Jayne Rowlands is the manager of Excel & Exceed, the school based within Cygnet Hospital Bury which serves four Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services wards. She talks about why she became an ambassador for speaking up to create an open environment where people felt safe and encouraged to air concerns.
I chose to become a Freedom to Speak Up Ambassador, because I wanted to do something that could make a difference and drive change. I heard rumblings about things people were not happy about or things they thought were not working in the best way. All too often no action was taken, and I felt this was often was driven by a fear of speaking out. The small stuff was quickly becoming the big stuff when it wasn’t dealt with. Whilst staff are generally confident in reporting safeguarding issues, often lower-level concerns were going unreported.
When I heard people complaining and questioned whether they had raised it, the response would often be ‘what is the point?’ or ‘I’m worried it will affect my relationship with my manager.’
From my perspective, it is about saying there is a point, and change is driven from the bottom up. Being an Ambassador meant I would be able to get the message out there that it is a positive not a negative; that it is safe and non-judgemental and ultimately it is for the greater good for service users and for employees.
As an effective Ambassador, it is important to have no preconceptions and to view the situation with a beginner’s mind-set. What is vital though is how you make the person feel. I cannot expect people to speak up if they don’t trust the process and crucial to this is providing a safe space to speak; ensuring the person knows their conversation will be treated confidentiality by the Freedom to Speak Up Guardian; that they will retain autonomy and consent will be sought before any information is shared (with the caveat of safeguarding).
There may be sensitive or contentious issues discussed and it is imperative that I remain impartial and emotionally detached to be able to fully support the person. No bias or judgement at any point.
Like all Freedom to Speak Up Ambassadors at Cygnet Group, I have received full training on what the barriers to open conversations may be and how to overcome these.
Since taking on the role I have been approached by several members of staff for a variety of reasons. Referring them to the Guardian with relatively small issues at a local level means that we don’t have a bigger issue to deal with later down the line.
I feel the impact of this upon patient and staff wellbeing cannot be underestimated. Better staff wellbeing ultimately leads to better staff care.