8 April 2024
Hollie: A newfound confidence thanks to Pathway 3
Hollie, a principal social worker from Yorkshire, was nervous about joining the Pathways programme at first. Now that she’s completed Pathway 3, she wouldn’t look back.
What key things stood out to you from the Pathways programme?
- Inclusivity and how we can all learn from lived experience
When I joined the Pathways programme we were just starting to develop our diversity and inclusion strategy for children’s services. Pathways 3 includes content on inclusive leadership, leading with pride and anti-oppressive practice, all of which was really relevant. The content emphasises how important it is to have everyone on board with bringing our diversity and inclusion strategy to the front of practice.
We now have an approved strategy and an educational framework behind this to support our practitioners. This would have been a lot harder to achieve if I didn’t have that increased confidence from Pathway 3 to challenge some of the barriers that came up during the process.
One really impactful session explored how the people we support influence the service. This gave me the space to explore how we can get better at listening to people with lived experience and how I can influence the service to make positive changes. We have now held a community café to hear from people whose voices often go unheard, such as the traveller community, to hear their stories and learn from their perspective how services could be improved. - My coach was amazing
I’ve had coaching in the past and it was nothing like what I experienced on the Pathways programme. My coach on Pathway 3 was amazing. Coaching gave me the opportunity to reflect on my learning, look at how I could use this knowledge and allowed me to think about things differently.
The coaching meeting where my manager joined was really helpful, too. In supervision I had shared that I needed more development opportunities and in the meeting my coach supported me and my manager to explore how I could get these opportunities moving forward. - The experiential visit came at the perfect time
During Pathway 3 I took part in an experiential visit to Wiltshire, to learn more about the trauma risk management (TRiM) model. I’m responsible for our wellbeing and recruitment and retention strategies, so the experiential visit came at the perfect time. They shared their policies and business case for TRiM on the visit.
I was able to take this knowledge away and we are now at the point of commissioning the use of TRiM in East Riding which is brilliant. Learning from Wiltshire, who use TRiM across children and adult’s services, I’ve also been able to influence adult services and get them on board. We are now implementing this across both services.
What role has the Pathways programme played in your leadership development?
My confidence has increased as a result of the Pathways programme. Before I would find it difficult to share and highlight the things that I had influenced and changed, I was always talking from a team perspective. With my increased confidence I can now say I have influenced the practice system and how it’s going to impact children and families positively.