Compassionate and relational

• People receive compassionate care, where staff are supported well to provide this.
• We promote relationships and dialogue where all voices can be heard.
• We foster a sense of belonging.
• We model this in our ways of working throughout the organisation.

All means all

• Everyone is included and valued, nobody is excluded, discriminated against or left behind.
• The person at the centre of their own care and as citizens in their community
• Access to immediate help for all.
• Services are co-designed and co-produced.

High quality care for people, not symptoms

• We provide high quality, rights based care that is safe, trauma-informed, autism-informed and equity-focused.
• It is led by and adapted flexibly to people's needs, recognising their whole selves and addressing both mental and physical health.
• Strengths based.

Collaboration and continuity

• People, families and their social network participate as partners in the process of care.
• Care is provided with continutity that is ongoing from the start.
• We harness the potential of all local community assets.
• Lived experience involvement and leadership is promoted and valued throughout the organisation.
• We commit to continuous and meaningful measurement and improvement.

Quality and learning improvement

• Space for ongoing reflection and development is prioritised and actively facilitated.
• We learn to tolerate uncertainty, maintain space for relationships to evolve and develop, and remain open to and valuing of differing perspectives.
• We work in partnership and share learning openly across the system, continuously learning from each other and improving.

Relational Care Team Leads

Russell Razzaque, Clinical Director

Kate Lorrimer, Expert Advisor – Relational Care

To be appointed, Lived Experience Lead for Relational Care

Chair

The RCF will be co-chaired by the Lived Experience Lead for Relational Care and the Expert Advisor – Relational Care. The co-chairs will work in partnership to allocate the chair roles, either sharing the role within each meeting or alternating as required.

Secretariat

The secretary of the RCF will be the senior project manager for Relational Care, supported administratively by the administrator for Relational Care. 

The secretariat will take responsibility for the ongoing business of the RCF, ensuring all meetings are planned, accommodated, resourced and recorded appropriately and that the relevant documentation is stored and distributed to all RCF members as necessary. 

The secretariat will also be responsible for ensuring any additional relevant documentation and resources are distributed appropriately and that any actions arising are recorded, tracked and updated accordingly in advance of meetings. 

The secretariat will liaise with and arrange pre-meets as needed with the co-chairs, and any other relevant members/stakeholders, to jointly agree agenda items for each meeting. 

Quorum

To ensure effective decision making and continuity, the quorum for any meeting of the RCF will be a minimum of one chair, two members of the Relational Care Team, two members of the Executive Management Team and 6 members of the group comprising the various workstreams/individuals across the organisation – a total of 8 members.

If the meeting is not quorate, the meeting can continue but decision making should be deferred to the following meeting. 

Procedures

The agenda for each meeting will be circulated at least two working days prior to each meeting, if preparation/papers are required these will be circulated one week ahead of the meeting. The secretariat will request agenda items from members ahead of this circulation. 

Minutes and actions will be taken at each meeting by the Relational Care Team Administrator.

Meetings will take a reflective/action learning set type approach.

Frequency of meetings

Meetings will be held every 6 weeks, with the frequency reviewed as needed. To promote the central importance of relationships within this work we would like to hold meetings in person, however, understand that this might be difficult for some members to manage on every occasion. We will, therefore, aim to hold every other meeting in person, and those in between will be held virtually via Teams. 

Reporting

As mentioned, The RCF is not a governance group, each of the workstreams represented within the RCF have their own already established accountability and reporting lines and the RCF does not replace these. The overarching work of the RCF will report into the Mental Health Clinical Group.

Review

The Relational Care Faculty Terms of Reference will be reviewed annually or more frequently if considered appropriate.

The duties and responsibilities of the Relational Care Faculty will be to:

• Role model and champion the relational ways of working we strive towards and expect of others.
• Connect and align the various workstreams that specialise in delivering relational change and individuals who champion this approach across the organisation.
• Promote Open Dialogue as a key mechanism for operationalising the relational approach we strive towards.
• Provide the organisational infrastructure to create a link from frontline to board and between each area of work.
• Provide a supportive, safe space and a sense of cohesive team collaboration to those leading cultural change across the organisation.
• Maximise collective responsibility for achieving culture change.
• Take a co-produced reflective approach to innovating and identifying opportunities and problem solving/addressing challenges together.
• Consider the whole pathway of care and identify opportunities to bring a more relational approach to those pathways through co-produced service redesign and implementation support.
• Develop and promote wider collaborative events and opportunities across the organisation to raise awareness of the relational approach and share learning/spread good practice.
• Learn from others, develop and share work externally with the wider system.