Throughout the pandemic we’ve had heroes right across the council, staff who’ve gone way beyond expectations to keep services running and help vulnerable people.
I’ve mentioned many teams and individuals during the past 18 months, and this week CMT heard about the efforts of our Child and Family Services staff.
The work they’ve done and the support they’ve given to families during the most turbulent of times has been outstanding.
During 2020/21 they had 9,309 contacts for children and our social care staff made decisions on 9,079 of them by the end of the next working day. That is a staggering achievement. They gave advice and support to 4,789 children and completed 4,306 assessments during the year. More than 6,100 visits were made to children who were on the child protection register.
These are just some of the figures, but they only tell part of the story. Behind each of these figures is a real life story and our staff have done everything they can to get the best outcomes for families and children who are often in crisis.
Our staff in these teams have been truly outstanding during the pandemic. Let’s be honest, social work is a tough job even in normal times, but during the pandemic they’ve had to face things that nobody could have prepared them for.
On top of this we’ve had inspections at Ty Nant children’s home and our Youth Offending Service which have brought extra demands.
To say CMT were impressed by what we heard is a huge under-statement.
We can’t thank the staff enough and we reassued Julie Davies, the head of service, that child and family will continue to be a huge focus for CMT and we’ll continue to do whatever we can to support staff.
There are many others across the council performing heroics, but this week I wanted to praise and highlight the work of our child and family staff and I’m sure you’ll join me in recognising their efforts.
Covid latest
It’s good to see the number of Covid cases locally has started to fall this week. The rate is still very high so we need to take steps by wearing face masks and distancing where we can. The Welsh Government has announced a new Covid passport scheme which will bring even more pressures for some of our teams! i’m going to raise this with Ministers during our next 21-day review with them because the extra work and demands is taking its toll on staff.
Congratulations
Our efforts to regenerate the city centre took a step forward this week when we appointed contractors R&M Williams to revive the Palace Theatre. Well done all our staff involved in this important project.
Our support for the homeless has impressed judges in the UK Housing Awards. The Ty Tom Jones project has been a huge help for homeless people and is in the running for an award next week. Well done to everyone involved and good luck at the awards!
Huge respect to our head teachers and others who completed the London Marathon to raise funds for charity. Julie Dunn, Helen-Marie Davies and David Thomas completed the 26 miles and did Swansea schools proud!
Afternoon Phil ,
Members are raising concerns across the board in the LA as staff sickness means there high number of staff absence and sites being with high number of short staff across the board , to the point 1 staff member is trying to do 8 people’s work , the pressure and stress is now effecting staff members health they are exhausted and have worked throughout this pandemic on the frontline , but they now have reached breaking point and we are about to hit if not already hit crisis point , as these staff cannot continue to work in this way , they feel they have to cancel they annual leave , pick up all the work of those that are absence in they section in order to continue to provide the usual service to the public but this is a impossible task to do as it’s not realistic that they can pick up all the work of the staff that are absence , something has to give and they concerned that if this continues they to are going to end up being brought to they knees. Action is needed Phil please could you look into this as a matter of urgency. I’ve also updated Chris Cooze on this as well .
Dear Judith, Thank you for sharing the concerns of your members in respect of staff sickness issues as a result of the pandemic and in response to my Blog. I, of course, commend all our employees for their continued excellent efforts as we seek to maintain essential and frontline services but remain very aware of our responsibilities to all our employees in ensuring their health, safety and wellbeing which remains of paramount importance during this pandemic.
To that end we have employed additional Management of Absence Officers to support Managers across Directorates in pro-actively managing sickness absence cases, and additional Occupational Health resource to support Managers and employees with their health and wellbeing.
We will be continually monitoring the situation in liaison with trade union colleagues.