this is a two hour forum that any agencies working with families can attend and showcase their area of work. We also look at LSCB policy and practice reviews. This would be an ideal opportunity for other teams in the directorate to understand what services are out there to support families and also showcase their own!

Mark Fraser from the Social Work Teaching Partnership:

Offer: "An interesting and stimulating tour around the fascinating world of social work training and development."

Susie Ramsden from SEND:

Offer: "Come to a meeting to see what we do in terms of EHCPs and finding provision for children with Special Educational Needs."

Louisa Day from the Signs of Safety Project Team:

Offer: "To work with the Project Development Officers on the implementation of Signs of Safety with children and families. This could be anything from coming along and doing some training with us, to attending a case consultation with a social worker, or just to understand a bit more about our strengths and relationship based practice model."

Emma Robinson from the Occupational Therapy Team:

"We would welcome anyone coming to spend time with the team to find out more about what we do."

Suicide prevention community feedback session

Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care System is hosting a series of Suicide Prevention Community Feedback Sessions which are open to anybody within the community who wants to know what is happening around suicide prevention in their ICP, and/or how they can be involved in suicide prevention throughout their community. 

The south Cumbria event will take place on 3 April, 3pm-6pm at Kendal Town Hall.

+ BOOK YOUR PLACE 

LSCB welcomes peer reviewers

An Local Government Association Peer Review of the Local Safeguarding Children Board took place on 6 and 7 March.  The review team were looking at both the effectiveness of our existing arrangements and supporting us with developing our proposals as we move forward with the new arrangements for safeguarding partnerships later this year.  

The team are coming back to Cumbria in April to deliver the full feedback, but they have noted the strength of existing arrangements and the stable, committed and knowledgeable leadership across the partnership as well as the sense of a culture of being child focussed and interested in the lived experience of children.

We look forward to the team returning to help us develop our thinking further in relation to the challenges and opportunities as we move forward.