My First Year as Advocacy Manager - Jane Kingston

Sometimes it’s important to stop and reflect, and at Connected Voice we are in annual appraisal season. This is an opportunity for our team to celebrate the wins and take stock of all the learning and development achieved 12 months on from when we set our work goals.

A year ago I was newly in post as Manager of the Advocacy Service, super excited with a head full of new business plans and budgets, anticipating how the year would go.  Little did I know that the Covid-19 pandemic would still be at the forefront of our minds and behaviours.   

 

Going above and beyond in a global health crisis

So much has happened in the last twelve months and I am so proud of our response to Covid-19. None of our services stopped as a result of the enduring pandemic, and in fact many of our services were in more demand than ever. So many people needed crisis care, safeguarding and support to challenge restrictions.   Keeping services running was our main priority, whilst ensuring that the staff and service users were kept safe and that risks were carefully assessed.  With government guidance changing regularly we had to make sure our team were promptly informed and equipped to do their valuable ‘key work’.  The breaches to vulnerable people’s human rights were making national headlines with stories of shocking restrictions and blanket decisions being made in a rush. The role of Independent Advocates was high profile this year showing just how valuable our job really is to ensure a person centred approach to decision making.

As if all that wasn’t enough to keep things going, we have actually continued to grow as a service. We responded to rising demand with newly grant funded projects and spot contracts, forging new partnerships, research and exciting developments. We continued to innovate and rebuilt our self-advocacy app, making a more user friendly and accessible version of DIY Advocate an online tool to help people tackle their problems in their own time. 

 

Forging new partnerships and sharing resources

Managing in a global pandemic has been a challenge for most leaders, and I have been reassured to hear from others and learn how they respond to crisis.  As part of global and national communities online I regularly speak to experienced leaders, hearing CEOs of international companies facing the same dilemmas and I have been humbled by the ultimate leveller that is the pandemic.  As well as good practice, we have shared our fears and concerns over leading teams through turbulent times and this camaraderie reminds me how important allies and support networks are.  I have been impressed with how the advocacy sector in particular has put aside fears of competition and come together to share resources, think through the hard stuff together, create principles to work to and respond to policy and legislation change together with a louder cohesive voice.  Even in a year of crisis we have made sure that strategic approaches were coordinated and that advocacy practitioners influenced policy.

 

Embracing technology and being mindful of digital exclusion

In just a few months we have assimilated new language such as ‘zooming’ ‘you are muted’ ‘being pinged’.  Focusing on the positive I can see how remote working has resulted in efficiencies and pushed us to be more technologically savvy and paper-free.  Being ever mindful of digital exclusion for people we work with, my team seems happy to keep the good bits and create a hybrid approach to office/client working. Working remotely certainly has its benefits but I find that ‘Managing Remotely’ can be challenging. Managing a team relies so much on building relationships and this takes time and dedication. I miss the camaraderie and impromptu chats in an office environment and handling sensitive issues with staff is also so much better face to face.

The team around me has changed and evolved at such a pace this last year.  A few advocates put their retirement plans in action which created some vacancies. New faces have joined our team, and several people were promoted, including three volunteers who joined our staff team. Remote recruitment is interesting as we frequently got to meet candidate’s kids, pets and even window cleaners. Building a new team dynamic over video call took effort and forced us all to be creative to forge a new sense of ‘team’.  Realising how much we lost from in the office modelling from each other, our induction and training programmes needed tweaking to work better remotely. Using a range of formats for the diversity in the team, technology really lends itself to pushing managers to be more creative to adapt to different learning styles in the team.

 

Leading a team successfully through remote working

Sometimes it has felt like managing with blinkers on as all I see are two dimensional squares on a screen. So it’s been important to create a new group culture online. As a manager I tried all the popular techniques to bring a sense of togetherness in the team with quizzes, group exercises and informal video drop-ins. But I also know it is important to offer vision and direction and that is where business planning comes in, ensuring each staff member understands the important part they play in the big picture, and have a personal sense of that is expected and how to celebrate success. Consulting with the team is a key part of my leadership style so this year I have taken time to hear from everyone in a variety of ways. So now I can adapt things based on what the team tell me, which has helped to identify plans for how the service can work in the new post Covid-19 world.

 

Tackling mental health

There is no denying we have seen a secondary mental health pandemic alongside Covid-19. Who hasn’t been impacted by the fear of the virus and changes to our daily lives? When signs started showing that people were struggling personally or professionally due to the relentlessness of the pandemic I invited Andy Bird, Leadership Coach to share tips with the team on resilience for the long haul. This gave a much needed reminder to put our own oxygen masks on before we help others. Recognising that the staff are our assets and need time out to look after themselves in order to help others.  

 

I look back with a sense of pride in the team I work with, they have risen to the challenges and focused on the common goal that we all share, that is to support people to have a voice, quality of life, and a world free from inequality.   I feel that we are ready to embrace whatever the ‘new normal’ working world will bring. This year we have some exciting new projects lined up and look forward to celebrating 25 years of delivering quality advocacy.