‘She has revolutionised the way we approach life story work’

Our My Brilliant Colleague series invites you to celebrate anyone who has inspired you in your career. It is part of Community Care’s ongoing Choose Social Work campaign, which aims to champion the brilliant work social workers do every day and inspire the next generation of practitioners.

In this entry, Debbie Elsheikh, service manager of Salford council’s workforce learning and development team, celebrates workforce development officer Vicky Wright.

She praises Vicky for ‘revolutionising’ practitioners’ approach to life story work, embedding it earlier in the process of their practice with children.

Vicky is the most creative person I know and highly passionate about children and supporting staff.

I recently involved her in a project to improve our life story work and she went over and above in what she did.

She listened and collaborated with staff, who told us that they needed help with templates and asked that the work started earlier in the journey of the child. Vicky responded to the need.

She did not just create one template for life story work, she created three for under-10s and three for over-10s, to support children at different stages of their journey. The templates are beautifully presented.

Some cover examples of Vicky’s life story books for social workers. Photo by Debbie Elsheikh

Vicky thought long and hard about what the social workers needed, given that they are busy and time-poor, but we want them to start life story work earlier.

She designed the books to be used for direct work and for getting to know the children, as well as for life story work. This meant social workers were not doing additional work, but had tools to use at each stage with children.

When she launched the project, she did a briefing and was so enthusiastic and passionate that practitioners immediately seemed to take on board what she said.

They loved the child-focused templates and we have seen beautiful examples of work since.

Vicky has really revolutionised the way we work in Salford. Her passion and talent have shone through and impressed not just us, but also colleagues in Greater Manchester.

She has gone above and beyond her original ask and given her whole heart to the project, because she wants to better the lives of children.

We are very proud of her!

How to nominate a colleague

You can nominate 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 filling in our nominations form with a letter or a few paragraphs (100-250 words) explaining how and why the person has inspired you.

*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.