People who used the staff recognition form to nominate people also took the time to tell us about it. Alisa Nile, the Head of Service for Integrated Community Services, told us why she gave a special shout out to the Self Directed Support team.
Hi Alisa, thanks for taking the time to nominate the Self Directed Support team. Can you tell us a little bit more about them?
Of course! I don’t work directly with the team; however, they fall within the client support area of Adult Social Care and are a key team supporting ASC work in respect of individuals worked with who want a direct payment to meet their assessed need.
As a Head of Service, where operation impact is identified, the team and Service Manager for this area of work will always come to myself for support and direction if this is needed.
Why did the team deserve a special shout out?
Following a national system failure with the provider behind the provision of direct payment systems to councils, I nominated the team for how they rose to the challenge of responding to the system impact.
That system failure was pretty significant – so how did the team adapt?
Individuals in receipt of Direct Payments could not access their accounts and could therefore not make payments to their personal assistants (PA’s) or care providers, etc. It also meant that new accounts could not be set up for individuals wanting a Direct Payment.
The team ensured regular updates were provided to all DP recipients, established a mechanism for care providers/PA’s to be paid and since then have worked tirelessly to ensure monies were recouped as needed once payments were back up and running.
They continue to work with the overarching national provider to ensure all functionalities of the system are fully restored, with this work currently continuing.
That’s brilliant! If you were to use three other words to describe the team, what would you go for?
I’d say they are resilient, dedicated – and fantastic!
It’s great that they got well-deserved recognition through the Stars programme. As someone who gave nominations, do you think it’s worth other people doing the same?
Definitely – I think all staff support the work of the Council and often staff across the council do not always understand what other individuals and teams do to support areas of the council in which they do not work, and therefore through recognising the work of staff across the council this also enable roles and responsibilities to be understood and promoted.