Shirley Way has been the Skills for Care Locality Manager for the Black Country and Stoke & Staffordshire, for six years. Within this role Shirley supports the adult social care providers in the area to not only deliver high-quality care services but also ensures that the social care workforce has access to appropriate learning and development and services and resources that support their physical and mental wellbeing
Shirley has worked in the sector for over 40 years in a variety of roles, including frontline and as a people manager, and is passionate about the wellbeing of the workforce. Due to this, she has been involved in the promotion of the services of the Staff Psychological Wellbeing Hub over the last 3 years and is happy to be involved in the Black Country Health and Wellbeing week.
Outside of work Shirley maintains her own wellbeing by spending time with her family and dog, caravanning, walking and loves the theatre. In addition, she can often be found trying out new (and often unusual) exercise classes, currently attending Boogie Bounce and RockBox. You will see her using activities and other challenges to raise money for Birmingham Childrens Hospital as a thank-you for the life-saving heart operations on her young grandson. She will complete many of these challenges whilst dressed in some bizarre costume to add a fun element! To relax Shirley enjoys reading and dreams of having her office turned into a library. As you will see from her contribution to this week’s events, she has always loved reading to her children and now her grandchildren! She does enjoy music and also dreams of being in musicals but it would help if she had a good singing voice, so is realistic that this dream will never come true!!
Shirley says ”the wellbeing of our staff is essential, especially this last 3 years. People who work in this sector are inspirational and amazing but very often do not look after themselves as they are too focused on supporting others. Employers and managers need to ensure that ALL staff remain well and have knowledge of, and access to, a range of resources and support to enable this. I would like to say a massive thank you to each and every one of them for the care and support they deliver every day to ensure that people remain safe, happy and healthy and they do this with such compassion and a smile. I hope they all get a chance to enjoy this week and find the sessions useful, interesting, and fun”