Changing Lives. The podcast for staff at Cygnet

In the latest episode of the Changing Lives podcast, we travelled to Cygnet Sherwood Lodge to learn more about art psychotherapy from our staff and service users.

In this episode of the Changing Lives podcast, we're joined by six member of our social care staff as part of the Social Care Superpower campaign. They discussed what they consider to be the best things about their jobs and what skills and attributes they believe are needed to succeed in a career in social care. The Cygnet social care superpower campaign aims to highlight the ordinary people with extraordinary skills who bring unique qualities to their social care services and make a valuable, positive difference to the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in society. We are encouraging anybody working in social care to get involved, share their chosen superpower and post on social media channels using the hashtag #socialcaresuperpower.

Cygnet’s Multicultural Network is a vibrant forum that plays an instrumental role in providing a credible and unified voice for Minority Ethnic staff.  In this episode of the Changing Lives podcast, we visit Cygnet Hospital Taunton to chat with Hospital Manager, Josh, and Multicultural Network ambassador and Nurse, Edith to find out how they champion and celebrate the diversity of staff and service users within the hospital's community.

In this episode we visit Cygnet Brunel, a service providing neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative rehabilitation for men with mental health difficulties and acquired brain injuries. We caught up with Hospital Manager, Stephanie Coxon and the staff team and services users to hear about some of the coproduced initiatives they’ve been working on recently.  We chat to service user Miles about a community engagement programme he’s designed to encourage and enhance service user-led activity sessions, supported by the MDT at Brunel. Miles’ project is the first service user-led Quality Improvement project at Cygnet and he shares how it’s given him the tools, knowledge and confidence to aide his recovery journey and his hopes to inspire others to do the same.  The Friendly Bean Café was borne from the pandemic and the lockdowns which stripped everyone of access to the community. We hear from young entrepreneurial service user and Café Manager, Callum, about how the café has turned the previously unused atrium at Brunel into a buzzing community area where staff and service users come together.

A great employee induction can make all the difference between new joiners enjoying a long, successful career at an organisation or leaving before their probation period is complete. In this episode of the Changing Lives podcast, Specialist Trainer, Adrian Ashurst, catches up with the team at Cygnet Hospital Maidstone to hear about the holistic induction they’ve introduced to support new starters.  Adrian chats to General Manager, Alison McCulloch, Hospital Manager, Louisa Powell, and Support Worker, Audrey Matsika, about what it’s like working in mental health care for the first time and share some practical tips and inspiration about how to take an induction programme to the next level.