Hello, just wanted to introduce myself as an associate facilitator at The Staff College. I mainly work on the upon Aspirant DCS and BALI related leadership programmes and love every minute of the challenges that this brings.
The upon programme is now about to start its 4th year of delivery, with a total of 5 cohorts so far. Mike, Mark and I hope to embark on starting cohorts 6 and 7 in September.
It’s been a very rewarding journey to be involved in and we have the privilege of working with some wonderful participants. The BALI Programme is equally wonderful and challenging; the delivery team are pretty amazing and knowledgeable, such a diverse mix of individuals.
I’m starting work with Rose Durban in Islington and we are looking to develop a number of Systems Champions to support young black men with mental health challenges; I feel this could be quite ground-breaking and is something close to my heart too. My youngest son, now 28, has a pretty severe mental health condition and so I’m hoping that some of my lived experience will be useful. As an associate, it always feels good to stretch ourselves with new learning content and new ways of thinking.
I have over 33 years of experience of working with leaders and managers including supporting leaders in Health and Social Care and am really passionate about systems leadership, inclusive leadership, anti-racist practice, partnership working, values-based models of good practice and other practical applications of leadership models in real working environments.
Over my career, I have worked for many Sector Skills Councils, carrying out freelance work and as an employee. I have managed several key employer networks, working with key stakeholders, including working with employers, schools, colleges, and universities. I enjoyed working as part of the Leadership and Management team and Regulated Professional Workforce team at Skills for Care for over 6 years and have played both the role of project manager and leadership programme facilitator. I have facilitated several current Skills for Care leadership programmes, including: The Moving Up Programme, the Principal Social Worker Programme, Aspirant Occupational Therapy Programme, and the Nurse Leader Programme. These programmes ask participants to take a Systems Leadership approach to partnership working and co-production, as well as thinking about their own individual leadership style and developing their teams.
I have also carried out Quality Assurance visits with Adult and Children’s services who provide the ‘ASYE’ supported first year in practice’ programme for newly qualified social workers.
I am a passionate and experienced facilitator in Action Learning and peer coaching methods. There’s such a lot of ALS expertise amongst the whole associate team and we have collectively produced some materials that will be useful for all ALS initiatives. Collectively, we are proud to present a unified and consistent approach.
Looking back, for 20+ years, my career included a number of specialisms including writing National Occupational Standards (NOS) and qualification development.
I feel that’s more than enough about me; I look forward to working with you all and continuing to stretch my mind and thinking going forward. Having lost a couple of close friends to cancer this year, I realise that life’s too short to do things we don’t enjoy, and we should do our upmost to maintain a strong work/life balance – after all we are more than just our work titles!!