Leaving Party

Please see Helen's speech below ...

15 July 2011 12:00

It is lovely to see everyone here today. I think that the first thing that I need to stress is that I am retiring out of the role of Registered Manager -I am definitely NOT retiring at this juncture and remain, as the MD, actively involved with NEWFOCAS.
There is much more to be achieved, particularly over the next two years, increasing the carer numbers and further developing the current good quality services to children -  exciting developmental times where we consolidate the excellent work already achieved by the carers and staff members and build upon that, a real springboard to our overall and very achievable aim to be 'Simply the Best'.
Since I first started the agency in 2000 there have been so many regulatory changes that the agency no longer looks anything like my original vision, which was to have an integrated team of carers and social workers with a 'feel' very much akin to extended family. The ethos was to support carers to whatever degree necessary to look after children displayed challenging behaviours and whose needs were complex
Reflecting back, for the first year there was just me, undertaking all the carer recruitment, training and assessments, recruitment and training of sessionals, undertaking direct work with the children and typing all the reports - incredible really when I look back. Then Debbie came on board - just to type up the reports -by this stage the number of placements had grown to ten. Debbie's desk at that stage, was situated in the stair well at my house!! I was literally working at least a 16 hour day, seven days per week with no break -so burn out was definitely looming if I didn't get help, especially as everything was run from my own home: so I do understand and empathise the impact of 24/7 nature of fostering. When I set NEWFOCAS up, I also brought knowledge and experience to NEWFOCAS from being a past foster carer myself, knowledge which hopefully I put to good use in developing the business to be a welcoming, caring and friendly environment for both staff and carers, and a service through which children can blossom and achieve.
I believe, eleven years on, that NEWFOCAS is on the brink of developing naturally into a phase, which will consolidate our specialist knowledge, skills and experience and increasingly draw the positive attention of local authorities nationally. This is already occurring, with referrals once again on the increase and interest in the trauma informed nature of our approach gaining acknowledgement at all levels of Local Authority commissioning structures. The injection of energy, expertise and knowledge from our consultants, the two Mike's, and the hard work of the social work team already means that we are well on the way to our fully trauma informed goal.
Working in a fully trauma informed manner is, as has been constantly stated, an evolution, not a revolution. I stress again, evolution, not revolution. I look back and reflect that some change has been hard to assimilate - changes in legislation which forced us into a particular direction where perhaps I would have preferred to do things differently. Some such change has been painful, painful for me and carers alike over the years, but with change also comes advancement. This period of change is a much more natural and logical one, a progression. For experienced carers it is a building onto existing and well developed skills and working in a way which takes full account of research and learns from it. For new carers, it is coming on board in exciting times.
I feel in a way that I am returning back to month one of my commencing NEWFOCAS all those years ago, - back on the road, meeting and assessing potential new carers. It is work I really enjoy, watching peoples knowledge base develop as they learn and develop during the detailed assessment process. It is exciting that we have so many potential carers demonstrating the aptitudes and attitudes we require.
I feel privileged and blessed to be surrounded d by such a loyal and hardworking team,  a team that has grown tremendously since those 'good old days' of the typist under the stairs and the loo which could only be flushed by putting your hand into the basin to pull a wire!!
We have increased our professionalism nowadays -but have not, through all that progression,  lost that personal touch which has made us so different from some of our larger competitors.
Whilst I am retiring from the registered manager role today, I anticipate that my active involvement with NEWFOCAS  will remain for many years to come and I look forward to a different stage in my social work career which spans over forty  years. Since the early days when I worked in Liverpool on a support scheme for ethnic minority groups in Liverpool 8 I have been a generic social worker, a mental health social worker, an under 8's officer, a child protections social worker and then manager, manager of preventive support services, family placement services and youth justice service, a probation officer for high risk offenders and also victim mediation services -  a wide variety of roles in the care industry - but the best and most satisfying stage of my professional career, by far, has been setting up and working within NEWFOCAS. I aim to generate, alongside my management team, exciting and productive developmental ideas to sustain the stability and growth of NEWFOCAS and its growing reputation  within the fostering industry of providing a first class service for traumatised children. Our growing links with Chester and Bangor universities and with Professor Bruce Perry from the American Trauma Academy taking an active interest in our development, I am absolutely positive that we are on the right track.
I feel very blessed in the team I have around me, a group of people who not only share my own vision, they enhance it; and I retire in the confidence that NEWFOCAS will be in very safe hands.