1. Social Work for Better Mental Health
Stephen T Chandler
Director of Adult Services, Somerset County Council ADASS Mental Health Policy Lead

2. Issues History of long term relationships
Section 75s
LAs statutory duties – Care Act, AMPHs etc
Recruitment and retention
The role, functions and purpose of Mental Health Social Work
Structural and systematic approach to reviewing arrangements
62 systems utilised the approach

3. Mental Health Social Work and Positive Partnerships Learning from the Social Work for Better MH Project Lyn Romeo Chief Social Worker for England DHSC

4. DHSC support for MH Social Work
Social Work for Better Mental Health Project
Supporting the Mental Health Workforce
Supporting and Developing the AMHP role
Developing the social model of care and MH social work in the NHS
Encouraging the development of positive partnerships

5. Social Work for Better Mental Health
Launched in 2016 with a strategic statement, a self evaluation and the views of service users
Professional Leadership, staff opinions, organisational development all considered
62 locations with social workers in integrated MH Trusts have completed the process
Learning about 20 years of integration in MH services - why organisations have struggled or succeeded, to create new partnership models & a new community of practice in MH.
‘How are we doing?’ – An organisational self assessment for MHSW looking at themes such as professional leadership, organisational development and asks organisations to rate themselves .
Onsite assessment and local /action plans
Will enable benchmarking and comparison of models

6. The variety of integration & partnerships Source: NHS Benchmarking
Theme: we are still committed to partnerships but less under s75 and more with LAs keeping control of staff and money

7. The challenges for integrated teams
Some Social Workers have told us:
A loss of professional identity
Difficulties in meeting regulation requirements
A lack of career opportunities
Unsupported by the LA commissioners/managers
Some LAs and MH Trusts have told us:
NHS priorities can take precedent over LA
ICS/STPs have mixed record on integration
Different cultures of the NHS and LA can be an issue

8. Overall Themes from SWBMH
NHS and LA organisations need to invest in senior leadership capacity
Some NHS Trusts have reduced board level SW representation.
There is a consistent problem of career progression and professional supervision for social workers in NHS Trusts, with reduced management capability, leadership training and succession planning
AMHP leadership is usually active and influential in the NHS
Councils are starting to take greater ownership of their responsibilities for oversight and support of SW
PSWs are influential in some areas – less so when only in LA.
Some LAs are removing Social Workers from Integrated teams due to need to implement the Care Act/MCA or strength based practice

9. The role of leadership
S75 arrangements or MOU need careful crafting and oversight
Collaborative leadership models across health and SC needed
Well defined professional leadership roles are vital to shape culture, supervision, collective leadership and ‘system coherence
Need critical mass of senior leaders and practice leadership with capacity to form a senior SW team
Very important that Councils actively ‘lean in’ to support SW authority and ‘own’ Trust lead posts

10. DHSC - office of the CSW: Repositioning social work within MH
Social Work with Adults - the National Perspective
DHSC - office of the CSW: Repositioning social work within MH
Clear leadership for SWs in integrated teams from LA or NHS
Delivering the Care Act within CPA
Redeveloping Community Models
Working to the Social Determinates of MH
Ensuring Social Work is within every aspect of MH service provision
Promote social workers as lead professionals ensuring personalised, integrated care and support in MH settings
Clarity between LA or NHS work
Working with complexity, risk and conflict
Working with safeguarding
Working with families & communities in an asset based way to promote prevention and independence
Supporting capacity and least restriction
Ensuring that Social workers have the qualifications, knowledge, skills & supervision in MH
A clear role and employee standards for SWs in the NHS
Will look in a bit more detail in this presentation, about where social work can really add value to some of these key areas, as we face increasing demands and expectations from people who use services, about the standards of care and support they can expect to receive.

11. Workforce Developments in the NHS
SW part of the MH workforce plan
SW is one of 8 MH ‘new roles’ task & finish groups
SW is part of the dashboard for STP/ICO partnerships to report on workforce developments
AMHP workforce plan, Standards and
competencies with SW England
Development of Forensic
‘social supervision’ role

12. South London and Maudsley
Strategic improvement programme
Benefits of integration are optimised and that social care outcomes are delivered to a high standard
SWfBMH recommended
“The approach to integration has strongly emphasised genericism in the context of care co-ordination. There is a need for greater role clarity and differentiation with regard to aspects of the mental health social work role to ensure the distinctive expertise of social work is given fuller expression”

13. What has the impact been ?

14. Blackburn with Darwen Borough
Timing was right to embark on the SWfBMH programme…….. time for a fresh look at MH Services and how they link with the Local Authority Social Work support systems, priorities and process and to explore what was working well and what needed to improve.
The sessions were skilfully facilitated and generated honest, challenging and positive responses………workshops were followed by Strategic meetings with Trust partners to disseminate the findings and jointly explore solutions.

15. East Riding of Yorkshire
SWfBMH has significantly contributed to placing Mental Health into the 'centre' for discussion ……….. finally listening to the issues around the S75 and why it needed a radical rethink
Through SWfBMH and the report ………finally, we are having real discussions around the future of our CMHT service and considering quite radical changes.

16. Essex
The work was commissioned by our three Local Authority Partners, and from the outset an opportunity to engage and have dialogue with them on mental health social work.
A really effective tool to engage and open up honest and reflective conversations internally within the Trust, as well as between Trust and Local Authority partners regarding the role and value of mental health social work.  
Positive engagement of the social work workforce…… they were engaged and co-produced the findings and recommendations through three key mechanisms a) Member of the project team; 2) Survey monkey;  3) Social Work Conference

17. Questions