December 05, 2016
|By aissagallie
|
Foundation, like every other organisation working in our sector, is going through a period of change as we learn to adapt and innovate in the face of rising need and falling provision. Our Senior Management Team wanted to take some time to work within our services, alongside Support Workers and customers, and see first hand how the situation is changing. Our Director of Development and Communications, Paul Hardman, spent time with our Darlington service last month.
I visited the Darlington Team for two days in early November to spend some time with staff on their Family and Offender services. Both days were busy visiting customers, working to get a house back in use and being part of whole team approach to looking after children and their families.
The role I have in Foundation doesn’t afford me the time to meet with customers and it was sobering to be reminded how much some of the most vulnerable people in our society desperately need our help but lovely to see a great team of staff working so hard for them. The teams in the service were all really warm and focused on the services and doing their best for the customers.On the first morning I went out with Heather to meet James*(name changed). Unfortunately he is not in the best of health as he battles alcohol addiction. Heather did everything she could to ensure he was safe, warm, eating properly and hopefully joining the Darlington team for a Christmas meal. She is also working hard to get him some real help with his drinking, working with the Local Authority. Hopefully positive news will follow because James needs clinical help.
Later that day we spent time taking securing boards off one of our properties so that we could work to bring it back into use. I don’t think I was surprised about the level of damage people can create rather the scale of how much damage they do to a house that has been provided to ensure they are safe and warm.
The second day the focus was on the Family Support Service, involving more customer visits. All the visits with this team involved working with a number of other agencies: Social Services, Health Workers, Family Intervention Teams for example. Again it was the reality of the cases and the complex, heart-breaking situations of the people and their families that struck home. I was frustrated by a lack of focus on the key issues by statutory services, when a lack of improvement in these situations could lead to a young child being taken away from their natural mother. It also struck me that the provision of the housing and accommodation that we are providing almost went unnoticed, although it is clearly a key element in any individual or families being empowered to improve their lives.
Once again, our staff stood out as the people taking the time to really listen and explain situations and forthcoming critical meetings to people. Staff were also doing a great job in trying to entice individuals and families out of their homes to get involved with different groups and activities.The team and the staff who let me follow them around for two days were fabulous and clearly cared deeply for the customers they work with. They should all be very proud of the work and efforts they clearly put in on a daily basis. A real credit to the business and themselves.
The Darlington Team responded to Paul’s visit positively. Below are comments from some team members:
It was great that Paul got involved with the day to day running of the service, he attended Core Group Meetings, met customers and attended our allocations meeting, giving an insight of our busy service. I think it was a positive experience for everyone involved.
I would like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed Paul’s company. He was helpful in his comments and listened to the customers. It was a pleasure to meet him and have his support for a short while.
I wish he could have stayed for longer as I feel he only saw a very small part of what we do.
We hope to share more detail from visits into the organisation by other members of the Senior Management Team in the New Year.