Samantha Hornby

Principal Social Worker                                                                       

I’m part of the collective Senior leadership team responsible for the professional and practice leadership for Adult Social Work under a Section 75 Partnership Agreement with Staffordshire County Council. I report to the Director of Social Work.
  
 I previously trained as a Registered Mental Health Nurse and decided to take a change of direction into social work because of my passion for social justice for people with mental health issues. I’ve been a qualified Social Worker since 1998 and completed my ASW/ Approved Mental Health training in 2003/2007. I’ve continued to practice as an AMHP at a reduced level due with my current role. I am also a Practice Educator and continue to support off-site student Social Workers within Adult mental health. I am now embarking on the Approved Clinician programme with Northumbria University.
  
 I have a lead role in supporting the development and delivery of our Social Care Strategy and provide operational management and delivery support including business and workforce planning, ensuring staff groups are effectively supported and developed within a range of statutory
responsibilities. 
One of my key achievements has been the development of a clear career pathway through the Social Work Learning Academy enabling the workforce to develop and embedding a learning culture. Supporting Social Workers through their Assessed and Supported Year in Employment,
Apprenticeships, Pre AMHP, Approved Mental Health Practitioner, Best Interest Assessor and Practice Educator programmes/training enables staff to feel valued and integral to the delivery of a high quality service to individuals with Mental Health needs in Staffordshire. I am also the lead for the Think Ahead programme in MPFT. To date we have supported 18 participants and will be embarking on an ongoing rolling Think Ahead programme. This partnership with Think Ahead has been hugely successful in successor planning for our workforce.
 Research is integral to Social work to initiate, to establish
and to embed this culture in our organisation. The SWLA have been successful in 2 Social Care Research engagement projects together in collaboration with our
Research and development team and local HEI’s, raising the profile of Social Care in the NHS.
 I am deeply committed to striving for parity of esteem for
individuals with mental health needs and embedding the value of social work. 

Assistant Dean of the Social Work Learning Academy              Karen.Nixon@mpft.nhs.uk
 

Joining Staffordshire County Council in 1995, I qualified as a Social Worker in 2002, progressing through the post-qualifying award, formal practice teaching award, local government leadership (LGA) programme and subsequently Principal Social Worker training in 2017.

 

Working within generic team settings as a Social Worker, Advanced Practitioner, Team Manager and Practice Educator, I am now employed within the Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, formally Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Partnership NHS Trust as a Principal Social Worker (Older People and Physical Disability) reporting to the Director of Social Care within the Trust.

 

My role, responsibilities and main motivation is to improve the social work experience for both staff and members of the public; effecting change through raised standards including quality and process conditions, and in supporting staff through development and continued learning; through the development of audit approaches, quality assurance frameworks and in the development of staff educational opportunities. Using the Professional Capabilities Framework and Knowledge and Skills Statements as a benchmark, my role involves the commissioning of social work specific CPD learning and development programmes across the Trust.

 

While aspects of my role include the provision of support and advice to staff, further responsibilities include building collaborative partnerships both regionally and nationally working across organisations to ensure the sharing of efficient, cost effective, best practice approaches.

 

Effecting change and innovation, my role has contributed to peer challenge processes, practice, research and educational reviews alongside organisations such as the Principal Social Worker networks, Research in Practice, Social Care Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and in regional Teaching Partnership service development.

 

Currently, my role also supports further collaborative approaches across commissioning organisations such as Staffordshire County Council and Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust; sharing business and practice change requirements, through the dissemination of agreed policies, processes and in supporting effective dissemination and communication methods. Within this role, my motivation is not only to embed change processes but also to promote effective partnership working and engagement throughout.

Completing this survey is important in terms of:

• Ensuring that people feel confident in their role, supported and able to undertake their role

• Supporting individual professional and personal development

• Understanding the well-being of people 

• Informing the future shape of adult social care in SCC/MPFT

• Understanding the impact of our current ways of working on people 

To implement localised action and strategies that embed anti-racist attitudes behaviours and practices

To implement localised action and strategies that embed anti-discriminatory attitudes behaviours and practices that support the Equality Act 2010, AIS and Care Act

The commitment of Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT) staff in delivering the best possible social care to the people of Staffordshire has been recognised with a national award nomination.

 

MPFT has been shortlisted in this year’s Social Worker of the Year Awards in the Social Work Employer category, with the winner to be announced on 17 November.

 

The nomination recognises the work of the Trust in delivering its partnership with Staffordshire County Council to provide integrated health and social care services in the county.

 

In place since 2009, the partnership was renewed in April 2020, with MPFT now providing statutory adult social care services in support of people with mental health issues, older people, people with physical disability and those with sensory impairment.

 

Jo Cowcher, Director of Adult Social Care for MPFT and Assistant Director of Adult Social Care and Safeguarding for the county council said: “I am so proud of each and every one of our staff who has worked so hard over the past 12 months and longer – this nomination is testament to that dedication. In spite of what has been a very challenging period for us all, staff have never backed down and have met this challenge head on.”

 

The Trust’s Social Work Learning Academy has been a particular success in supporting staff to enhance their skills, recognising and nurturing talent and encouraging career progression.

 

Jo added: “This highly successful partnership is greatly valued across both organisations, with social care remaining a bedrock across the Trust in delivering real change to the lives of local people.”

 

Councillor Julia Jessel, Staffordshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Health and Care said: “Social workers can often face challenging circumstances at the best of times, but recent events have tested them in ways not seen before.

 

“The pandemic has put a spotlight on those who do essential work, usually out of sight of the public eye and, win or lose on the big day, I am delighted to see that the work of our dedicated professionals in Staffordshire has been recognised this way.”

 

Awards included Apprenticeships, Think Ahead and AMHP Awards alongside Best Interest Assessor and Practice Educator Awards.

Guests included Neil Carr - Chief Executive at MPFT, Jo Cowcher - Assistant Director of Adult Social Care and Safeguarding at SCC and Director of Adult Social Care at MPFT. Jackie Small – Chair of MPFT Board of Directors and Jason Brandon – who is the Mental Health Lead within the Office of the Chief Social Worker at the Department of Health & Social Security.  Course Leads for the Awards, along with Members of staff within SCC and MPFT, who have been instrumental in supporting and mentoring the award recipients, presented the awards and certificates.

Some of the comments following the event included 

 

 

Through the STARS programme we aim to equip staff with the necessary skills required to access and apply evidence in practice, nurture research engagement across the Trust and support staff to drive the direction of future research.

 

The programme is made up of three different pathways of workshops and a seminar series. All sessions are free and are delivered by MS Teams, with more sessions being added throughout the year. Workshops are open to MPFT staff only while our seminar series is also open to health and care organisations in the West Midlands.

 

There are two aspects to consider 

●      An eLearning modular programme which is open to  all professional groups and sectors  

●      A dedicated short course to embed this in social work 

 

Skills for Care will run the workshops for Social workers in 2 cohorts to accommodate increased scope across other NHS organisations and Councils in the West Midlands region.

 

 The learning input is aiming to : 

●      To explore where service are in their vision for stronger communities  and how the workforce skills needed ( specifically the role of Social Work ) are  being considered 

●       To benchmark the role of  social work in community practice, consider what opportunities they see and what their training needs are 

●      To build social workers  system leadership in diverse roles and settings   e.g. Primary care, CMHTs, hospital discharge and crisis team  

●      To support dialogue about how social work supports other community facing role such as social prescribing and works to develop a team approach across the VSO and third sector networks 

●      To promote shared decision making and clear approach to co production with communities  

●      To build evidence for learning and skills framework for social work in community practice and public health skill to inform CPD and career pathways