Meet Caroline, one of our Social Workers
We are shining a light on our amazing social workers, nurses and quality assurance leads.
In our latest meet the team spotlight, we speak to Caroline, one of our hard-working Social Workers.
How does Xyla Health and Social Services ensure the project is always OFSTED ready?
As Social workers, we understand the importance of meeting KPIs and targets. The regular Skype meetings, audits and emails from the project coordinators with the occasional one from Martin (Head of Children’s Service) keeps us focused. We are all competitive we tend to compete against each other to see who has the least reds on the audits. We also love winning “social worker of the week”, which the HOS gives out at the Friday morning meeting.
What does the Local Authority get for their value of money when they partner with Xyla Health and Social Services?
We have a flexible approach with each project, and Martin trusts us to get the job done, while we work odd hours that fit into our lifestyle. As a result, this means we our work done to a high standard. We ensure that we are always the best performing team within the authority. Information from the Local Authority’s performance unit is shared with us to make sure we know where the gaps are and our timescales to get the work done.
Project-Coordinators/Social Workers, how they ensure Quality assurance of projects?
Audits are incredibly vital to us. The project-coordinators keep us on our toes! The TM and HOS get the information daily and send us emails reminding us to get work in on time.
What actions has your team taken to address the Pandemic?
Xyla Health and Social Services gave us some PPE at the start of the lockdown. Martin comes down every couple of weeks to make sure we have all we need. We discussed as a team how we would use social media apps to keep in touch with young people on our caseloads. We set targets to contact all families within our remit every two weeks (either in person or by utilising the apps). Our performance is monitored against this target by the project-coordinator.
Describe the partnership between both Xyla Health and Social Services and Local Authorities, when taking on cases or the project itself.
We pride ourselves on doing great work with families. We all get together as a team before a project starts. Martin and the Project-coordinator meet with us and set out what the project is all about. It helps to understand what the Local Authorities are struggling with. We are the happiest when we are regarded as valued colleagues while working hard to establish strong working relationships with other teams. We are always ready to take on the most complicated of cases for the Local Authorities and pride ourselves on finding ways to support the families we work with whilst keeping the child at the centre of all our assessments.
