A transformative partnership in Glasgow

"We turn those shared values and good intentions into purposeful actions"

Creating positive change is a key goal of integration. The ALLIANCE has been working with Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership to provide sessions to home care staff which aim to empower them in their roles and promote compassionate care. Running since March 2019 and ongoing, the sessions will soon have been delivered 40 times to 1000 staff members as we continue this partnership work over 2020 and beyond

Project Lead at the ALLIANCE, Tommy Whitelaw, brings his expertise to the fore sharing his experiences of caring for his mum who lived with dementia, as well as sharing stories from the many hundreds of carers who have told us of their personal experiences.

Staff attending the sessions span home carers, coordinators, managers, assessors, call handlers, technicians and drivers. They are educated on the principles of intelligent kindness and informed of the wider work that has been undertaken at the ALLIANCE.

Each talk is adapted to fit each particular audience with different groups of staff asked to consider what matters to the people they support. Tommy highlights his experiences around the care he and his mum received from community care services in order to provoke thought and consideration.

Staff attending the talks are then asked to make a pledge, describing how they would lead change with feedback gathered at the end of each session. Some of the pledges included listening to people more, not interrupting people too quickly, being more attentive and understanding and showing kindness and respect. In order to promote values-based reflective practice, Glasgow City HSCP now displays these pledges on a ‘What Matters to You?’ tree at their offices to encourage staff to reflect on the difference they can make in their roles.

More time, training, engagement and staff support were highlighted as key to turning good intentions into actions. Feedback from the sessions has been incredibly positive. Of 271 staff surveyed, 91% of said the sessions were very good and a majority said they were informative, helpful and well presented. In addition, 84% strongly agreed that the improvement session would have a positive impact on their work.

The sessions impact positively on home carers who provide support and services to thousands of people across the city of Glasgow and Tommy emphasises the strength of joint working: “It forms the ethos of what the ALLIANCE does, we’re a partnership organisation and only by sharing and listening to people’s personal experiences and listening together can we turn those shared values and good intentions into purposeful actions.”

“We’ve got this incredible privilege that people we’ve met, people we haven’t met and people we might never meet share their personal stories with us. Our promise was to take those stories out to as many professionals as possible to try and create a change and an environment that is supportive to all.”

Julia Donaldson, Assessment Service Manager at Glasgow City HSCP, agreed on the need to share this experience: “We were really delighted to jointly work on this project and felt this was a great opportunity to embed the national health and wellbeing outcomes, particularly 3 and 8 which talk about positive experiences in care for service users and an engaged workforce that is continuously supported to improve the care they provide.”

“It was a thoroughly enjoyable time for everyone who was involved with really rich feedback that has been captured and will inform our improvement journey moving forward.”

Read more Integration Stories in our latest publication ‘Integration in Action’ outlining seven case studies on progressive partnerships.