Good practice and Achievements
Signs of Safety – a collaborative approach to care
Safeguarding children and vulnerable adults is always our number one priority, and Signs of Safety is our model of service delivery. This innovative, strengths-based, solution-focused approach encourages social workers to work collaboratively with families. It encourages parents and carers to take an active role, providing them with the tools to shape their own solutions and the flexibility to adapt to changing situations.
Signs of Safety is now widely recognised as a leading approach to safeguarding practice. As the first local authority in Wales to develop the Signs of Safety approach as an adult practice model, we are proud to be setting the standard in Wales as leaders in implementing Signs of Safety across both services.
'The Signs of Safety model fits well with all of our existing person-centred approaches in adult substance misuse service. It has proved particularly effective working with family members to promote their own wellbeing. This enables them to establish boundaries so that they do not take responsibility for their loved one’s alcohol and/or drug use, often resulting in positive changes to the substance misuse.'
Alex Panter, Senior Social Work Practitioner in the Community Drug and Alcohol Team.
As well as training employees across a variety of settings in the use of the Signs of Safety model, we receive enquiries about our approach to Signs of Safety and it’s implementation from across the UK. In 2018 and 2019 we hosted two national showcase events with multi-agency attendees from home and abroad. This is what Viv Hogg, a keynote presenter in major child protection conferences worldwide and co-author of several papers on the Signs of Safety practice had to say about our work in Pembrokeshire:
'Seeing evidence of Whole Service Implementation – rare as hen’s teeth.'
'Great example of involving partners, training the right people and doing it early.'
'To implement Signs of Safety you need to create a culture of appreciation and here you are sharing stories of success.'
'The most important factor in successful implementation is Leadership and I am seeing that in abundance.'
Our Intermediate Care Team
Bringing together a collection of services across health, social care and the third sector, the new Intermediate Care Team supports people to be as independent as possible, enabling them to live and age well in Pembrokeshire. The team provides rapid, short-term access to therapeutic, nursing, social and practical support to help preventing hospital admission and enable discharge.
Our Awards
We are immensely proud that our achievements and successes have been recognised and celebrated through a number of awards and nominations in a variety of categories celebrating excellence and innovation in social work practice.
- A Wales Inspirational Employer Award was presented to Pembrokeshire County Council by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) In February 2020. This recognised our achievement in not only becoming the first Authority in Wales to achieve Disability Confident Leader status in 2019, but also the work done through Norman Industries and Workways+ to support people with disability and long term health conditions to gain paid work.
'Pembrokeshire County Council is definitely leading the way in employing people with disability, with over 60 people working within Norman Industries and Workways+ alone.' Karen Davies, Project Manager
- The Spotlight Awards – Youth and Social Services in Pembrokeshire County Council launched the new Spotlight Awards in November 2019. The awards recognise the achievements of Pembrokeshire’s children and young people who are either supported by or involved with the Council in some way. All of the award winners were nominated by the staff who work with them in categories covering sport, music, youth voice, eco-champion, young leader and making a difference in the community. Da iawn!
- Pembrokeshire was the only Authority in Wales to be nominated for the prestigious M J Achievements Awards 2019
- Amy Slater, a Social Worker based at the Flying Start centre in Pennar won a prestigious accolade in the Innovative Social Work category at the BASW Cymru Social Work Awards in March 2019. Amy was recognised for her inspirational leadership of a new family support team which has been ground breaking in it’s work on early intervention.
- Our Releasing Time to Care project won an accolade for our Adult social care team at the Social Care Wales Accolades Awards 2018. By modernising moving and handling techniques and equipment, this Occupational Therapy-led project has enabled people receiving care to be supported by one carer rather than 2. This helps to build the carer’s confidence, provide more flexibility and has reduced waiting times as well as the cost of the care package. Tracy Price, Occupational Therapist is unequivocal about the best feature of this process redesign:
'Less falls. OTs now more precise referrals much earlier and we can quickly get tradespeople out to our customers on the back of our assessments to fit handrails and make modifications where they are needed. It sounds so simple but it wasn't happening before. It is improving lives.'
- We were awarded Highly Commended in the ‘Effective Approaches to Safeguarding’ category at the Social Care Wales Accolades Awards 2018 for our Junior Safe Guardians project. This helps young people to support their peers and understand safeguarding issues, keeping themselves out of harm.
- Pembrokeshire was awarded best Local Authority for preventions work at the All Wales Continuous Improvement Conference for the development and implementation of the Most Significant Change technique, to evidence the achievement of personal outcomes as a result of involvement in preventative services. Our approach is being embedded across the service and the techniques are now being adopted across West Wales.
- We achieved Highly Commended in the ‘Better Outcomes by Learning and Working Together’ category of the Social Care Wales Accolades Awards 2018. This recognises the work of the Pembrokeshire Preventions Programme Board, a multi-agency partnership leading on the redesign and development of a people-centred model for preventative care designed to promote and encourage the wellbeing and independence of adults, carers, children and families.
- Along with our colleagues from Hywel Dda UHB we were shortlisted for the NHS Awards for our approach to multi-agency community & primary Multi Disciplinary Team (MDT) working within Pembrokeshire
- Pembrokeshire featured strongly in the first ever Community Sponsorship of Refugees awards held in London. Awards were given for a diverse range of community champions who have helped refugees settle via the Home Office-approved Community Sponsorship scheme in villages, towns and cities across the UK.
Good practice and achievements
Social Care will always be challenging, but our work makes a positive difference to the lives of the people we support, and we are proud of our achievements. Our senior management team is creating a culture of appreciation and openness to change thinking and transform practice. We are setting the standard as leaders in the implementation of the Signs of Safety model across both Adult and Children’s services, and have received a number of prestigious national accolades celebrating innovative practice in categories such as ‘Excellent Teamwork’ and ‘Inspirational Employer’ for initiatives which include our new strengths-based approach to Appreciative Supervision. By continuing to look for new and pioneering ways to enhance our practice we have the power to change lives. We need people with the passion and ability to make that change happen – that is why we need people like you. Join Us.