Hello, my name is Therese
I am excited to be taking on the role of West Yorkshire Neurodiversity (ND) Champion in support of the West Yorkshire programme focusing on autism and ADHD across all ages.
Before joining Bradford, I held a variety of operations and strategy roles within a number of community, mental health, acute and specialist provider organisations. I also spent a short period working in the private healthcare sector with GP provider companies. Before joining the NHS, I spent nine years working in health development in Zimbabwe, Somalia and Pakistan. I have also held a number of non-executive roles and currently sit on the Board of NHS Providers as a Trustee representing the mental health sector.
As a CEO, my role primarily is to ensure that every one of our staff is able to bring their best to work and that the relentless focus of all we do is to positively impact the lives of the service users and patients that we see every day. This work doesn’t just stop at the doors of our Trust. It involves working in partnership with colleagues from across the health and care sector, which includes our voluntary and community organisations that play such a vital role in supporting our communities.
I also work closely with colleagues from across West Yorkshire. This work is not just about collaboration but it is important to hear what people are telling us is working and not working for them so that we can target our resources effectively, particularly while promoting the agenda of neurodivergence.
Neurodiversity is close to my heart as one of my boys was diagnosed with autism when he was very young and we had a very challenging, and at times distressing number of years getting him the support he needed and finding appropriate and kind schooling. At times we felt very hopeless and alone. He is now very happily in his second year at university in London planning his year abroad in September - so I know with the right support, everyone can flourish!
The West Yorkshire neurodiversity programme supports our five places - Bradford District and Craven, Leeds, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield District. The aim is to bring partners from all sectors together to share learning and to work collectively and collaboratively. We actively seek the involvement of people with lived experience as this is integral not just to achieving transformational change, but also ensuring that it is sustained.
We held our first West Yorkshire Neurodiversity summit in December, which was well attended by people from a diverse mix of sectors, including people with lived experience. The follow-up summit is taking place at the end of February, and we aim to bring partners back together to acknowledge the breadth of work required and to seek consensus on a number of recommendations that we can take forward together.
We are grateful for all the input we have had and in particular from those who shared the profound impact that neurodiversity has had in their daily lives. I sincerely hope that in my role as champion, I will enable us to have a louder collective voice that is able to influence decision making in the best interests of our neurodiverse community, their families and friends.
Thank you for reading.
Posted on: 22 February 2024
This week’s leadership message comes from Therese Patten, Chief Executive (CEO) of Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust (BDCT). This week's leadership message comes from. We also have a blog from Mark Ambrose and Maureen Goddard, Kirklees and Calderdale Workforce Place Leads.
This week's blog comes from Mark Ambrose and Maureen Goddard, Kirklees and Calderdale Workforce Place Leads.
Better together - a relational approach
In the ‘The Dawn of System Leadership’ (Standford Social Innovation Review, Winter 2015) Peter Senge, Hal Hamilton and John Kania said that: ‘The deep changes necessary to accelerate progress against society's most intractable problems require someone who catalyzes collective leadership’.
They go on to note that although formal position and authority matter, they have seen people contribute as system leaders from many positions. This has been at the heart of our approach to working in partnership on our joint workforce strategy across Calderdale and Kirklees. We fundamentally start with the belief that we are all system leaders around the table, everyone has something to offer and collectively we can do many things better together than separately.
Our joint work grew out of the COVID-19 pandemic where, as well as working together to ensure we had a workforce available across places to deliver the vaccine programme, we also focused our collective effort on supporting the health and wellbeing of our workforce. It made sense, especially with providers who sit across both places, to develop joint workforce offers, developed and delivered through a joint Calderdale and Kirklees Workforce Group; with a membership that spanned and was representative of our health and care partners.
Compassion and compassionate leadership in the workplace couldn’t have been more needed at that time and so we began the concept of compassionate cultures as a key strand of our joint work. Using Professor Michael West’s work as our framework, we developed a model that brought together the strands of our ‘Looking After Our People’ work.
So, what have we achieved over the last two years?
We have developed the Kirklees and Calderdale Compassionate Leadership Programme with over 50 colleagues completing the programme and 50 more on the waiting list. We have established our first train the trainer’s programme, with trainers now taking it into their own organisations- We ran two Compassionate Cultures Conferences - each with an annual health and wellbeing festival programme
- We designed and developed a ‘Social Care Innovation Project’ that took a neighbourhood/ locality approach to delivering health and wellbeing offers into four large care homes with community services and primary care staff invited from the areas. 143 members of staff took part
- We developed and have grown a place-based integrated Schwartz Round steering group with a regular programme of bi-monthly rounds totalling 10 rounds. In December 2023 we ran our first ‘live’ Round, with 84 people attending, and have now developed communities of practice for members to share and learn.
Our joint workforce strategy work extends beyond this, and in 2022 we made the decision to bring together our separate Calderdale and Kirklees workforce groups into a Joint Workforce Steering Group, with Brendan Brown, CEO for Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, as our Workforce Senior Responsible Officer.
So, what makes all this possible?
- Collective leadership through people who are passionate about making a difference despite obstacles and barriers - “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” ― Margaret Mead
- Investing in relationships and building trusted networks at different levels and across sectors
- Taking our organisational/service hats off and seeing the value of being part of something bigger - genuinely being interested in understanding each other’s world.
- Going where the energy and appetite is – working at the best level and not duplicating effort
- Focusing on a few, collectively agreed, big ticket items and doing these well to achieve a measurable positive difference
- Being agile and keeping things bureaucracy light
- Using innovation to make positive progression to our agreed outcomes.
Better together? What do others say?
"I am inspired, astonished, delighted and in awe of what you are doing in Calderdale and Kirklees, it is brilliant."
- Professor Michael West CBE)
"Collaboration across partners has enabled a sharing of knowledge, skills and resources so we can achieve outcomes that are greater than what each partner could achieve individually. The different perspectives and diversity of backgrounds fosters out of the box thinking and the expertise of each partner complement and enhance each other leading to innovative and effective solutions."
- Jane Kirk, People Development Manager, Calderdale Council
"It has been an innovative piece of ‘working together’ across Kirklees and Calderdale, a sense of proper partnership working involving NHS, local authority, voluntary community social enterprise sector and independent sector colleagues. Whilst it is challenging to work across different organisations what is evident is the absolute commitment to improving and enhancing our offer to the workforce across our social care and health sectors. There is much work to do to achieve equity and parity for our workforce but together we can achieve it."
- James Creegan, CEO KirCA (Kirklees Care Association)
And back to the Dawn of System Leadership – what are seen to be the core capabilities of system wide leaders?
- The ability to see the larger system
- Fostering reflection and more generative conversations
- Shifting the collective focus from reactive problem solving to co-creating the future.
Our role as workforce place leads?
We see ourselves as enablers and facilitators; we ensure connectivity and ‘joined upness’; we start somewhere (usually where the energy is!) and follow it everywhere and anywhere that is useful. We do the groundwork to make it happen because without action we won’t make a difference and that is what we value most.
Are we there yet?
No, this is a marathon not a sprint; it’s based on a relational model and takes time and is a journey, not a destination, but are we better together? Most certainly.
Thank you for reading and have a lovely weekend all.
What else has been happening this week?
Mental health patients launch album as part of their recovery journey
Mental health inpatients in Leeds who’ve improved their health through music are celebrating the launch of an album. “Sometimes Falling Up” is the culmination of a creative project to introduce song writing as a means of improving mental wellbeing and aiding recovery. The services on Ward 5 of the Newsam Centre, provided by Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, are vital in helping people with enduring mental illness gain access to employment, housing, and social/leisure activities through developing links with relevant community-based services and agencies.
Music and art therapy projects like these can be a lifeline for the patients on this locked ward, who can spend long periods isolated from the support of their local families and communities.
Here’s a link to the video news release.
Adversity, Trauma and Resilience Education Awareness Week 2024
Over 100 people joined a range of eight online sessions held as part of our Adversity, Trauma and Resilience Education Awareness Week run jointly with the West Yorkshire Violence and Reduction Partnership. Topics focused on dealing with trauma in our schools, colleges and universities showcasing the work happening to help make West Yorkshire a trauma informed and responsive system by 2030. Presentations included projects supporting young people with challenging behaviour, mobile phone use at home and in schools, belonging as an antidote to trauma, digital and embracing the future, school inclusion and exclusion, neurodiversity and schools at the heart of our communities. Thanks to everyone who took part and especially to our presenters.
The awareness week is a forerunner to the Adversity, Trauma and Resilience Knowledge Exchange which runs over three days from Tuesday 5 March to Thursday 7 March. Day one and two are virtual, run from 9:30 till 4:30 and you can join sessions during the day to best suit your needs. The third day will be face-to-face from 10 till 3 at The Manor, Drighlington, Bradford and places are limited. See the Knowledge Exchange web portal to book your place.
Dr Sohail Abbas appointed Honorary Professor by University of Bradford
Dr Sohail Abbas, Director, Population Health and Inequalities for Bradford District and Craven Health and Care Partnership and Deputy Medical Director for NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, has been appointed an Honorary Professor by the University of Bradford.
Sohail will take on the role for three years until January 2027. Honorary visiting appointees are responsible to the head of the relevant department, who will provide any necessary support and assistance. For Sohail this is Professor Robert James, Dean of Faculty of Life Sciences.
Dr Sohail Abbas, said: “I am delighted to have been nominated and conferred the title of Honorary Professor at the University of Bradford. This is a significant personal achievement and one that will help me deliver on some of my personal passions which include tackling inequalities, encouraging diverse perspectives within the field of health and care and widening participation in further and higher education. I look forward to working with colleagues at the University of Bradford to help it achieve its strategic vision.”
Find out more about the University of Bradford at www.bradford.ac.uk
Pharmacy first
A new national campaign launched this week to raise awareness of the Pharmacy First service.
Pharmacists can now provide some prescription medicine, if needed, without seeing a GP, for seven common conditions including earache, urinary tract infections and insect bites.
Improving Population Health Fellowship class of 2024 mentor recruitment
We are currently recruiting voluntary mentors for our Improving Population Health Fellowship 2024 cohort. This year 56 fellows from across the partnership will spend one day a week working on a chosen project in one of our fellowship areas: health equity; adversity, trauma and resilience; climate change; suicide prevention; anti-microbial resistance.
As a mentor you will guide your fellow in refining, delivering, and evaluating their project through regular 1:1 meetings and feedback on their written, interim project report. We will fully support you throughout the fellowship programme and optional training and development opportunities will be available during the year.
If becoming a mentor is something you are interested in, please see the Improving Population Health Fellowship pages for more information and complete the mentor brief by 3 March 2024 at 9am.