Skills for Care has launched a wellbeing guide to support registered managers; who often have complex and busy leadership roles; to better manage their own professional and personal wellbeing.
The new guide; ‘Wellbeing for registered managers: a practical survival guide’; is available to registered manager members of Skills for Care. Members are part of a growing community of managers who aim to improve the quality of care in adult social care and many will already be on their wellbeing journey.
The wellbeing guide introduces registered managers to the ‘Five Ways to Wellbeing’ – Connect, Be active, Take notice, Keep learning and Give – based on evidence from the New Economics Foundation. It asks managers to consider how the five ways relate to them as an individual and a professional.
Skills for Care CEO, Sharon Allen, commented: “Registered managers quite rightly take pride in their ability to care for others – it’s what they’re good at – but they can often neglect their own wellbeing.
“This guide recognises that this high profile role is sometimes tough and challenging and that compromising personal health and wellbeing isn’t really an option.
“I would encourage managers to consider their own wellbeing journey first, so that they’re well equipped to look after themselves, their teams and those they support. I’m certain that I would have found this guide invaluable if it had been available when I was first in a management role in social care.”
The wellbeing guide supports managers to recognise that their role demands a lot, and as someone who works hard and cares for others, they should remember to care about themselves.
The guide describes wellbeing as falling into the following areas:
- doing things that promote a sense of individual vitality
- living a meaningful and fulfilling life that makes us feel in control of our lives and resilient to what’s out of our control
- having a broad range of support and resources to help us manage our lives as best we can
- helping ourselves to help others by focusing on our own wellbeing.
The guide is the go-to resource for registered managers at whatever stage they are on their wellbeing journey and includes practical information, top tips, case studies, action plans and workbook exercises. It first invites them to think about and assess their own wellbeing. They can then dip in and out of the resource, completing the workbook exercises in each of the five sections and reflect upon their initial wellbeing assessment. Managers can build their own wellbeing plan, piece-by-piece, based on the Five Ways and by using a broad range of resources to help themselves, become more resilient.
Bill Mumford, Skills for Care Fellow and co-author of the guide added: “As care professionals, I feel we have a moral duty to ensure our own wellbeing is not neglected. A happy registered manager tends to create a happy team, which in turn leads to good care.
“There’s a growing body of evidence that shows our ability to care for others is significantly reduced when we’re feeling out of sorts ourselves. This practical guide therefore promotes the importance of wellbeing for registered managers and is a really important tool for managing wellbeing on a daily basis.”
‘Wellbeing for registered managers: a practical survival guide’ is available exclusively to registered manager members of Skills for Care. It’s available free to renewing members in 2018/19 and for new members from the Skills for Care’s bookshop for only £20.
Find out more about the benefits of registered manager membership here.
