Improving Together: Supporting, valuing and respecting our colleagues
Over the last two weeks, Caroline has been on annual leave. To continue with our commitment to publishing a senior leadership blog, I wanted to share some of our important messages for our service users, families, carers, partners and colleagues from the last two weeks.
I wanted to start with a very important reflection on Ramadan, which officially started on Sunday 10 March 2024, after the Crescent Moon was spotted in Saudi Arabia. This marks the beginning of the holy fasting month for many of the world's 1.8 billion Muslims.
As a Trust, we remain committed to supporting, valuing and respecting our colleagues for who they are, including their personal and religious beliefs.
Making sure everyone feels valued and respected means understanding and being responsive to their unique needs. There are some helpful things that managers in our organisation should do to help prepare, which is available on our staff intranet – search ‘Ramadan – guidance for staff and managers’.
The NHS Muslim network also have some really helpful information on their website too; please do take a look.
As a helpful reminder, please remember that as a Trust, we:
- Have a number of multifaith rooms – these silent spaces are for all service users and staff of all faiths and these spaces should be respected as places of prayer and quiet contemplation. Please use other spaces for eating to respect those who are fasting. Dates and water will be available for breaking the fast. If you do not have such a space or are unsure what your colleague needs, ask them what would work for them.
- Should avoid eating around fasting colleagues or bringing in food to share during this time. If you have no choice but to eat in front of someone fasting, rest assured that they will not hold it against you. Instead, don't offer them food or drink or insist that they eat with you. We know that some colleagues with a disability or long-term health condition may need to eat at their desk and we want everyone to feel comfortable. Managers can help promote understanding by talking to colleagues about their needs ahead of time and letting the team know about changes to the way they are working.
- Promote team events to celebrate Eid Al-Fitr ‘The Festival of Sweets’ . At the end of Ramadan your team might like to mark Eid Al-Fitr ‘The Festival of Sweets’ (which is likely to be celebrated from the evening of 9 April until the evening of 10 April 2024). Team events are a great way to build positivity in teams and anyone can join in a celebration with colleagues and share their joy. Just remember to check dates in case a colleague is observing another period of fasting.
- Have two Trust Chaplains, Julie Warren and Celia Cook who are available to offer spiritual support throughout Ramadan and beyond to service users, carers, families and staff members from Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm.
It’s important to recognise many other of our staff networks, groups and forums that take place across our organisation. Our Women's Network is very active and as part of International Women's Day on the 8 March 2024, we created a digital process for colleagues to send acknowledgements to inspirational women across our organisation; over 900 were shared. It was great and important to see such a focus on many of our inspirational colleagues and those who inspire them.
Supporting our colleagues, particularly acknowledging everyone for who they are is something we value highly across our Trust. I am proud to be our organisation wide Executive Sponsor of our Faith, Spirituality and Belief Staff Network and would encourage colleagues who would like to know more to get involved.
Improving our Culture is one of our four Trust wide key priorities. Our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion is important as a Trust and whilst there is more that needs to be done, I am pleased we have a number of active groups and forums taking place across NSFT to help us on our journey to make NSFT a safer, kinder and better organisation for our service users, families, carers and indeed our colleagues.
Staying with the theme of the importance of engaging with our colleagues, I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has got involved with our Listening into Action conversation events which are taking place across Norfolk and Suffolk. These buzzy two-hour events are proving really popular with staff who want to help make sustained improvements to NSFT, no matter how big or small. There’s a few more session taking place over the next few weeks, so if you would like to get involved, please do take a look at our staff intranet and book your place.
This week is social work week, another important opportunity for us to recognise the skill, knowledge, expertise and value our colleagues who work in and with social work bring.
Finally, our next meeting of our Trust Board takes place on Thursday 28 March 2024. The papers will be available ahead of the meeting. As always, when you get chance, as part of team meetings or any other opportunity, please do take a few moments to look through the papers and ask your line manager if you have any questions.
Once again, thank you for everything our service users, families, carers, our partners and colleagues continue to do to help create sustainable, long-term change for our organisation. It is only by working together can make NSFT a safer, kinder and better organisation.
Until next time,
Cath