The new leader of England’s adult social care chiefs will put a steely focus during her year in charge on social justice, equality and saving and improving lives.
Beverley Tarka, the new president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), is also passionate about the need to highlight the positive contribution informal carers make to society.
It is clear to see how those commitments are shaped and inspired by her own rich life experiences.
In her powerful first speech as president at the ADASS Spring Seminar last week she explains her parents were of the Windrush generation. Her youngest brother David was born with profound and multiple disabilities.
Talking to The MJ as she steps into her new role, she says David lived with their mother, who was his informal carer, until six years ago when he moved into supported living. ‘During that period I provided lots of caring and was in a supporting role for my mother.’
Her mother is 89, and is still living at home. She adds: ‘There’s something around the holistic support she receives, not just from me but from other family members that enables her to make choices’.
She is director of adults and health at Haringey LBC, a borough she has lived in on and off for almost 60 years – and where her career in social care started and then developed over 30 years.
One of her priorities is to continue to focus on equalities, diversity and inclusion. As the first black president of ADASS, what does diversity mean to her? She mentions the importance of understanding the ‘granularity of communities’.
She adds ‘There’s something for me about how we responded during the Covid pandemic that gave us lots of learning about being within our communities. We used faith groups to support vaccine rollout for example.
‘I’d like to capture the essence of how that worked, and continue as far as possible in terms of working alongside our communities.’
In her speech she talks about the importance of all of ADASS’ members playing a role in developing and embedding inclusive leadership. As the equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) lead for Haringey, she feels there is an increasing awareness about how they can work to support better representation at senior levels within the organisation. She says the chief executive, Andy Donald, is ‘very values driven, there’s a very real focus on EDI and working alongside him is really a pleasure’.
Last week ADASS published Time to act: a roadmap to reform care and support in England, a practical action plan focused on 10 main areas for change over the next 10 years. The report, commissioned by the departing president of ADASS Sarah McClinton, contains 15 Diverse by Design principles to increase the diversity of the social care workforce and inclusive leadership.
Ms Tarka is adamant that the roadmap, which received a very warm response from ADASS delegates last week, is a ‘tool’ that gives social care some much-needed agency, as well as a narrative. ‘Very often you go into Government meetings and we can end up very reactive to the dominant discourse of the day’.
‘There’s something for me around being armed with what we want for social care, a focus on how we’ve arrived at what we want, to take into those conversations with Government officials.’
She says: ‘The narrative for social care is a shift from the dominant discourse around discharge, a focus on prevention, and just getting that in one document. I was really pleased by the reception – there was a buzz in the room. It felt like “yes, we’ve finally got a resource that speaks to everyone”’.
Shadow care minister Liz Kendall says the Government’s £750m programme to tackle delayed discharges has only led to 472 fewer people stuck in hospital at the end of March compared to when the first tranche of funding was announced in November. What is Ms Tarka’s view about national policy and politics increasingly being focused on the acute hospital end of the system? She says: ‘People are telling us they want care closer to home. It’s something I feel really strongly about in terms of recovery because I don’t think our people are being well served.
‘There’s a real void there in terms of appropriate recovery services for people who have been discharged from hospital. It affects the outcomes for people’, she adds. ‘It affects the cost of social care, because that complexity and acuity we’ve seen increase through the pandemic means that if people don’t get the right recovery they actually end up needing complex, long-term high-cost social care. Hence the shift and the focus that is needed on prevention.’
On an optimistic note, she says it was ‘really pleasing’ to hear one seminar speaker, Professor Adam Gordon, who is President of the British Geriatrics Society, tell ADASS’s delegates that there is a ‘mood change’ within the NHS on the need for a fresh approach. Professor Gordon says - in an important shift in that narrative – that the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine Dr Adrian Boyle realises we need to look to social care for some of the solutions.
The ADASS president’s view is that this shift needs to be built upon: ‘That was very positive but how can we keep that focus in the system in terms of the importance of that?’
As councils gear up for local authority adult social care inspections, The MJ can reveal only three councils so far – Lincolnshire CC, Birmingham City Council and Nottingham City Council – have come forward as volunteer pilot areas out of the five that the Care Quality Commission said would be selected for assessments to be carried out before September. Are members feeling nervous about assurance?
She says: ‘There’s been quite a lot of preparation and support around assurance. I think we are taking it seriously. I think just generally speaking we need to be more confident about data and the evidence base and ADASS the organisation needs to be supportive.
‘Let’s be supportive in terms of illuminating where we have challenges. Because I think that’s the best way to work, in my perspective.
‘It’s not always easy, and I know some areas may be reluctant to be as open, but I think that’s a role ADASS needs to play in terms of building that confidence and looking to see how we can support members who don’t feel ready to be as open in that space.’
It is clear that in the run up to a General Election, this strong advocate for the value of social care and its potential to deliver true reform will not hesitate to speak truth to power while supporting the best interests of her members.
