A note from the Chief Executive – Spring 2019

It seems like only yesterday that we held the official opening of Warwick House on 13th December, 2018.

As you can see from the below photo it was very well attended and enabled us to share with all our excellent work. The feedback from the event was very good, so once again, well done to everyone who took part.

Yesterday I attended the Q3 Voice Board, and it is good to reflect on how far we have come in such a short period of time! We now have three newly-appointed non-executive Directors: the Chief Constable for Northamptonshire Police Nick Adderley, Dawn Cummins( CEO of Voluntary Impact in Northampton) and Suzanne Burke Head of Operations for the Office of the Small Business Commissionaire. These Directors will  offer constructive challenge, strategic guidance and specialist advice and support to help the Board meet its overall aims and objectives. We will hear more from them in due course on the Voice blog – stay tuned!

There are a number of contracts that have been renegotiated; Road Harm, Children and Young People and ISVA services. Each of these contracts have been novated to Voice from the OPFC which has enabled us to review the contract provision and make necessary changes. For example, we are working with Assist to ensure all RH and CYP cases will be on Ecins as per the contract’s requirements. This will enable accurate performance reporting moving forwards. Voice will triage all new CYP referrals including any self-referrals or other agency referrals to ensure we provide our resources to crime cases. Each new CYP client will receive six sessions (if  a therapist requires an extension of sessions based on need, this will need to be authorised by Voice Senior Management) . There will be changes in how and what we want you to record so please ensure you all read management communications to understand the new changes.

I have also agreed with the OPFC that with the new ISVA contract we will fund from the OPFC reserves a CHISVA post from 1/04/2019 to 31/03/2020. This post was being paid for by NHFT and was seconded from Service Six, however NHFT have pulled next year’s funding, putting this role at risk.  To lose this post would be a considerable risk to the SARC provision and we are pleased to be able to support the costs for this role in the year ahead.

We have also agreed that from 1/04/2019 Voice will become data controller with the Police, which will enable us to receive client details without the Police gaining consent (except in enhanced cases).  This will increase the number of ADT referrals and will enable us to reach more clients who previously may have been missed due to officers forgetting to ask or not properly being able to explain our services when they are busy dealing with the unfolding incident.  We are of course chasing the vetting of our new recruits who will support this work and the vetting delays has been raised again at the latest board meeting.

We have agreed a new SLA with Northampton General Hospital and Kettering General Hospital so we can support staff who may be a victim of crime and also patients who may not have reported the incident to the Police. Again this is reaching out to key partners not only to support their staff but to extend our service provision. Further discussions will also be taking place in March 2019 with NHFT to enable us to access GPs and promote our services via surgeries.  Further information on this will be made available in due course.

As you can see, we are building on promoting our services with key partners, and focusing on performance. These changes will enable us to reach even more individuals in need so we can support them on their journeys to cope, recover and thrive!