What it means to be a deputy manager in adult social care

Beth Hart, Deputy Manager, Home Instead shares her experience as a deputy manager and what she enjoys most about her role.

Joining the care sector was pretty unexpected for me. I studied art at university and always thought I’d have a career in fashion which I did do for a short while. However, I found my work in retail wasn’t fulfilling and the hard work put in daily wasn’t making a difference to society.

When I turned 21, I still didn’t quite know what I wanted to do but always knew deep down I wanted to make a difference. This is when I came across a position in domiciliary care. I applied but there was definitely a lot of negative stigma at first from my friends querying why this was my choice of career.

Although incredibly daunting, I knew straight away this is what I was meant to do. I have a pivotal moment that will remain with me forever. I was up and out heading to my first call of the day on a cold winter morning, the sun just rising and I remember at that moment just how grateful I was to be able to help others to continue living safely. The individuals offered as much to me in my life as I did to them and I recognised this was the fulfilment I’d been looking for.

Seven years later, I’m still in the care sector and, although I’m not directly caring in the field, I still have a profound impact on people’s lives. No matter my progression, I always want to be involved directly in some way with our clients as this is really important to me.

I started working in care as a full-time carer and took on whichever hours I could to support through the pandemic. This helped me to gain an overall knowledge of care and I soon progressed to a field care role which involved onboarding clients. At this time, I started my Level 3 in Health and Social Care and moved on to be a care coordinator for another company. This role was actually more similar to that of a deputy care manager role as I was the only office member and juggled all roles in social care.

The position as a care manager at Home Instead then came up in 2021. I knew this was reaching further than I was qualified for but I thought it was worth a go. Off the back of my application, Home Instead offered me the role of deputy care manager. I’ve been a deputy care manager for three years now, although the variation of my role and responsibilities when I first started to now is incredibly different. I’m now responsible for much more and line manage more members of the team.

I’ve found progression has always been about pushing myself out of my comfort zone, understanding that I don’t know everything but if you have the willingness to learn, those around you will support you in achieving what you want. I’ve now completed my Level 3 and my Level 5 in Health and Social Care.

Since being with Home Instead, my manager has always been a fantastic mentor, sharing her own learnings with me. She’s also helped me source any training that would support me within my role. The biggest learnings in my role has been leadership skills and changing from being led to becoming the leader in most scenarios in the office.

In my role, I manage eight members of the office staff including the care coordinators, our care professional lead, field care supervisors and auditor. My role is mainly client based and I’m responsible for onboarding new clients and ensuring they have a safe and high-quality introduction to support at home. This is everything from initial enquiry, to consultation to the care planning and risk assessments.

I also oversee quality with a big involvement in preparing for Care Quality Commission assessments and leading my team in this. I’m involved in larger project planning to ensure we’re constantly adopting a learning culture throughout the business.

In terms of leadership and management, I ensure my team feel heard through supervisions, appraisals and meetings and be that approachable manager with the mindset that we work together to get the results that we want. A big part of what I do is to develop and train the rest of my team.

I really enjoy the flexibility of the role of a deputy manager- I’m sure the job description is so varied throughout social care which means it’s quite adaptable to what is needed in the company and for me this is still a very client-based role.

Although I now rarely complete a care call, I still get to meet the clients and their family at the onboarding stage and get the reward of supporting them throughout their care journey. It’s so lovely to see first hand the difference we make to their lives and be part of the support team that keeps them living safely at home.

One of the biggest challenges for me in my role is time. As with most areas of social care, it’s so fast-paced and it can be challenging to balance the day-to-day tasks that can be unexpected with the need to manage and develop the team. I always want to give everyone in my team the same amount of my time but it can be difficult to do this in reality. For example, the care coordinators require more of my support as there are often actions that come through and need urgent response, whereas our field care supervisors may not always need to catch up with me daily but I feel it’s still important to acknowledge everyone regularly. When you also throw in my client onboarding work, there’s a lot to juggle but it keeps me focused and challenged which is what I enjoy/

My registered manager is fantastic; she completely understands how I work and we have a relationship built on trust which allows us to be open and honest with each other. She always has my development at the forefront of her priorities and has a genuine interest in my progression and career pathway.

She’s been really helpful in sourcing training for me, including the Skills for Care ‘Lead to Succeed’ and ‘Well Led’ courses. More recently we’ve also worked through the Induction Standards recently rolled out by Skills for Care to support me in developing into a care manager role. We have regular supervisions to go through my progression and she guided me at stages through my Level 5 to ensure I always had the resources to complete my work.

My planned next step is a care manager role and then I would really like to go for registration, although this quite a daunting thought.

Not only in my branch but with Home Instead in general, there are plenty of training models and career pathways to ensure I feel confident and supported in a registered manager’s role. I feel confident that if this opportunity comes about that I will be set up by the company and my team to be successful in the role.

Find out more about support available for deputy managers.

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