Staff wellbeing and getting it right for practitioners are at the heart of Walsall’s journey. Principal social worker Hannah Thompson says: “We have a ‘workforce and wellbeing strategy’ in place because we absolutely want to recognise that we need to look after and care for all of our staff who are out there working tirelessly for children, young people and families in Walsall.
“To develop this approach, we constantly ask our staff how we are doing and what we need to do support them more, provide development opportunities for them and continue to respond to feedback and develop as an organisation.”
- Introduced a nine-day fortnight as a standard offer for all frontline practitioners so they can visit families at times that suit them and know they will get this time back.
- Offered clinical supervision across the workforce, delivered by the child psychology service.
- Changed structures to introduce more experienced senior practitioner and consultant social worker roles to support all practitioners and keep practice wisdom in practice.
- Focused on a ‘grow our own’ approach so practitioners feel able to take their careers where they want. This includes a clear career pathway for all social workers, including senior roles.
- Offered retention payments of 10-14% salary to frontline social workers in duty and assessment and family safeguarding teams to underline that pay matters.
- Consistently tracked workloads to keep these low with the aim of setting a maximum of 15 children for experienced social workers - on the understanding that workloads matter and practitioners want to be able to do a good job.
- Enabled every staff member to develop a specialism, as part of the families first model.
Sarah, a social worker at Walsall, explains: “The nine-day fortnight has been a great addition to the flexibility of my work. It recognises that sometimes social workers need to change their hours to meet the needs of the families we are supporting.
“It is nice to have a day every two weeks to catch up on life admin! We are able to work in the office and at home as a hybrid of the role. It gives social workers the independence and autonomy to manage our own schedule. We do have flexible working when we have appointments or commitments so we can make up our hours too. We are also flexible in our approaches, to creatively support families.”
Walsall is committed to asking our staff how it can work in the best way possible with children and families, and to do the things that matter. Last year, the council achieved a satisfaction score of 8.1 from the annual Local Government Association health check, based on feedback from staff.
PSW Hannah Thompson says she feels there is more to do: “We are pleased with the positive feedback from our staff, but we know that we have to keep pushing to improve. Working with children and families is a privilege but it is also hard at times.
“We want to keep learning and growing all the time, and for Walsall to be a place where you know your voice as practitioner will be heard.”
