It's not us and them, we are them

Claire Molloy (top) and
Chantal Basson (bottom)

We are continuing our series of guest blogs with a wonderful contribution from Dr Chantal Basson, lead consultant clinical child psychologist.

In her guest blog Chantal talks openly about the challenges she has faced as a child, student and adult: from Burnley to the Middle East and soon to the Caribbean. 

She also covers her passion about the job, the CAMHS name change and the humbling and inspirational impact of working with incredible colleagues and brave families.

Dr Chantal Basson, lead consultant clinical child psychologist

I came into CAMHS as a psychologist for children and families affected by learning disabilities. I’ve been really lucky to have had a really rich career in Pennine Care and am grateful for all of the opportunities that this has brought my way. In particular, Sara Barnes and Jason Smith really helped me pave my way.

I feel particularly privileged due to having started out in very poor areas of Burnley and Stockport. Life changed dramatically when my dad secured a job in the Middle East when I was four. Suddenly, I was on the beach every day and learning to water ski! When I was six I became partially deaf through illness and learnt to adapt to a new sense of balance and hearing.

Mental health services are close to my heart as, having experienced some intergenerational trauma in my family and as a university student and young adult, I accessed mental health services to help me understand some of my experiences and internal struggles.

I am passionate about working with children in CAMHS, because I know that the earlier we help families and children with their emotional wellbeing and mental health, the better their outcomes. I feel that my own experiences have made me want to champion child mental health, but also to work on the stigma of mental health: that it’s not us and them, and that we are them.

I hear so many inspiring stories from colleagues about their own experience of services, and yet I feel that this is an area that is still not spoken about enough. We know that more staff than ever are accessing our wellbeing services, and I am so relieved to hear this. I’ve also accessed some wellbeing sessions from the resilience hub, and have found them enormously helpful in getting through the difficult time that the pandemic has brought for all of us.

Changing our name will help our families, communities and partner agencies understand who we are and what we do, as well as being aligned with our Greater Manchester partners. And while we are changing our name, we aren’t changing our enthusiasm and passion. Our services are filled with the most incredible staff that I’ve had the privilege to work with and I gain my inspiration from them every day.

I’ve been lucky to grow with Pennine Care for the last 15 years and, in that time, I’ve worked with some incredible families.

One that comes to mind is a family where a young person had experienced an asthma attack at age 14, and who had developed a severe brain injury. Working with the parent in their time of severe grief was one of the most humbling and rewarding pieces of work I’ve done in my career.

Another time, I worked with a parent who found it really hard to access services for her son with a moderate learning disability. We never managed to make it to a comfortable place and, although she attended appointments, it was really hard for us to make progress together. I still see her in Tesco from time to time. It was still an enormous privilege and each family I have worked with has a small area in my memory where I keep hold of them. The bravery and perseverance of so many individuals I’ve worked with is incredible.

During my time in CAMHS, my hobbies and family have also grown.

I’m passionate about wellbeing and try to look after myself, as well as others in our services. With a love of all things outdoors, my husband and I were avid rock climbers and snow-boarders when I came into CAMHS, but since then we’ve taken up kite surfing, paragliding (given up because it’s terrifying) and scuba diving. Our daughters (2½  and 6) now climb, and I’m looking forward to getting them scuba diving when they’re old enough.

I am soon to be off on my own new journey and adventure, living and working in the Caribbean. I’ll be working with children and families who experience a variety of mental health difficulties, but some of which is the result of intergenerational trauma and difficulties rooted in the history of slavery.

With the amount of investment in and transformation across our systems, I am really hopeful about the future of CAMHS and hope to leave a little of my ideas in the planning for this.

Thank you.

Life and plans, retirement and journeys, soul and roles

 “Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” 

I’ve said before that this line from John Lennon is one of my favourite quotes. With our world being turned upside down by covid, it feels more poignant than ever. 

After the excitement of agreeing our five year plan in early 2020, who would have envisaged that we would then spend so many long, hard months grappling with this pandemic rather than taking forward our big ambitions.

It’s given us all perspective on what’s important in life and it’s certainly made me reflect deeply on the future and my life going forward.

Sometimes we have to take a deep breath and make decisions that are right for us personally, even if it impacts on others. There’s never an ‘ideal time’ to step away in a job like this, as there’s always more to do.

A continuous improvement mind-set means we could just keep going and going. But I do think it is the right time for me to step down now.

It has been an emotionally draining and difficult decision to retire after nearly 30 years in the NHS, but steering Pennine Care forward into the next chapter of its journey is a longer term job that will better suit someone able to throw themselves completely into that challenge for the next few years.

I will treasure my time with the NHS and this organisation, and the memories and amazing people I’ve worked with will stay in my heart forever. As they say, I’m going to try not to cry when it’s over in six months, but smile because it happened. 

In the truest sense of the John Lennon quote, my NHS journey was never planned. I did science A levels and went to University doing a science degree (microbiology and pharmacology), with the notion I would probably end up either doing research into new treatments or as a pathologist (for the older readers, I watched a lot of Quincy when I was younger!).

But I met my husband in my first year and, even though he had been told he couldn’t have children as a result of cancer treatment, we found out at the start of my second year he could! So I dropped out of university when I was pregnant with my daughter at the tender age of 19.

I then started a series of jobs to literally pay the rent and survive, eventually going back to university as a mature student to do something completely different - business studies.

When I graduated and was looking for jobs, the NHS appealed as it brought together my interest in science with my degree in business studies - even though the NHS is far from the sort of business most of my friends ended up in.

But most importantly, I was looking for an organisation that valued diversity and wouldn’t discriminate against a 30 year old graduate with two kids. The NHS is such an inclusive institution compared to some others, and I felt intuitively that it was the right place for me.

I secured a place on the NHS management training scheme and over three decades have been fortunate to work in a wide range of different organisations and places: acute, primary, community and, of course, mental health and learning disability services. When I finally got into mental health and learning disability services I felt like I had really found my ‘home’. And home is where the heart is as they say.

I’ve always tried to take jobs that are challenging, where I could make a positive contribution, and where there was personal learning, but most of all, where you have fun. We spend a lot of time in work, so it’s been hugely important for me to enjoy my job. And I have been incredible lucky that in the main, I have.

I’ve been put at risk seven times in my career (the not so enjoyable bit), but although painful at the time, I wouldn’t ever have been a CEO if this hadn’t happened. And for this I am so thankful, as it has definitely been one of the most enjoyable and rewarding roles I have done.

There has been such a lot of other change during my thirty years. We’ve had 12 different health secretaries over my NHS career (the first being Virginia Bottomley for those who remember her), and I’ve worked for eight different bosses. I’ve been so lucky they have all been inspiring and brilliant people. And my last job, here with you, has absolutely been one of the most rewarding.

Having been chief exec at two previous organisations before I came to Pennine Care, I felt I was able to bring the confidence and clarity that you personally get from learning and making mistakes. I hope I was able to make a better fist of being a CEO in this organisation as a result of this. Mistakes definitely have the power to turn us into something better than we were before. That’s how we grow.

I hope that the work I’ve led here around about our culture and values has been seen as positive and inclusive, as you are the culture and these are your values. The chief exec may set the tone and direction of travel, but can never do it alone. Lots of people contributed to this, and you will continue to live and breathe these values long after I retire.  No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.

I’m not skipping off into the sunset yet; there’s lots to do over the next six months, for example recalibrating our five year plan as the pandemic has understandably impacted on this. We want to be aspirational, but we definitely need one foot in the reality of where the last 18 months have left us.

So I want to be able to retire knowing I’ve done as much as I can to ‘bake in’ our philosophy, style, and direction of travel, and not start to wind down or defer any decisions. It’s important that your next chief exec can pick up a strategy that we’ve committed to and we’re already on our journey.

And in terms of my successor, we’re going to look for a permanent position straight away. Evelyn our chair is leading this and if there’s a gap between me going and the new person starting, then Clare Parker my deputy – who has been with me since the start of my journey here – would stand in as a very able interim chief exec in the meantime.

It’s all about the team and, although I know we’ve had some other leadership changes recently, there are many other talented and committed members to keep steering our ship forward.

I love the quote “Be defined by your soul, not your role”. It has been a privilege to use my role as chief exec to lead this organisation, but what I hope you have seen more than anything is, regardless of whatever role we hold, that we all have the capacity for kindness, compassion and to make a difference.

Best wishes

Claire

Loss, legacy, love and looking back as well as forward

Claire Molloy (top) and
Sara Barnes (bottom)

I’m delighted that Sara Barnes has written a guest blog for this week. After three decades in the NHS, Sara has just retired and is sharing some of the changes, challenges and joys over 32 years of unstinting commitment.

Sara began her career as a mental health nurse, before moving into management and then senior leadership roles in mental health services. She has been with our Trust since its formation and has always led with gentle humility, big-hearted kindness and insightful compassion. She has inspired everyone to be caring and respectful, and for that reason, has always had the great admiration of colleagues. 

Thank you for bringing out the best in us Sara. We wish you a wonderful retirement. Enjoy all of the exciting adventures ahead of you.

Sara Barnes

Retiring from the NHS after 32 years as a nurse and a leader, and losing my mum so close together, has made me think a lot about legacy and reflect on my own journey.

My mum was a child and family social worker and she taught me, through her actions and her words, that it’s ok to make mistakes (especially if you have someone to pick you up and cheer you on), to always do the right thing even if it feels the hardest option, to make the most of what you have, and to fiercely and passionately do what you can to help those without a voice be heard. 

I’m really proud of the imprint she has left on so many children and families lives over her career, as well as of course enriching our own family’s lives with her tenacity, her love and her laughter. I hold firm to these beliefs and can see them in my two daughters as they set off on their own very different careers.

Young Sara and her mum

One of my really strong memories of my adolescence was of my mum taking on the role of animal rescuer in her social work team. I recall many after-school trips to houses where an often sick or neglected dog or cat was placed on my knee in the car for us to take home, restore to health and either keep or rehome. Of course, this would not happen nowadays, but I loved having this small window into her work world and met many inspirational families who through poverty, domestic violence, mental health or physical health needs could no longer care for their pets and had made the brave decision to give them up. 

Little wonder then that I followed mum into a caring profession. 

After wanting to be a vet from the age of two, I realised after dramatically failing my A levels that I really wasn’t very good at science and should probably rethink my choice of career; something that felt devastating at the time but I now realise led me onto a more fulfilling path.

Unsure of what I wanted to do, I was fortunate enough to find a course that combined a degree in psychology with mental health nurse training.  From the outset, what got me up in the mornings was being a nurse, but doing both really enriched my learning and was a wonderful experience. 

During my training I also worked as an agency nurse, mainly in elderly mentally infirm nursing homes, and had my first experiences of seeing incredibly compassionate care, but also very poor quality and harmful care that I vehemently challenged. Sadly I’m not sure there was the regulation and governance in place for my challenges to make a real difference, but the feeling of determination to always champion high quality and safe care remains with me to this day.

Once I qualified I knew I wanted to move back to Manchester, having lived in London during my training, and so I worked at The Priory in Altrincham for a while until I found a role in Stockport CAMHS.

I recall very clearly the first time I stepped into the Stockport CAMHS service to take up my D grade staff nurse role. I knew I had found where I belonged. It felt then (and still does today) a privilege to be able to spend time with young people and their families, to hear their stories of adversity and survival and to provide care and support to help them achieve their goals. I couldn’t believe my luck getting a job as a nurse and spending my days being with young people.

I remained in Stockport CAMHS for many years as both a clinician and a manager and I’m really proud to have been a part of the exciting transformation journey that CAMHS underwent to reach more young people, reduce waiting times, implement care pathways and engage young people and families as partners in their care.

During this time, I met many amazing young people and their families and worked with very committed and compassionate colleagues; as I changed job roles, taking me further from the frontline delivery of services, their experiences and voices stayed with me keeping me grounded and connected to the core purpose of our work.

In 2006, Stockport was the last borough to come into Pennine Care and this allowed all of the different CAMHS teams to come together in a directorate to share experiences and learning, foster creativity and, most importantly, have a strong sense of togetherness and community. It also inspired me to seek a role where I could make a difference through system leadership and, whilst it was a wrench, I left Stockport CAMHS and took on first a CAMHS Trust wide role and then a wider leadership role including additional services and boroughs.  

Over the next few years there were some pivotal points of change both for me personally and for the way mental health services were delivered.  Greater Manchester devolution allowed us an opportunity to do things at scale and feel part of something bigger and better connected across health and social care; but more importantly, it allowed Pennine Care to recognise, celebrate and share the amazing care being delivered, despite the longstanding lack of resources and ever-increasing demands.

This meant we led the way in the development of a number of care pathways across Greater Manchester and made our case to bring in resources to redress the resource gap and achieve our own ambitions for our services.

The Manchester Arena attack in 2017 tested the resilience and connectedness of the system, and I can proudly say everyone came together to do the right thing and the Manchester Resilience Hub was born. It has gone from strength to strength, offering care and support to those affected by this and other traumatic events, including most recently focusing on the impact of covid on health and care professionals.

There are so many people I am grateful to that I can’t do justice to them all in these few words. I do want to thank all the people - both staff and service users - that have inspired, challenged, humbled and touched me over the years with their resilience, courage, hope and can-do attitude in the face of adversity and challenge. 

I also want to thank all the people who believed in me, let me be myself and most importantly believed me when I said they could do anything they wanted to.

The last two years during covid have been the hardest, but also the most inspirational and proud years of my career. I have seen people dig deep and come to work day after day, not knowing what they would face and having the wellbeing of their family and friends constantly on their minds. I’ve seen people adjusting their lives significantly to bring their work into their homes and families, and I’ve had the opportunity to work with lots of different people and see that integrity, respect and compassion form the backbone of Pennine Care.

During this time, I’ve also seen my mum courageously battle Lewy Body dementia and receive compassionate high quality care from those very services that I have been so proud to lead.

I approach retirement with sadness at so many endings, but anticipation and excitement about what will come next, and knowing I have an interesting, fulfilling and varied career to look back on with pride, gratitude and laughter, and have many people and achievements etched in my memory.

I’ve included a photograph of me in what I consider my natural state out in the countryside with my dogs, and I am looking forward to spending more time with my dogs and with my family making more memories.

Black History Month: the beauty of diversity, hearing the pain, looking in the mirror

Claire Molloy (top) and
Amraze Khan (bottom)

It’s Black History Month and this year the theme is ‘Proud to be’. 

It’s so important show our support and foster an understanding of Black History. We also need to recognise that the fight for equality continues, as well as celebrate Black experiences and achievements.

I’m therefore delighted that Amraze Khan our new head of equality, diversity and inclusion has written a guest blog for this week.

Amraze Khan

I sit here listening to a song by Kerala Settle, from the magnificent musical, The Greatest Showman. I remain so attuned to what she is saying. She screams from the top of her lungs, “This is me” and I agree with every single lyric, nodding along passionately. Being proud of who you are is the key theme of this year’s Black History Month. 

We have so much beautiful diversity in our society, in our communities and across our population, yet there are still moments where people are not celebrated and championed for who they are.

Black History Month remains a pivotal event to ensure we recognise, understand and educate ourselves on the contributions of people from the Black community on British history. In an ideal world we would not have to celebrate Black History, but many things, including the murder of George Floyd, has shown us that racial injustices are still prevalent in our society and we must proactively become anti-racist to route this behaviour out. 

Obviously you’ll see that I am not from the Black community. I do not have and do not proclaim to have endured the experiences that our Black colleagues, peers, friends and service users have experienced. But I’ve heard the pain Black people have gone through.

I’ve seen the impact it has on people’s lives and I stand shoulder to shoulder with our Black communities and workforce as a proud ally to make a difference. To tell every single person affected that I will listen, that I care, that I want to know how we can make things better for you, how we can ensure you have equitable access to our services, and to ensure the colour of a person’s skin does not determine your experience of working at Pennine Care. 

As an Asian man myself, I know I hold my own privileges. And when I say that out loud, some people have asked me, why that is the case, because after all, I’m part of the BAME community.

The phrase BAME is a danger itself. It provides the view that we all have the same experiences - that because we are part of marginalised groups, the inequalities experienced are all the same and that is not true whatsoever. Each community badged in the phrase ‘BAME’ have their own challenges and battles they come across and I know my Black colleagues, friends and service users face a more difficult experience than many of us.

Data suggests that Black people are four times more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act than White people. Black women are still four times more likely than white women to die in pregnancy or childbirth in the UK, and women from Asian ethnic backgrounds face twice the risk. Black people were eight times more likely than White people to be stopped and searched by Police in 2018/19. Black students remain the lowest group in achieving a first or second class degree from a Higher Education Institute, 17% lower than their White counterparts.

The numbers are truly shocking. The stories I’ve heard are just as heartbreaking.

I’ve heard from Black peers and colleagues, the instances when people cross the road when they see them walking because they are stereotyped a particular way. Or a colleague mentioned to me fairly recently that she tells her children not to wear hoodies because of how they are perceived. Yet some of us from other communities would not batter an eye lid in wearing hoodies.

These are some things I’ve heard about and seen myself. And you might be thinking, ‘So what Amraze?’ You may have heard these figures before and have been alarmed. But what have you done personally yourself to make a difference?

I want you to hold that mirror up and really challenge yourself and see what part you are playing in this. We all hold privileges. Simply saying you are not racist, is not good enough. You must proactively be anti-racist, to challenge yourself, your colleagues, your family members and friends to break down behaviours and attitudes. Let’s all use our platforms to educate people, to champion diversity and embrace difference. 

So during this Black History Month why not learn more about the work, compassion, determination or the loving qualities of amazing Black leaders and role models?

We’re undertaking a range of activities which we hope you can take part in and also have a Race Equality Network to allow our diverse workforce come together, to discuss ideas, innovations and to engage, advise and scrutinise our work to embed improvements.

This is me.