Welcome to May’s Compass Points

Pride in our progress

Hi everyone –

Summer is here at last. So welcome after all the rain!

There’s so much information this month in Compass Points. We hope it shows how we’re progressing all the time.

We have a comprehensive update on our organisational action plan to address the areas in which we can improve as an Employer of Choice. These areas were identified by way of the lowest scores in the Your Voice’ colleague survey last year.

The staff survey, which was incredibly positive, helped us to understand how we all feel about working here at Compass. It’s an important way of us being able to measure staff satisfaction and engagement. It was great to see so many people take the time to complete it, with so many high positive scores. But of course we want to do better and improve on those areas that we scored the lowest.  

That’s what the local focus groups in February and March were all about. And now, we’re acting on the feedback from those groups and have incorporated people’s views within our action plan.

Please read a great update from Kim Jones, our People Director about the steps we’ve taken and the areas we’re prioritising.

Pride month

June is Pride Month and we’re marking it with some really moving pledges in our services, and how we may continue our support for the LGBTQ+ community along with a Compass-wide competition for services to come up with a Pride outfit.

Welcome to our Derby inductees

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to extend a very warm welcome to all staff joining Compass as part of our new Derby Early Intervention & Targeted Support Service. Wishing you an enjoyable first week of induction.

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Action Plan as we strive to become an Employer of Choice

Update by Kim Jones, People Director

Following our staff survey ‘Your Voice’ at the end of 2023, we completed some local focus groups across Compass in March and April to help pinpoint which actions we should take to make improvements. The survey results were incredibly positive overall with high agree rates for the vast majority of survey statements.

The areas we scored the lowest in, and thus where we will focus our improvements, were as follows:

• I believe I am compensated fairly for the work I do  (20% disagree)
• There are good career development opportunities at Compass (19% disagree)
• I have the tools and resources to do my job effectively (14% disagree)
• I feel that Compass is committed to supporting the wellbeing of its colleagues (10% disagree)
• I think Compass supports a good work-life balance (9% disagree)

One of our key business priorities in 24/25 is working towards becoming an employer of choice.

To help us better understand what employer of choice looks like for us at Compass, we have incorporated feedback from the staff survey including insights from local focus groups. This has helped us distil the key areas of focus into 4 quadrants:

Why is employer of choice important to us?

We want to continue to recruit and retain the best colleagues at Compass and to help people to work well. We are also committed to working with colleagues to have a great experience working for Compass. We want all of us to  thrive in our roles, so we have the biggest possible positive impact on those we serve.

What are we doing to work on the above?

Pay & Perks and Colleague Wellbeing: A new steering group is reviewing the current appraisal system and the links to pay award. We will also be reviewing the benefits package including those that align to colleague wellbeing.

Colleague development: We have significantly increased the budget for continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities this year and established a formal CPD application process to help provide positive development opportunities for colleagues.

Our learning and development (L&D) framework has recently been updated with new courses added. We will monitor further L&D gaps and CPD requests via our newly formed L&D steering group that meets on a monthly basis.

In addition, we are investing in further career development opportunities across services initially focusing on increased numbers entering professional training for hard to fill roles. We are also investing further staffing resources to tackle waiting list challenges with flexible roles providing further opportunities to trial new ways of working and potential development options.

Tools & Resources: To improve the tools that people need to do the job effectively, we are working on a comprehensive transformation plan to update a number of our current systems across operations and central services.

This month, we have implemented a new accounts system, AccountsIQ, that will improve financial management information available as well as streamline the process for invoices and purchasing. In addition, changes are being made to IAPTUS, Theseus and EMIS to improve the functionality and reporting capability.

We are also making some changes to our People systems, including our recruitment system, Eploy. This is aimed at improving the candidate experience. It will help us recruit good quality candidates more quickly, as well as obtain improved recruitment data to identify and drive further improvements in recruitment and colleague onboarding.

We  have some changes planned for our People Team and payroll systems later this year which will improve the user experience as well as improve workforce data.  

We are also planning to introduce a new intranet to improve communication and ease of access for all.

From our recent communication, you will  be aware that we are working closely with our IT partner, BCN to drive improvements following the roll out of Azure.

In summary, there are a number of activities that we are working on in response to ‘Your Voice’. As we progress with the actions and improvements, we will communicate these to you.

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Laura nominated chair of disability thematic group

Participation model now being tested.

Compass Assistant Director, Jane Wright updates us on significant progress made by the Participation Steering Group.

Involving and keeping young people and families at the centre of everything we do is so important to us at Compass.

We seek their participation in many different ways so we can develop and design services that are tailor made to fit individuals’ needs within a community.

But, as we grow, we now need a framework for participation which enables us to most effectively build on this work.

We’ve been looking at a framework model called ‘Degrees of Participation’. We hope it will help us identify different areas of current participation and also highlight any gaps we may have. We’re testing it right now, but we hope to bring you it by the end of the year.

Our Participation Steering Group, which Rachel Bundock chairs, is working towards rolling out a long-term strategy and action plan that will ensure the voices of children, young people and parents/carers are always central to our thinking and decision-making and help shape and develop our services and organisation.

To learn more about this work, just follow this link. U:\Participation Working Group    

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Iaptus now being brought to more teams

Compass is giving its full backing to this year’s Volunteers Week, which runs from June 3rd to June 9th.

Rachel Bundock, CEO, said: “Volunteers’ Week is a wonderful celebration of volunteering across the UK.

“As an organisation, we believe very much in volunteering. Our Compass Together volunteering plan is part of who we are and what we want to achieve.

We want to hear about your own volunteer stories. Can you answer the same questions? Send it to us by email at Compass Points. Preferably with your head and shoulders picture, too.

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Grateful for the help and support you’ve received from a colleague? Tell us about it…

Congratulations, Talia!

This week wasn’t just our usual Team Meeting, we also celebrated that our wonderful admin member Talia, is just about ready to welcome her baby to the world! Congratulations Talia, wishing you lots of joy and health.

A huge thank you to our admin Julie and Amy for arranging things and making it fun and enjoyable. From all the team at Compass Barnsley

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Jan Smith, Compass Designated Safeguarding Officer

This month’s safeguarding feature is learning from a case review.

Many of you will remember the media coverage of the tragic death of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes in 2020 who was murdered by his father and then partner.

Following the case review in May 2023 Solihull Council commissioned an independent review specifically to consider the social care practice in Arthur’s case prior to his murder. This review was published this month – the full report is available to read on the Solihull Safeguarding Children Partnership website here:

 Solihull Safeguarding Children Partnership (safeguardingsolihull.org.uk)

The national review highlighted a number of areas for practice equally relevant for all professionals working with children and young people. It provided an opportunity to reflect on some of the themes of previous Compass Points Safeguarding features including professional curiosity, working with partners to safeguard children, information sharing and the necessity for critical thinking particularly when working with families who disguise their behaviours.

The most recent report focusses on the practice of social work professionals responding to concerns about bruising on Arthurs back in the weeks before his murder.

The report recognises elements of safeguarding practice which was appropriate – meeting with Arthur away from adults – established his version of events – asking him to lift his shirt to examine his back. However it is noted that in hindsight it is evident that the adults coached the children in the family to disguise the abuse.

In the context of emerging concerns, there was a failure to engage in a strategic review of all of the information across the agencies, this was a missed opportunity to apply collective analysis of information regarding the risks.

The police did not respond proportionately to pictures depicting severe bruising – the information was not appropriately shared nor investigated despite the credible allegation of a serious assault against a child. Had they done so the report concludes it is possible that Arthur may have been ‘removed from the pathway to harm that he was ultimately on’.

At the point when police did share the photographs with the social care services they should have re-evaluated their position, demonstrated professional curiosity and revisited their approach and they did not.

It is noted in the report that no one involved with the case or the oversight of it, paused to seriously reflect on the fact that Arthur had been injured in this way and to consider how they could help and protect him.

For our practice key learning includes:

• Maintaining professional curiosity and being alert to the capacity of adults to disguise abuse.
• Share information and concerns fully and objectively.
• Seek advice and support if you are uncertain of the action to take – don’t do nothing.
• Put the safety and welfare of the child or young person above all other concerns.
• Evaluate all new information in context not in isolation – look at the full picture.

If you would like to know more about Compass Safeguarding practices or you would like to suggest a focus for the Safeguarding feature in Compass Points which will help your colleagues gain a greater insight into safeguarding practices please let Jan know – jan.smith@compass-uk.org

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Business development strategy approved

At our May meeting, SLT reviewed and approved the business development strategy for this year (2024/25). The focus of the strategy being on actions that will further support the growth and development of Compass’ three main areas of business: mental health and emotional wellbeing; public health nursing; and risky behaviours. It included:

• Our target tenders over the next 12 months (contracts we need to defend as well as new ones)
• Areas of organic growth that we could work together with managers and teams on that will further enhance existing services.
• A three-year investment by the Board to support ‘added value’ projects. through the delivery of new pilot projects and ways of working that will drive innovation.
• Reviewing local Joint Strategic Needs Assessments to understand the areas of greatest unmet need and to identify new product areas that we could develop new integrated models for.
• Re-imagining Positive Effect; changing it from a training and consultation arm into a social value arm of Compass.

Social value

As we continue to grow, there is an opportunity to change the emphasis of what Positive Effect does that will further enhance how we add real social value to the areas that we serve. Positive Effect was rooted in sharing its public health expertise with local businesses to support their own workplace wellbeing approaches. However, given the size of our footprint we want to shift its focus to one where it works on behalf of managers and teams to develop mutually beneficial corporate partnerships with local businesses (giving and receiving activities that will support the work that we do in an area such as donations, expertise, equipment, training etc.). A steering group will be set up to take this programme of work forward. More information will be shared with staff over the coming months.

Annual CEO presentation

SLT decided to push back the annual online presentation date to early September. The reason being to ensure the implementation of Microsoft Azure platform is fully complete and the platform is working well for everyone. A holding date will put in everyone’s calendars shortly.

Know our Senior Leadership

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Contacting your People department