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. Supporting the good health and wellbeing of the social care workforce is a significant factor in making sure that people with care and support needs and their families receive good quality care so they can live as independently as possible.

There’s a great deal of information available, both nationally and locally, including wellbeing offers and resources to support workforce wellbeing and mental health.

New: Workforce wellbeing resource finder

Skills for Care has launched this easy tool to help our social care workforce quickly find trusted resources to support their own or others wellbeing. We know there is an overwhelming number of resources, support and help available. This simple tool holds different resources suited to social care from our national trusted partners. Whether you’re looking for self-help, support for others, needing someone to talk with confidentially or support with mental health, the results filtering system gives the user a few choices to reduce time and energy searching for resources.

This new tool will be regularly updated over time following user feedback and learning what resources work well and why.

Use the new workforce wellbeing resource finder

Alternatively, if you’d prefer a short download rather than use the workforce wellbeing resource finder, we’ve created resource lists for managers and staff that include a selection of these resources which can be downloaded, printed and shared.

Leading for wellbeing resource support for managers and leaders to support their teams’ wellbeing.
Looking after your own wellbeing resource suitable for any social care worker to use to support their wellbeing. You could be a care worker, personal assistant, registered manager or an owner looking for some support for yourself.

Most areas are developing a local wellbeing offer, find out more by contacting your Skills for Care locality manager or your local authority.

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 as well as a new bite size wellbeing guide for managers.

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.

National wellbeing strategic steering group

Skills for Care are working with the LGA and various partners to address high level issues relating to workforce wellbeing. Our shared purpose is to place workforce wellbeing at the heart of providers, commissioners, regulators and policy makers, focusing on the importance of investment, leadership and culture to improve workforce health and wellbeing, now and post pandemic.

Initial priorities are focusing a short-term priority for the sector to raise the profile and take-up of local and national wellbeing offers with providers and partners.

Longer term priorities will address culture, leadership and investment and workforce wellbeing as a priority for the sector, both during and post pandemic.

To find out more about our national work, please email policy@skillsforcare.org.uk

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.