It’s 9:30am on a Friday morning and Rachel Fairall is telling me about a baby – a newborn who was brought to her team’s attention a few days post-birth. Both parents were class A substance misusers, and had been taking the baby to unsafe locations.
“The baby temporarily came into the care of the local authority, initially under police protection,” says Fairall, a service manager in Essex county council’s social care team. “When we were able to sit and speak to mum and dad, they accepted that their baby wasn’t safe, that they were using substances, and they agreed for their baby to be accommodated while we continued to work with them.”
She recounts the parents’ and baby’s journey, which ultimately ends positively: the child is 17 months old now and has been reunited with mum, who has become an advocate for other people going through recovery journeys. “We’re hoping within the next two to three months we can think about stepping away and closing our intervention,” says Fairall.
It’s exactly the kind of positive outcome that drives Fairall and her colleagues at Essex county council, and the kind of result that contributed to its children’s social care services receiving an outstanding Ofsted rating in 2023.
Official reports count for a lot – transparency, accountability and a means to identify areas of strength and development – but the real litmus test for the quality of a workplace is how staff speak about it.
So what is it like to work in social care for Essex county council?
“We’re a really blended team,” says Amber Stevens, service improvement and assurance lead in the adult social care team. She qualified as a social worker in 2001 and spent time in the probation service before returning to social work in 2016. She progressed to team manager before taking on her new service improvement role. “We’re a mix of social workers and non-registered practitioners, and for the first time we’re really coming together in a strategic space,” she says. “Bringing [different] skills together in a team really delivers great outcomes.”
The team meets several times a week to check in on each other and their workload. “Just supporting, really, as peers,” says Stevens, “holding that space for reflection, to think about what the week or day holds and how people are going to manage their work.”
One of the biggest pieces of work within her remit is overseeing Care Quality Commission inspections. Its spring 2024 assessment of adult social care in Essex was the first in 12 years, and Stevens is proud of the good result, published this June. “It’s provided us with an opportunity to talk about what we’re doing really well, and to be proud of it,” she says.
One highlight of the report was a recognition of the workforce’s passion and skills, says Stevens. “It was really nice for the workforce to see that their practice was recognised as being person-centred, but also that it was respectful.”
This person-centred focus is something Francis Mwangi highly values. He works as a quality assurance manager in the adult social care team, and has been in post for about eight years. Seeing the results for people after interventions, he says, makes it all worthwhile. “People don’t come to us because it’s a time of joy. It’s almost like those TV programmes where they’re refurbishing a home, and they show the ‘before’ and ‘after’.”
Dealing with people who are going through exceptionally challenging circumstances can take its toll. But Mwangi, Stevens and Fairall all say that opportunities to nurture mental health and wellbeing are readily available. “[Staff] have regular supervision and protected one-to-one space and time to talk about their work, their wellbeing,” says Fairall. Monthly wellbeing activities are scheduled, such as webinars, and there’s a free lunchtime yoga session.
Mwangi really values his flexible working – a condensed four-day week. When he travels to the office one day a week, he appreciates the tech that makes meetings seamless, including chargers that double as HDMI cables. “Simple things like that make life easy,” he says. Teams also use bespoke AI tools, which frees up valuable time.
Diversity and inclusion is another priority area: five initiatives have released workers to understand protected characteristics, starting with the experiences of black and minority ethnic community workers in 2021. There are “listening forums” as well, says Mwangi, where senior leaders hold open sessions, gather information and make changes to help staff thrive, not just within minority ethnic groups but disability, age, LGBTQ+ and neurodiverse communities, and in support of wider equity and intersectionality too.
On the competitiveness of salaries in Essex, Mwangi says they are in line with London authorities and in some cases better, making a potential move outside of London much more attractive.
There are also opportunities for career progression, with an extensive and high-quality training and development offer that is open to all staff. For example, Essex fully funded Fairall’s master’s degree in social work, and secondments are commonplace.
Fairall, who has lived in the county for most of her life, says there are lots of upsides to living there. London is a short train ride away, while Southend-on-Sea is easily accessible: “I’ve got a beach right on my doorstep,” she says.
For Stevens, there are no plans to move from Essex county council any time soon: “Since I’ve joined, I’ve been supported to develop and to grow and have had opportunities within Essex that I’ve really valued. I have no desire to leave.”
Find out more about career opportunities in adult and child social care with Essex county council
