Meet our One Compass Award Winners, 2025

Jordan consistently displays integrity within all her behaviours and is positive role model within the office she works and the service. Jordan is always willing to take on additional roles and will do this with a can-do attitude. This year, within the North team staffing numbers have been low due to several practitioners being on maternity leave/sabbatical and Jordan has continued to motivate the team and encouraged positivity amongst other practitioners.

When Jordan has been asked to support the Stratford base with their workload, she has carried out this work with the same can-do attitude that I continue to see in Jordan daily.

I have observed Jordan supporting new practitioners within the service with a warm, friendly, and bubbly approach, which I am sure helps the new members of staff to feel comfortable. I have also observed Jordan show this same approach to all service users, representing Compass in a positive manner.  I have also witnessed Jordan openly share her wealth of knowledge, including any mistakes made, with the new members of staff, providing them with plenty of learning opportunities and offering support and advice. Jordan is regularly chosen to preceptor new members of staff where she works hard to provide them with an enriched experience.

Jordan supports me as a covering team leader to create an environment where honesty and fairness is paramount and will challenge others if she feels that things are not appropriate.

I feel proud and privileged to work with Jordan.

Elise is committed to delivering a high standard of service to children, families and schools that we work with. Elise has maintained a high standard of work throughout her trainee year which is a challenging year and can clearly identify the limits of our service offer. Elise will go the extra mile to ensure that a young person gets the service they need and isn’t afraid to challenge professionals to ensure this happens.

Elise is a very reflective practitioner, is keen to learn and share idea with colleagues. Elise is also able to learn from mistakes and values the learning this brings her.

A stand out achievement of Elise’s is that she has completed her University portfolio three weeks early, this is no easy feat and uncommon to hear of due to the pressures in the trainee year. Elise is an amazing practitioner and integrity is a clearly core value of hers.

Sam has been with the service through some very challenging periods. Her resilience and adaptation to change have been exemplary, particularly as processes continually modify due to leadership and system changes. Sam always comes to work with a smile on her face and a ‘can do’ attitude – a ‘we could do this or shall I do that…’ which is infectious to her colleagues. Sam epitomises a hard working ethos, which goes above and beyond for the service, and CYPs of Coventry.

As Shine’s Data and Admin lead, Sam is continually reviewing processes both internally, and with the wider external Coventry system in which she works. This is evidenced by her key partnership with Navigation Hub, and improving referral and escalation pathways back into CAMHS. Sam has done this by her caring but focused demeanour. Due to the varied nature of her role, Sam provides lateral thinking, which takes into consideration impact on all parts of the service – giving her a unique position to deliver ideas on better efficiency, and outcomes for the service.

Sam’s ability to self-manage a very complex personal life, enables her to transfer these skills within work, particularly when managing a very heavy workload. Her ability to prioritise and multi-task is exceptional. Sam is the H&S lead for the service, and since moving into our new office, has been responsible for making us compliant with all regulations, despite a resistant landlord.

Sam’s welcome presence on SEND and Disability EDI group, will enable a focus upon colleagues who are ‘carers’ in their personal lives. She is also a key figure in the IAPTUS superuser groups, and has been instrumental in the implementation IAPTUS within Compass SHINE.

Clare is a source of support for every single member of the People Team. Her knowledge from years of experience with Compass, desire to learn and natural curiosity makes her key in solving varying problems, finding solutions and her innate hard working nature means she is on the tip of every tongue when the question how? comes up.

In the past year she has led and/or supported on the following projects, where she is a key player in brain storming, getting to the heart of a problem, putting in the graft to get jobs finished and there will be more that I don’t mention and will not be aware of. These include Assessment Centre, Wave 12, Eploy project, New HR/Payroll system, Benefits Review, EITSS Tupe.

Alongside this, Clare works with the People Team inbox, recruitment inbox, notetaking and many many other items that come up in everyday working. Clare has an inspiring effect on the team in bringing us all together and working as one to achieve a deadline. With her wealth of experience of the organisation Clare can see how each piece of work impacts different departments and can articulate this to other colleagues.

Diane demonstrates all Compass values, its been very difficult to nominate her for just one of our values.

Diane has run the sexual health service in Safe East being our sole nurse for the whole year. In this time, she has demonstrated her consistency and reliable approach.

Diane delivers sexual health across Tower Hamlets working regularly outside your 9-5 to ensure she can consistently meet the needs of some of our most vulnerable young people.

Diane consistently goes above and beyond to support, young people, her team, wider partners and the service as a whole. Diane has supported in the delivery of health spot. Which is an innovate project.

Diane has been achieving great outcomes across the board through out the whole year. Diane has managed to engage partners and professionals and educate them along the way, often tackling stigma around sexual health demonstrating her integrity while being extremely sensitive to cultural need, educating herself and going out of her way to educate others on what can be an emotive subject.

Diane values each and every person she comes into contact with ensuring she is consistent in her approach to deliver a holistic, person centred care.

Diane is a role model with the team and is often the colleague that the team looks to for solutions and support. It has been an absolute pleasure watching her effortlessly engage some of the most disadvantaged young people.

Diane has earnt the respect of young people and partners over the years.  advocating and ensuring CYP’s get the right care and support through being a consistent and reliable professional.

Diane has supported other compass colleagues and services by delivering training. She has supported commissioners to understand how the voice of the CYP can inform strategic workstreams.

Helen has been a valued and integral member of the Compass Be family for the last 3 years as a Bereavement Specialist Counsellor. Helen exudes un conditional positive regard for all those she supports, works alongside and speaks with. Her values express  Helens ethical commitments which underpin the purpose and goals of all her actions whether this be providing intervention, support or a friendly ear.

Through her continued work as a counsellor Helen has demonstrated her ability to care for the CYPF and professionals that she supports helping to alleviate symptoms of there personal distress and suffering focussing on helping them with grief and mourning resulting in increasing personal resilience and effectiveness. Helen takes pride in valuing difference and appreciating the variety of human experience and culture and will ensure that the CYPA voice is heard throughout intervention and will adapt sessions to ensure that they can build a stronger sense of identity and wellbeing within her sessions continually appreciating the variety of human experience and culture. Helen has continued to respond to local need and will support myself in navigating a service response to crisis incidents. Helen continues through her support to value the team and the CYPA affected by such tragic loss by been present and offering her time, by providing encouragement to those at such a loss, by taking time to smile and ask “how someone is”, to ask questions and listen well to what is been relayed, and  will always offer to help by assisting or teaching others. May I also share that this is also the same for her colleagues , Helen is seen as a role model within the service and will share progress with colleagues and link her accomplishments to a larger purpose recognising and appreciating her peers

Since Chantelle took up the post of Service Manager in March 2023 the teams she has managed have continued to grow and continually develop – she had 3 new wave 8 teams to integrate with the staff that had just TUPE’d over from Action for Children and since then she has recruited to 2 new teams in Wave10; managed a TUPE of the Early Intervention and Targeted Support Team from two different providers and is currently recruiting to 2 new wave 12 MHST teams – this will be approximately 128 staff in total. Chantelle approaches any challenge with a smile looking for solutions. With a team this size there will be inevitably be some people issues to resolve on a regular basis but this is always done by putting the service at the heart of any decisions. Chantelle has maintained throughout all this change (and recruitment) a really positive team culture of hard work which is supportive to all colleagues.

Chantelle likes to think creatively looking for new solutions to challenges. She was really keen to introduce a lived experience practitioner into the specialist team to get the voice of children who understand what’s it is like to be referred to a service. Under her direction the Specialist team have really added value to the service, for example overseeing a county-wide black, ethnic minority and boys working group across the system. The value of this is really recognised by the ICB commissioner who has nothing but praise for Chantelle and the team

Over the last 18 months, Compass Changing Lives’ Specialist team has developed and implemented several impactful initiatives that improve the lives of children, young people, and families.

By marketing the brand through social media platforms and newsletters, they have expanded Compass’s reach, making services more accessible by raising awareness and celebrating the work that we do within Changing Lives. We believe this proactive engagement reduces stigma around mental health and encourages open conversations in the community.

A welcome pack was developed in collaboration with children and young people from Derbyshire and Derby City. This provides critical information and reassurance to families accessing the service, ensuring that they feel supported and informed from the start, thereby improving the quality and effectiveness of interventions within locality teams.

The team are increasing participation within the service using feedback at the end of an intervention or workshop which enables children and parent/carers to share their experiences, providing valuable insights into what worked well and what we can do differently.

Finally, the team have promoted the parent pathway within the service, increasing parental support through the Triple P  offer. This additional support empowers parents/carers, and develop new strategies to support their children’s well-being.

Our current initiative is our new logo design competition which has been open to all children in Derby and Derbyshire – watch this pace for our re-branding launch in the New Year.

Collectively, these strategies align with Compass’s goals by adding value to our service, and fostering a positive, inclusive experience for families.

COMPASS Phoenix have faced a challenging 18 months due to significant demand, this demand resulted in significantly increased waiting lists and waiting times. The team have worked incredibly hard to develop and implement an action plan focussed on reducing these waits and in September 2024 we saw the lowest waits in service in over 18 months. For the first time in 18 months the team achieved their KPIs around wait times and ultimately, this means that children and young people are no longer waiting too long to access support.

To achieve this, the team have worked incredibly hard, they have developed and rolled out 3 high quality group programmes at significant pace and each member of the time has contributed by offering additional assessment duty slots each week to support when demand has been high.

The service now has a highly effective assessment rota and group programme, the team spent the summer of 2024 recording all group sessions onto the ‘Go To’ platform to ensure CYP who miss sessions can access the same content in order to catch up and not miss out.

Alongside all of the work that has gone in to reducing wait times and wait lists, the team have also improved the quality of their delivery, with the team achieving no less than GOOD in all audits this year. Despite continued high levels of referral, the service are now maintaining these lower waits, alongside continuing to develop and roll out an increasing offer of intervention for CYP.