The Adult Social Care team from Kingston Council (RBK) have been awarded a Certificate of Excellence by the Public Sector Transformation Awards.

Announcing their success via RBK's online portal on Wednesday (May 6), a spokesperson revealed that the award had been given for the organization's "work to build a strengths-based care":

"The team’s work to improve resilience has had a significant impact over the last two years.

"Working with teams from across the borough to understand how staff manage their physical and mental wellbeing, it was clear that a new approach was needed that would help to: Improve the way staff manage their own wellbeing, give staff the tools they need to understand and improve their ability to deal with change (and) encourage staff to be mindful of each others’ wellbeing" the spokesperson said.

Indeed, the team's reaction to those challenges seems to have been validated with recognition from the Public Sector Transformation Awards.

Gemma Blunt, Corporate Head of Service Adult Social Care, described how recent improvements had laid the groundwork for this new success:

"We’re so proud of the way everyone contributed to developing the new strength-based service," she said.

"Providing the tools our staff need to look after their emotional resilience and create an environment in which people can talk openly about their mental and physical wellbeing has had a really positive impact on everyone.

“The training programme we’ve developed will help make sure all new staff members have the tools they need to deliver great levels of care while looking after their own wellbeing.

"Our new Resilience Champions will also help make sure all staff have everything they need to support each other and build a stronger, more connected team," Blunt added.

Vicky Middleton, a social worker who’s part of the adult care services team, shared her thoughts on why the team had received the award:

“Resilience sessions are helping to share tools with our colleagues that can help to reduce stress, avoid burn-out, set goals and celebrate success.

"This has helped change the team’s culture and make it normal to talk about our own wellbeing, to celebrate our individual strengths, and remind ourselves of the importance of teamwork.”