CEO Update
Hello team Derian,
Welcome to my update for this week. I hope you find the information useful, and as always please do pop in and see me if you have any questions on the content.
So let’s talk growth…. What do we mean when we say we are growing ?
I wanted to clarify with you all about the level of recruitment we have across the charity at the moment. I know that many of you are wondering why we are recruiting to some of the positions currently advertised/being recruited to, so I thought I’d try to provide some context for you. If you remember the staff briefings that were held in November, we shared the ambitious plans for growth across the charity, in particularly our care offer. And whilst we have had to step back a little bit on this growth plan due to staffing pressures, the plan is very much to build back capacity and continue to reach for our goals.
So with this comes the need to invest in our care team staff, and we have been appointing CSWs and Nurses, and we need to continue to recruit more. With the staff we have recruited so far we expect to be in a position to increase our in house care from 4 to 5 beds in July, and would hope to aim to 6 in the Autumn, subject to continuing to recruiting staff. We’ve also recognised that driving the growth plan forward is a HUGE task, much bigger than we first realised, and to achieve this Catherine has requested additional support in a leadership capacity to free her up to focus on the strategic side of her role, and so we have appointed Bridget Thomas who will join the team as Deputy Clinical Director on the 20th May. In addition, Catherine and Bridget will need dedicated admin support to free up Kelly and Rebecca, and so a part time PA role has been recruited to, and Julie will start in June.
The investment in the care side of the charity is much needed otherwise we will not achieve what we need to in ensuring we not only get back to previous recent capacity levels, but that we fly past them and then move forward to increasing capacity to a 10 bed model. Yes – 10 beds !
It’s probably at this point that I share with you all that the Trustees have asked me to develop a proposal for getting us to 10 beds available every night for a range of complex and stable children and young people. Ruth and I have worked up a draft staffing model including specialist roles and an increased medical model, and this has been costed. I’m looking forward to exploring this with the trustees next week. If approved this will create opportunities for development across the care team. We have a very supportive Board and if the plans are in line with what they wish for us to deliver they will approve the funds required to achieve a vibrant, busy, and most importantly high quality safe in-house offer for more bcyp. It is really exciting !!
As part of this we will review the facilities and other resources needed to support the growth. One discussion is about a dedicated nursing station in the children’s bedroom corridor, but there will be much more, and I want you all to be part of these discussions.
What is absolutely clear though, and we are under no illusion, is that we are not going to be opening 10 beds any time soon. This is a planned approach and will require careful project management, but the very fact that we are looking at how we do this is brilliant and hopefully provides clarity for everyone on what we are trying to achieve.
The other side of the recruitment is in non-care roles. Clearly if we are growing our services we will need to raise more money and have a bigger back office support function, and this is why we are now investing in these areas, to build the platform ready to grow.
If you have any feedback on the ambitions, or want to chat to me about any aspect of it please do.
Have a lovely weekend everyone
K
| Best wishes
Karen
Karen Edwards OBE |