Beverley Tarka, President, ADASS
‘Made in Haringey’ was the title of a career talk I did some years ago, reflecting the fact that my career in social care started and developed over a period of 30 years with Haringey Council, a borough where I’ve lived off and on for almost 60 years and worked for over 30 years.
As a senior leader in Haringey, I have often reflected on my career journey. It is rightly the norm now to speak of inclusive leadership. Drawing on people’s experience and the outcomes they want is an organising principle of how we work in social care and is also a current change initiative in Haringey Council. These are all principles that we are utilising to bring about a change in Haringey in terms of our work with our residents. Knowing our communitites, creating space to make good things happen and listening and prioritising relationships are also basic tenets of the ambition we have about the way we work in Haringey.
It is a theme I focused on in my speech as the new President of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) at the end of April 2023, where I also have been explicit about prioritising in my work in the national arena with an emphasis on how we work as well as what we do. A focus on equalities, diversity and inclusion and how we work collobaratively with infomal carers and people with lived experience is key. Allyship is important. Allyship with informal carers, people with lived experience of care and how we work through the lens of their perspectives and their lives. How we amplify, celebrate and support shared ambition is also imperative.
In addition, I highlighted my wish to focus on amplifying the voices of carers during my year of tenure as ADASS president. I resolved to shine a light this year of my presidency on the positive contribution informal carers make to society. In 2015, Sheffield University estimated that unpaid carers’ contribution to the economy across the UK is £132bn. Carers UK has estimated that – during the pandemic – it rose to £193bn or £530m a day. These are powerful statistics that tell their own story, and it is right that ADASS continues to listen to carers, highlight their stories and work to support the identified aims and ambitions of carer organisations. As a society, we have asked a huge amount of carers and – during the pandemic – we asked more again. They rose to the challenge – as they always do – but they are now utterly exhausted. We owe them not just our thanks, not just our respect, but real, meaningful support that will help them carry on and will give caring the status it deserves.
Another area of focus is “prevention,” which I believe is an important narrative to support social care in the public domain. We need to expand our language so that we do not speak about “patients” or “recipients of social care,” but rather all our residents, and extend our considerations and interventions before people are at the acute end of the system. This calls for a change away from the dominant government narrative aligned to hospital discharge, where social care is often maligned and cast as the root of system failures. ‘The Road Map: Time to Act’, commisioned by ADASS with input from people with lived experience of care, outlines how we can take steps in the short, medium and longer term, and focuses on ten areas for action: reimagining care with people who draw on it; improving care planning so people are in the lead; building community capacity for more prevention; supporting people to live at home; better support for carers; joined up care and support; making care more accessible and affordable; diverse providers focused on outcomes; harnessing digital technology and redesigning; and rewarding the care workforce.
I’m very honoured and proud to be the ADASS president and I’ll be doing everything I can to advance the cause of carers, as well as the invaluable assistance, help and support they provide to vulnerable residents across the country, throughout my time in the role.
