Workforce Insights by Community Care

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 ofthis 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.

Essex County Council’s adult social care started its journey to embed anti-racist practice almost two years ago and is seeing promising examples of change across its workforce.
In this Employer Insights podcast episode, we explore how Essex is changing the culture around tackling racism in a way that ensures its workforce feels safe and empowered, and the adults they serve remain supported.
We also gain firsthand experience from Alison Ansell, director of adult social care at mid Essex, deputy manager Ganiyat Asiegbu and development manager for race Phil Chiza, who also work in adult social care at mid Essex.
They explain why this work is leading to visible transformation in how social workers and managers tackle incidents of racism. You can read the transcript here.
You can learn more about Essex County Council’s investment in tackling racism within its workforce at our Community Care Live event.
On 10th October 2023, Antonia Ogundayisi, who is the service manager for anti-racist practice for Children & Families Social Care at Essex County Council, will be one of our panellists.
She will speaking at a panel entitled Anti-racist practice: how to showcase and share best practice nationally .
Visit our website: www.communitycarelive.co.uk to book your place at CCLive.

In this episode of Employer Zone Insights, we speak to Jerry Crehan, Emma Hall and Rebecca Dungar who are all practitioners in Norfolk County Council's adults' social care team.
They describe how Norfolk has supported them after they experienced secondary trauma at work.
Residents in some of Norfolk's care homes were neglected and abused; this caused understandable distress to social workers. Because of this adult social care organised a debrief session on secondary trauma.
Here are some links related to secondary trauma:
Invisible workers, hidden dangers | British Psychology Society
Secondary Trauma – PTSD UK
Causes of PTSD - Mind
Vicarious trauma: signs and strategies for coping - British Medical Association
Click here to find out more about a career at Norfolk County Council.
NB Did you know podcasts count towards your CPD for Social Work England registration ?

In this episode of Employer Zone Insights, Sharmeen Ziauddin from Community Care, speaks to Sarah Dickinson and Jeremy Ramdin who are both managers at Cafcass. Sarah and Jeremy discuss how the practice framework, Together with Children and Families, is implemented across all the work Cafcass does. As well as this you can hear from Olivia and Lucia who are on the Family Justice Young People's Board (FJYPB).
Cafcass has launched a new video called Taking Me Seriously: Letting you know how we help with FJYPB board members, who are all children and young people with direct experience of family court proceedings. You can access it below as well as all the other things mentioned in the episode.
Watch the Taking Me Seriously video
Learn more about the FJYPB
Read the top tips
More from Cafcass
Community Care Live 2023
NB Did you know podcasts count towards your CPD for Social Work England registration ?

In this episode Sharmeen Ziauddin, from Community Care, speaks to Principal Social Worker Fiona Hayward and Child and Youth Voice Worker Cameron Draisy from Wiltshire Council about Ways of Writing.
In 2020, Wiltshire’s children’s services changed the way they wrote up reports, after feedback from children and young people, avoiding using jargon to make reports more sensitive and thoughtful. Now their expertise are published in a book called Principles of Practice . The book chapter, Ways of Writing , gives examples of writing in a variety of scenarios, discusses its impact, and is a resource for students and practitioners alike.
Fiona collaborated with Cameron and other young people to write this chapter.

A narration of Neurodivergence as a social worker: ‘it’s not just supported and accepted, it’s celebrated’ .
Two social workers talk about how Cafcass has supported them in their social work careers.
You can see all of the vacancies at Cafcass here.