We recently celebrated the dedication and achievements of our employees at the You Make the Difference Awards 2024/25. Fran Bailey, a Mental Health Occupational Therapist, received the Innovation & Change Champion award for her innovative work within Adult Social Care. Read on to find out how Fran feels about winning the award.
What does winning the Innovation and Change award mean to you?
Innovation and change is something I am passionate about, so there could not be an award I would be more proud to receive. I am motivated to change social policy and funding around sensory integration (SI) as the key intervention for mental health crisis prevention in both adult and children’s social care. So, winning this award gives me permission and the opportunity to campaign even more on this issue.
Can you describe your journey to becoming an innovator and change-maker?
I spent 20 years working as a teacher. For 10 of those years I worked in state schools before and after the introduction of inclusion, when most special needs departments and schools were shut down and I watched my school fall apart under a lack of understanding of SEN. For the final 10 years I supported children with SEN who could not attend school due to extreme anxiety within an education system that did not seem to cater for their needs, and the frustration of the Education Health Care Plans that should have worked but did not as Health and Care were not always equal partners in the process of ensuring that children with SEN had sufficient support.
I decided to retrain as an Occupational Therapist so that I could work in mental health using people’s meaningful activities as their journey towards wellbeing. I learned about sensory integration interventions as part of this process, via parents who were passionate about the importance of using sensory interventions as the core way to develop their children’s ability to function and thrive in daily life.
Whilst working in acute mental health wards I witnessed first-hand the benefit of using sensory processing assessments to raise service user’s self-awareness. I then created a business case PowerPoint for how important these assessments and sensory training are in changing the direction of people’s lives when they have been frozen by sensory overwhelm, using the example of agoraphobia. Essex County Council and ESCA agreed to fund the sensory training of all front-line Mental Health Occupational Therapists. I was then able to use case studies demonstrating the life changing potential of SI, using my SI training in my practice with service users with complex needs and mental health difficulties.
What are some key projects or initiatives that led to this recognition?
My case study using SI assessments to raise self-awareness of a young adult who had spent years as a teenager in mental health acute wards, diagnosed with a personality disorder as a likely cause of her mental health difficulties, which was actually her dyspraxia and likely ASD. Following positive communication with the family, the young adult then rebuilt her self-esteem sufficiently to move out of complex needs mental health supported accommodation into student halls to start her degree in psychology. This case study was sent to local government authority discussion groups to make the case for social care to become the home for mental health crisis prevention via SI interventions. I have connected with a number of universities to discuss mental health research in social care, and SI’s place in this.
How do you encourage and inspire others to embrace innovation and change?
By using action, networking and case studies to demonstrate and evidence the potential of SI to improve people’s lives and to break the cycle of mental health relapse.
Do you have tips on how to remain adaptable and open to change in a rapidly evolving environment?
Stay true to your beliefs and never give up. Never miss an opportunity to try something new or make a new connection. Never be afraid to ask questions and to say how you feel. Communicate, communicate and communicate. Always learn, always connect and be honest and open with all the people you work with.
Want to make a positive difference to residents in Essex?
