Wellbeing
What is wellbeing?
Wellbeing at work relates to every aspect of working life, from the physical environment and its quality and safety, to how the workforce feels about themselves, the work they are doing, the place they work and their organisation’s culture.
We know that stress and burn-out are real issues for adult social care staff and with the added challenges and restrictions of the pandemic, workforce wellbeing has never been so important.
To make sure that people with care and support needs and their families receive good quality care and live as independently as possible, supporting the good health and well-being of the social care workforce is a significant factor.
There’s a great deal of information available, both nationally and locally, including wellbeing offers and resources to support workforce wellbeing and mental health. We’ve created resource lists for managers and staff that include a selection of these resources which can be downloaded, printed and shared.
We hope you find something helpful and practical for yourself, whether you’re looking for ideas on self-care, learn more about the 5 ways to wellbeing or help dealing with in-the-moment pressure. You can also use our self- support tool which was developed with social care providers support you in these areas.
Alternatively, you may be looking for some additional support for yourself or others, about self-help, someone to talk to in confidence or specialist mental health support.
Supporting the social care diverse workforce
COVID-19 is having a huge impact on the mental wellbeing of people from ethnic minority communities. We’ve put together some webinars and blogs where people have shared their experiences and the importance of supporting the mental wellbeing of people from ethnic minority communities, as well as what organisations should and can do to help their staff.
Wellbeing for registered managers
Go to the registered manager dedicated webpage to find details about our advice line, Facebook Group, Registered Manager networks and WhatsApp groups.
You’ll also find a series of 30-minute recorded webinars that you can watch at any time and some topics included are:
- Leading for Wellbeing
- Wellbeing for Registered Managers
- Time Management
- Keeping your team motivate
Some of the webinars have bite-size resources and templates to accompany them for further support.
What is resilience?
Resilience is the ability to cope under pressure and recover from difficulties.
Working in social care can be hugely rewarding but can be stressful at times and the pandemic has challenged the workforce like never before. Building resilience can help adult social care staff cope better under pressure and continue to deliver high quality care and support.
The building resilience sections offer resources that can support managers build resilience at an individual, team and organisational level.
Building your own resilience
Our Building your own resilience, health and wellbeing guide is for anyone working in adult social care. It explains what resilience is and suggests strategies to help you recognise and cope with pressure and stress, including techniques to:
- relax
- manage your thoughts and emotions
- become more self-aware
- look after your physical and mental health
- get the right work-life balance.
It also has ideas and guidance about how to build your own resilience, for example through:
- emotional intelligence
- accurate thinking
- realistic optimism.
Building the resilience of your organisation
Our Greater resilience - better care guide is for adult social care managers and explains some of the ways that they can develop staff resilience.
It includes examples of things that you can do to:
- reduce the risk of workplace stress
- help workers develop resilient behaviours
- make those behaviours the norm in your workplace.
Building the resilience of your team
Our Developing resilience in practice guide shares case studies about how other employers have developed the resilience of their workforce at an organisational and team level and it includes useful examples, templates and resources that they've developed.
Support for Individual Employers/Personal Assistants
We also have a range of resources available to individual employers and personal assistants on our information hub to support wellbeing.
Visit the information hub to find out more and watch the wellbeing videos that include individual employers talking about their experiences and what has helped their wellbeing.
Useful resources
There are lots of resources to help you build your own resilience and the resilience of your staff.
- eLearning about mindfulness
MindEd and Health Education England have developed this free online eLearning called an ‘Introduction to mindfulness’. It explains what mindfulness and how it can help you. It’s free to access and you don’t need to register.
Start eLearning
- The Mental Health Foundation
The Mental Health Foundation has lots of resources, podcasts and videos to help you to look after your mental health.
Visit The Mental Health Foundation website