Hosting Future Leaders in Social Work

Leadership Session on Restrictive Practices

We were delighted to be asked by the Health & Social Care Leadership Centre to provide an insight visit for Social Workers across Northern Ireland who are doing a course on leadership.  In ARC NI we pride ourselves in asking ‘how can we help’ when we are approached but also ‘what could we improve’.  The Mental Capacity Act has not yet been fully implemented in NI.  We also know that restraint and seclusion has been in the news and is an area that can negatively impact people with a learning disability.  So we decided to help future social work leaders think about this topic through listening to different views.

We created an exciting, creative and thought-provoking session.  We asked for help from the Department of Health, a learning disability provider and of course, Experts By Experience (three of our TILII members).

Together we explained our roles and responsibilities and discussed our experience and challenges that we can face. We described the work  we have been doing to support the implementation of the regional policy to reduce restrictive practice.  This includes offering training on Human Rights and Restrictive Practice and a Peer Support Network to help providers of services reduce restrictive practice.

Experts By Experience explained the impact restraint and seclusion can have on a person.  The session concluded in thinking how leaders need to work together to provide the best support to people who are experiencing distress.

Feedback

The feedback from participants’ was very positive.

“All the presentations were really interesting and thought provoking.  Each from slightly different perspectives and angles on how the policy is and will impact.  The contributions from the service users were powerful and insightful.  As always this helps to remind me that leadership comes from so many different sources.  Thank you for your input and thoughts on leadership.  It is so inspiring for my learning and early leadership journey to see how you lead with such compassion and care.  But also how much you value and model collaboration.”