‘She has been my cheerleader at every stage of my career’

For Community Care’s 50th anniversary, our My Brilliant Colleague series invites you to celebrate anyone who has inspired you in your career.

In the latest entry, social worker Claire Shaw celebrates her mentor and former practice educator, Sally Lee, who has supported her through her final placement and well into her career in adults’ social work.

I want to nominate Sally Lee as she has and continues to inspire and support me throughout my profession as a social worker.

We met when she was my practice educator for my final social work placement. The placement was in an adults’ mental health social care team and, having worked for over 20 years only within children’s services, this whole placement blew my mind!

Sally nurtured and provided me with the information and support I needed to thrive in this environment.

Following this, I not only made the transition to becoming an adults’ social worker, but I also completed training to be an approved mental health professional (AMHP) and best interests assessor (BIA), with Sally as my practice educator and cheerleader at every stage.

If I ever have a question, she is my go-to person. She will not only know the answers but help me understand the rationale behind them.

Now, in a full-circle moment, I have completed my practice educator training. I continue to aspire to be half the person she is within this role.

Hopefully I can be the pillar of support Sally has been to me for someone else in their social work journey.

How to nominate a colleague

For our 50th anniversary, we’re expanding our series My Brilliant Colleague to include anyone who has inspired you in your career – whether current or former colleagues, managers, students, lecturers, mentors or prominent past or present sector figures whom you have admired from afar.

Nominate your colleague or social work inspiration by either:

• Filling in our nominations form with a letter or a few paragraphs (100-250 words) explaining how and why the person has inspired you.
• Or sending a voice note of up to 90 seconds to +447887865218, including your and the nominee’s names and roles.

Despite the need to provide your name and role, you or the nominee can be anonymous in the published entry.

If you have any questions, email our community journalist, Anastasia Koutsounia, at anastasia.koutsounia@markallengroup.com.