Once a week, Alison Ansell, a director of adult social care for Essex county council, heads out of her office to spend an hour on the beach walking her dog. It’s a time for her to switch off and breathe in the sea air before returning to her desk to face the remaining challenges of the day.
The “wellbeing hour”, first adopted by Essex county council during the Covid pandemic, is a weekly 60 minutes that staff in its adult social care teams can use as they like to boost their wellbeing. Some join exercise classes or community choirs, while others add the time to a lunch break. “We don’t ask people what they do or when they take the hour, but we like to share photos of what we’ve been up to,” says Ansell, 49, who joined the authority 26 years ago as a newly qualified social worker and is now responsible for adult social care in mid Essex.
The initiative illustrates just how important staff wellbeing is for the council, which last year was named social work employer of the year. Flexible working – where staff can spread their hours over four, five or six days each week – has also improved people’s work-life balance. While teams who support patients discharged from hospital work a seven-day rota with an extra 6% of pay. “I think we learned over Covid that if you support your staff better, and you trust them and give them flexibility, they give everything back,” says Ansell.
Melanie Noel, 47, an adult mental health and wellbeing social worker, believes working for Essex was instrumental in her being named adult social care worker of the year in the same awards where the council’s children’s services were also recognised. “The training opportunities are outstanding and staff have the chance to make meaningful changes. That means I can be authentic and creative in the way that I work,” Noel says.
The council’s commitment to professional development – which was highlighted by the award judges – is key in helping to make Essex an employer of choice for those looking to start or progress their career in adult social care. The Essex Social Care Academy has a national profile, according to Ansell, and it is instrumental in growing careers, especially in mental health and children and families services.
Senior social worker Kelly Reed, 29, who qualified in Essex five years ago, says: “I’ve done so much training – you just have to put yourself forward.” Reed, a qualified practice educator, now trains staff and partners in completing assessments for dementia, and has established an internal data system for safely sharing documents across the service.
Secondment and development opportunities – within adult social care and with organisations outside the NHS – are well established. Francis Mwangi, 54, a team manager in adult social care, says the commitment to continuing professional development outstrips anything his previous employers offered. “There are no restrictions – at most of the other local authorities I have worked for, you had to jump through hoops to get training.”
Equality and diversity are high on the department’s agenda. Its Quest programme has allowed frontline staff to talk openly about issues such as race or disability, with their ideas going towards creating equality action plans in the workplace. “Frontline staff are creating some of the solutions,” says Ansell. “We didn’t want to bring in consultants to tell us what our own staff think or create a report which just sits on a shelf.”
Quest, according to Mwangi, who was born in Kenya, means that staff now feel more at ease talking about race and its impact in their lives and at work. “I discuss anti-racism in my team meetings and with my senior colleagues. Everybody is a lot more comfortable talking about the issues.”
A “reverse mentoring for race” initiative is also part of the equality drive where staff from an ethnic minority background mentor senior leaders. “It’s hugely powerful,” says Ansell. “It has changed my focus. I read things differently now and watch things differently. It has changed my practice.”
For Annabel Butcher, 53, deputy team manager for adults with learning disabilities and autism, it is the size of the authority and the variety of needs provided for that makes her job so rewarding. “It’s the breadth of the role here that appeals to me. My team is countywide, and I work with colleagues in health as well as service providers and landlords,” she says. “There is a massive focus on person-centred support and progression. And there is a huge amount of resources available through the organisation to do things in partnership with other agencies.”
Essex has a large social care workforce, with some 3,500 people working in adult and children’s services. While social workers make up the largest proportion – 1,200 – there are also career opportunities in occupational therapy, and roles in commissioning and partnership working, safeguarding and quality assurance, and residential care.
While the diversity of roles and career paths offered by the council may appeal initially, what does Essex have to offer as a place to live? Some 75% of the county is farmland, it has 350 miles of coastline and there are regular ferries to Europe. Property prices can be lower than in London and there is an abundance of good schools.
So what message does Reed have for her peers in other parts of the country looking for new challenges? “It feels like being part of a family working in Essex. So I’d say: ‘Take the leap!’”
Find out more about the opportunities and benefits of working in adult social care for Essex county council
