Our My Brilliant Colleague series invites you to celebrate anyone who has inspired you in your career. It is part of Community Care’s ongoing Choose Social Work campaign, which aims to champion the brilliant work social workers do every day and inspire the next generation of practitioners.
In this entry, Katie Regan celebrates her fellow practice development manager Rachel Culverwell, who impressively balances her role supporting staff with volunteering commitments and an apprenticeship.
Rachel, I wanted to nominate you for my brilliant colleague because that's exactly what you are!
You are fabulous at your job as a practice development manager, always ensuring that you keep up to date with the latest news, knowledge, research and practice resources so we can provide the best possible advice and support for the social work teams that we support.
You are amazing at providing emotional support to people, not only to the workers and managers, but also to me, your colleagues, and anyone else you meet that needs it. When you're not doing this, you're offering to deliver training and make videos for various things, which has now become a bit of a running joke within our team!
As well as this, you manage to find time to volunteer for initaitives making a real difference to people's lives, such as the police custody scrutiny panels and neonatal intensive care unit parent interviews, which are used in training for health professionals.
What's even more astonishing is that you're doing all of this alongside your chartered manager degree apprenticeship!
You've been through your own traumas and struggles, many of which you're still dealing with. I know your personal everyday responsibilities and worries can be overwhelming at times, yet despite this you still bring your all to the work that you do.
I know I tell you all the time, but you truly are a brilliant colleague and I'm so proud to also call you my friend.
How to nominate a colleague
You can nominate anyone who has inspired you in your career – whether current or former colleagues, managers, students, lecturers, mentors or prominent past or present sector figures whom you have admired from afar.
Nominate your colleague or social work inspiration by filling in our nominations form. This could be with a letter or a few paragraphs (100-250 words) explaining how and why the person has inspired you.
*Despite the need to provide your name and role, you or the nominee can be anonymous in the published entry.*
If you have any questions, email our community journalist, Anastasia Koutsounia, at anastasia.koutsounia@markallengroup.com.
