Dignity and Community Respect Awards

Dignity Award

The national dignity in care campaign has aimed to encourage people to register as dignity champions and there are already over 1000 of them in Derby and Derbyshire. Many of them are making changes, usually simple, often cost-free changes which improve the services people have. This is the key point about dignity work - it is about practical changes at the face-to-face point of service delivery.

We want to encourage more people not only to sign up as champions but to also give active meaning to the role by inviting you and your team to check yourselves out in applying for the dignity award.

This is what being a champion means:

Use your passion and commitment to improve outcomes for vulnerable people in contact with your team
Use influence available through your job to challenge bad practice and raise the profile of dignity and respect issues
Work to tackle, not tolerate, poor practice
Share with other champions, knowledge, expertise, experiences and enthusiasm through the DCC dignity website and other networks which may be available
Gather evidence with your team initially to achieve the dignity award standard

These are the standards in outline:

This level aims to give local dignity champions and their teams a straightforward way of making progress with the promotion of dignity in their service. People using the services will be the ultimate judges at all levels. The details of dignity award are below.

Community Respect Award

The Community Respect Award recognises community and voluntary sector organisations within Derby which can demonstrate their ongoing commitment to promoting and delivering dignified services. If your organisation is successful in obtaining the award it will assist you when making applications for funding to Derby City Council and Derby Homes.

Requirements of the Dignity and Community Respect Awards

Register a Champion(s)

At least one team member confirms they have registered as a dignity champion via the website of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (this offers lots of useful information to you and you will receive regular updates once registered).

The 10 Dignity Do’s: Challenge your Team

Please take the attached 10 Dignity Do’s to your team (points as originally issued by the Department of Health with three prompts added to each one as in the attached Dignity Award guidance and application documents).

Run the challenge with them:

Look carefully at each Dignity Do and associated prompt
Look at what real, effective evidence you have for each one and log it on the Dignity application document
Keep asking the question, ‘Is this the best we can do?’
Where the practices you have, are not active, effective, or not the best you can do or you find gaps then list them in point 4 of each dignity do - this will become your action plan
Produce an action plan to make as many improvements as you can to your approach to dignity (see below)

Things that might assist

Involve the team: Use the Dignity and Community Respect Awards application as a way of focusing thoughts not as some form of tick box and involve the team. It is meaningless if Managers take the challenge in isolation form their team
Guidance Document: The Derby Safeguarding Adults Board website has a guidance document showing what assessors are looking for which will help you
Creativity: There are many ways of taking the dignity award challenge, just be as creative as you can, for example one team stuck paper on the wall and marked ‘dignity at its best’ at one end of a line and at the other end ‘abusive’ as parameters. They then used the 10 dignity do’s to rate themselves by sticking ‘post- it’s’ on the line with comments. This team then ran an action plan to bring it closer to the ‘at its best’ end of the line.
Action Plan: Each section of the dignity award application format invites teams to list actions to be taken when present practice is found to be less than best. The best applications not only have strongest evidence but also a number of actions identified. The less satisfactory applications usually contain the weakest evidence as well as claiming that every aspect of the service is perfect. Actions are of course best when specific, measurable, and achievable within a reasonable timescale

What you should do now

Send a copy of your completed Dignity or Community Respect Award application - either by (preferably) email to DSAB@Derby.gov.uk or by post to Sana Farah, DSAB Business Manager, Safeguarding Adults and Professional Standards Team, People Services, Derby City Council, Council House, Corporation Street, Derby, DE1 2FS

What happens next?

Your completed Dignity or Community Respect Award application will be assessed carefully by members of our interagency working group. If there are any queries they will be raised with you but once it is agreed you have clearly set out sufficient evidence for the Dignity or Community Respect Award and have an action plan resulting from the dignity do’s challenge, then a signed certificate will be sent to you stating that you have achieved the Derby Dignity or Community Respect Award.

The certificate will be valid for two years after which you can repeat the exercise highlighting the achievement of any actions completed in your action plan.

Remember you are not alone; there is a lot of work taking place to improve the dignity component of services. If you need to talk to someone ask for either: