 A spotlight on personal development - The Moving Up programme by Skills for care
Why did you choose to undertake the Moving Up programme?
I have always aspired to progress in my career and after a few years in a role, I find myself wanting to be able to make bigger picture decisions.
After university, I worked in my degree area of finance. I quickly found this was not fulfilling so took a step back and applied for a Business Support role within Learning Disabilities Social Care Services. I gradually gained skills along the way and worked my way up to a Care Manager and now Commissioning Officer.
Once I received an offer to go on the course, I did some research about the structure of the course and the facilitators. This helped me understand how the course and the associated networks would contribute to my personal development and in turn career progression.
How did you find the course?
The course was very interesting and fulfilling, I would recommend it to any of my colleagues of colour.
The material covered in the course was a real eye opener, giving me insight to the varying approaches to leadership, identifying my own strengths and areas of improvement, a better understanding to how people perceive me and how to improve my confidence and self-belief.
The speakers were very insightful and accomplished. They really inspired progression and were living examples that it was possible even within leadership groups that are traditionally white dominated.
The group discussion was great, it was really interesting to hear about the experiences of others, the barriers they faced and how they overcame them. It was a real meeting of mutual aid and everyone in the group was so positive about supporting one another.
What is your main takeaway from the course?
My main takeaway from the course would be that even though I may not see leadership from a similar background as me in Sheffield City Council Social Care, it does exist elsewhere. There are very successful leaders of colour in social care, who have gone onto very influential roles in society. This reaffirmed my belief in my own skills and aspirations.
What advice would you give to anyone interested in undertaking the course?
Go for it! Often, we as people of colour work in isolation within our areas of the organisation. The strength of shared experience, talking about our professional lives, the commonalities of our concerns and issues we are facing is amazingly supportive.
What have you done different or that’s new since completing the course?
The course has definitely increased my knowledge of the different leadership styles practiced by leaders and managers. This in turn has made me more of aware my interactions with leaders and managers and how to compliment the different approaches.
The course has reaffirmed to me the strength of peer support, my participation in professional networks that has come out of this training will be invaluable to me as an individual as well as my career.
What’s next now that you have completed the course?
I will continue to increase my skills and knowledge in various areas to help me prepare for future opportunities. I will also participate in the professional network which has been created on the back of this training, sharing knowledge and experience within the network to aid each other’s progression.
What are your future career ambitions and how do you feel the course has prepared you for this?
I am passionate about improving the lives of individuals with learning disabilities and mental health difficulties in Sheffield, so would likely remain in this area of expertise. I would like to be able to progress my career in this area and contribute to big picture decision making in future roles.
The success of other course members and facilitators together with knowledge gained during the course has increased my confidence. I now feel that I am very close to having the skills to progress to the next step in my career.
 Sheffield City Council - Adult Social Care Workforce
We are running focus groups to gather your views on the workforce and development. We will use your feedback to help us to develop our Sheffield Adult Social Care Workforce Plan.
We would love to hear from you about what the current challenges are relating to the workforce, what our priorities should be and how we can make things better for adult social care workers in Sheffield.
Focus groups will be held online on Wednesday 7 December, 2-4pm.
You can also take part by sharing your views using our online consultation. Take part here: Sheffield Adult Social Care Workforce Plan 2023 - 2026
 Carers Rights Day
Thursday 24 November is Carers Rights Day; this year the theme is ‘caring costs’, which highlights the difficulties carers face e.g., the personal and financial costs of providing unpaid care. For more information on Carers Rights Day, please look here.
What are we being asked to do?
- Ensure carers are aware of their rights.
- Let carers know where to get help and support.
- Raise awareness of the needs of carers.
How can we do this?
The most important thing is to identify and include carers when assessing someone who has care and support needs. It is then vital that we work with our partner, Sheffield Carers Centre to support our carers. If you want more information on how to do this, please see ELMA guidance.
We can also recognise and support our staff and colleagues who are in caring roles. More information on our policies and support available to Sheffield City Council workers who are unpaid carers can be found here.
What is the Carers Centre doing for Carers Rights Day?
Did you know that the Carers Centre offer monthly free Legal Advice Clinics to carers on the last Friday of every month?
The Carers Centre are promoting this for Carers Rights Day. Working in partnership with Lawson Wills and Probate they offer 30-minute appointments providing advice on:
- Simple Wills
- Discretionary Trusts
- Vulnerable Persons Trusts
- Lasting Power of Attorney
- Court of Protection applications
- Estate Planning and Probate
Carers can book an appointment by contacting the centre on 0114 278 8942 or support@sheffieldcarers.org.uk
You can find out more about carers rights and the Carers Centre by attending their Annual General Meeting at 2pm on Wednesday 30 November at the Sheffield Quaker Meeting House.
The Carers Centre are delighted to announce special Guest Speaker Kirsty McHugh, CEO of the Carers Trust, who will talk about the Carers Trust’s work to influence national government on issues and rights for carers.
 Health and Safety and Serious Incidents reporting update
We have a Serious incidents process which has been written by Elaine Dutton and Cheryl Oldfield in Contingency Planning. They will be overseeing this and ensuring actions are followed up, lessons learnt (shared across the service/leadership team as required) and recorded. This process does not replace or duplicate the Safeguarding or Health & Safety incident reporting processes, it works in tandem with them.
 Social Work England re-registration – deadline approaching
All qualified social workers must have completed all elements of their re-registration with Social Work England by 30 November if they want to continue to practice as a social worker. Currently only 42% of social workers in Yorkshire and Humber have re-registered, SWE have no flexibility to extend the deadline so please make sure you submit your renewal application, complete your 2 pieces of CPD and pay any outstanding registration fee by 30 November.
 I Statement Survey
We’re undertaking a survey to gain feedback about adult social care services in Sheffield.
As part of our work to transform adult social care we’re asking people who receive support to tell us what they think about the help they get.
This work will support the transformation plan described in our new vision and strategy for adult social care called ‘Living the life you want to live’. The strategy is available from our website (www.sheffield.gov.uk/social-care/our-vision).
The strategy has been developed with people who we support, care and support providers across the city, and with our partners in health and the voluntary and community sector. This survey will help us to understand what’s working well now and what is not ― so we can use this to support our improvement plan.
The survey has been sent to 2000 people receiving adult social Care services and the deadline to return it is 2 December 2022.
If you have questions about the survey, please contact Adult Social Care Business Support on 0114 273 5611 (Monday to Friday from 10 am to 12 noon, or 2 pm to 4 pm). Or you can email peoplebusinesssupport@sheffield.gov.uk
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