I took over the role from Julie in May 2021, and I don’t think my feet have touched the ground since! Support from the management team at Cygnet has just been incredible, as evidenced by regular invites I have had to attend manager meetings, site visits and team meetings.
At Cygnet, we want to make speaking up business as usual and we continue to raise awareness of the importance speaking up and all the different ways staff can speak up.
As part of this, I am delighted to be able to share our brand new Speak Up animation. This short video explains why, when and how to Speak Up if you need to raise a concern about risk, malpractice or wrongdoing that could harm the services we deliver or if you want to suggest improvements.
In the last year, we have held joint open staff forums which have facilitated speaking up directly to board members. And we have introduced yearly development days to further support our Speak Up ambassadors and upskill them in their role.
Our mandatory training for all staff (Dealing with Concerns at Work) ensures that all staff are aware of the importance of speaking up and raising concerns. In addition to this, we have incorporated speaking up into our induction training.
Throughout Speak Up Month we will be raising awareness of how much we value speaking up in our organisation.
We all come to work to make a positive difference to the lives of the people we support and to ensure that our service users are supported to recover and reach their personal best.
When we Speak Up, we demonstrate that we CARE. When we Listen Up to concerns raised we are showing RESPECT to each other and those in our care. By Following Up we show INTEGRITY by ensuring that IMPROVEMENTS are taken seriously and development is continuous and progressive.
I am convinced that when we all take personal responsibility to speak up, listen up and follow up we enable an open culture which contributes to keeping our services safe, promotes learning and improves the experience of all our staff.