During our strand, your organisation will benefit from:

Launch Event:
All participating organisations will be invited to attend an online 90-min launch of our programme strand. Our launch event will explain more about how to prepare for the course, what to expect, and answer questions. The nominated staff from your ward are most welcome to attend, however if they can't make it we will provide a virtual recording of the meeting. 

Site Visits:
Within 6 weeks of starting, we will visit your ward in person to get to know the current strengths and challenges on your ward. This will involve 1-1s and discussions with staff and local experts by experience. You can learn more about what to expect from a site visit in our guide here.

Training Programme:
Your team representatives will be invited to a full-day, in-person training session in Birmingham with other teams taking part from across the country. We will discuss your goals in providing more holistic care, and how to lead cultural change with your team.

Project Coaching for Teams:
Your team representatives will design and implement a cultural improvement project for your ward over 5 months. You will be supported via a monthly 1 hour coaching session co-faciliated by ImROC peer advisors. 

Reflective Practice:
One nominated member of your team will be invited to a 2-day online bespoke course in reflective practice. We will support your team to embed an effective regular reflective practice. Regular, high quality reflective practice provides a forum for all staff to safely share concerns and a greater sense as a group that they can deliver the changes they want to see.

Community of Practice:
Your team representatives will be invited to 2x structured virtual discussions with groups of teams. Sessions will be co-run with people with lived experience. These communities of practice will be a space to identify your common challenges and solutions with other ward teams, allowing you to share learnings.

1:1 Coaching Sessions:
At any stage in the programme, anyone from your team representatives may ask to receive 1:1 support from our development coaches. These sessions will focus on your individual development of active listening and relational working skills and will be co-faciliated by ImROC peer advisors. You can learn more about what to expect from individual coaching in our guide here.

Dates for delivery

There will be 3 cohorts of our course over the next 2 years. Each course takes 6 months to complete. 

We will advertise to register new teams prior to the beginning of each cohort.

Indicative start dates for the 3 cohorts:

• Cohort 1: September 2024
• Cohort 2: Early Spring 2025
• Cohort 3: Autumn 2025

If your organisation is interested in taking advantage of this offer, you will need to select at least two of your wards to take part. You will then be invited to select 3-4 members of the ward staff team from each of these wards.

Each nominated ward member will need to commit an average of a few hours a week over the course of the 6 month period, with a small number of all day events also included.   

Teams that are suitable for the Staff Care & Development strand

1. The ward team belongs to an organisation providing inpatient mental health care in England.
2. You are able to nominate at least 2, and no greater than 4 ward teams from your organisation.
3. Your nominated wards will have a permanent leadership structure that is able to support the teams over the course of the programme.
4. Your nominated wards will have sufficient staff capacity to allow 3-4 staff members who have time to engage with the programme. All ward staff are welcome.
5. We welcome applications from organisations already enrolled in different strands of the Culture of Care programme, for instance ‘Quality improvement - a culture of care’ or the MHAQI programme. However, we strongly recommend that you nominate different wards from your organisation to take part in our strand, so as to ensure wards are not overwhelmed.
6. To ensure all wards participating in national programmes are delivering services that align with NHS England's 2024 Commissioning framework for mental health inpatient services, we have been asked not to include 'locked rehabilitation wards' in the programme at this time. We welcome you to instead nominate other wards within your organisation.
7. The executive leadership of your organisation should be aware of your application, to ensure that there is broad organisational buy in to support the wards with resourcing and their change projects.

If you have any questions about suitability, please contact us at cultureofcare@thepsc.co.uk.