After four decades working in adult social care for Leeds City Council, Mick Ward (Chief Officer for Transformation and Innovation within Adults and Health) is sadly retiring.
Starting out as a care assistant in 1978, Mick has worked his way up to help lead and develop the council’s approach to providing adult social care and improved health and wellbeing across the city.
With his planned retirement event postponed, we wanted to bring the thank you’s and stories of his retirement speech to you in an extra special blog post. Take it away Mick!
Like my speech would have done (pre-lockdown), I need to start with my thank you’s, for as you will see, nearly all the good I have been associated with is due to the work of others.
To Chris, my previous partner and the mother of my son Louie, who back in 1978 started me out on this incredible journey with one simple question – have you ever thought about working with people?
To Louie, my son, who spent a fair bit of his childhood accompanying me to work, from Cliffdene Care Home to the wild events and demos we hosted at Armley Resource Centre.
To all my friends, who have listened to me go on and on about work, needing little prompt to link it into whatever we were supposed to be talking about!
Most of all, to Gill, my partner of 30 years. Thank you for not just supporting me through my career (and dealing with my obsession with my work) but also for being the inspiration of much of it, including my understanding of the Social Model of Disability and the Art and Health network.
I also want to thank this thing called ‘the Council’. I know this blog is all about me (and I have the ego to carry that!) but it is also a celebration of the council, and of what can be achieved in a life in public service. That is why, to celebrate all our careers, rather than a traditional leaving present (though I still expect my council rose bowl!), I have set up a funding page for PAFRAS – available here until 5 June.
In terms of what I want to say as I leave, anyone who knows me will know that I, of course, have three things to say!
Most importantly, it’s all about the work:
I have to start where my career in adult social care began, as a 20-year-old, providing personal care as a care assistant, a role that is still shockingly undervalued today. I know that my time in this role, initially in a care home for older people and then at Cliffdene, a residential home for disabled adults, was some of the hardest work I ever carried out.
I clearly remember the first time I did intimate personal care, and how aware I was of the power relationship between me and the person I was supporting. My time as a care assistant taught me how to ensure those needing support felt in control of what was happening, with understanding and challenging this power relationship something I have tried to take with me through my career.
Never underestimate the breadth of the work needed in care homes. As I took on more responsibility at Cliffdene, I found myself taking on everything from rotas, to dealing with bereavement, to cooking Sunday dinners for 30, to clearing blocked drains!
entertaining the residents
Then of course, there was my incredible role at the amazing place that was the Armley Resource Centre. There’s so much I could highlight, but key was promoting an understanding of the social model of disability and finding ways to implement it in practice.
The stories of Armley are legendary, from hosting the first fully accessible rave to being threatened by our own council legal team for breaking Section 28.
A stand-out moment is when we supported disabled people to personally picket the then Director of Social Services as he spent a day in a wheelchair as part of a stunt. That, and the whole campaign objecting to the event, famously culminated in me being told: ‘Your problem is that you spend too much time listening to disabled people and forgetting who you work for’. Some management even suggested that my career was over, yet here I am!
The lesson here is to always go with your values.
We went much further with this at the Armley Resource Centre, eventually deciding we weren’t radical enough. We wanted a service which truly promoted independence and integration, and we felt that such services needed to be ran by disabled people.
As such, we took the unusual step of asking to be shut down!
We asked for our funding to be used to establish a Centre for Integrated Living, and that is how the Leeds CIL came to be. I was honoured to not only set it up and run it, but to later work with the great Susan Morrell to help it go fully independent.
I then moved into the strange work of ‘Modernisation’, the inspiration for my Twitter handle (@mickmodern) and the reason I got a Vespa scooter! More importantly, it got me into joint working with the NHS, creating the ‘Modernisation Team’.
What stands out is our Dignity in Care work, with its national recognition a career highlight. Importantly, its focus on dignity was not something written into our roles or a management directive, it came from a passion within our team. It was not achieved by creating new roles or funding new services, simply by nurturing and harnessing that passion for care.
I took what I learned there into my time in commissioning, where I had the amazing chance to oversee work such as the Leeds Dementia Strategy, Eye Care, Carers and more. While it’s important to make sure all the parts are in place, such as contracts and monitoring, it is ultimately down to the teams, with their passion and vision for their services, and those delivering them on the frontline that make a difference.
Finally, of course, over the last few years I have been privileged in my current chief officer role. It has been an incredible honour to focus on my passions at work and be in a position to make a real difference in areas I care about, such as equality, asset-based community development, Art and Health, and digital health and wellbeing.
Just one example has been seeing the development of the Leeds Art and Health Network from an initial idea with very little funding. The network was created to bring together the passion and commitment of people across so many fields, all with a common goal of making Leeds the best place for creative arts that support our health and wellbeing.
Secondly, it is all about the colleagues and partners: (a more extensive list of thank you’s is available here)
As I said at the start, none of the above would have been possible without the colleagues and partner organisations I have had the pleasure of working with over the years.
From the very beginning, I have benefited from great line managers, real leaders who saw the potential within me, supported my growth and championed my work. I can only hope that I took the lessons of my great managers into my own roles, and that in turn, they helped to influence others. Special thanks to Tom Riordan for the culture of permission he has created within the council and the frequent support he has given me, and to Cath Roff, who nurtured both me and the chief officer role I was in.
A massive thank you to the council for being so supportive of my development. I left school at 15, and all my further education has been through work. I can only hope those coming into social care now get the same educational opportunities I did. Thanks also to the trade unions for all their support and what they taught me.
I also benefited from fantastic political support under the leadership of Councillor Blake, Councillor Wakefield, Councillor Charlwood and many others over the years. Special thanks to all the councillors who have championed social care and much of our work.
Over the last part of my career, I have been lucky enough to have a personal assistant (talk about privileged!). I am aware that my approach to work and my diary is not an easy one to support, so a huge thanks for everything you did for me, you were all stars!
To the many organisations I have worked with, the breadth of these partnerships has been one of the great joys in my work. I am honoured that I will be forever associated with the vibrant third sector of Leeds, and its Neighbourhood Networks, older people’s organisations, mental health services and groups working to support those in need. Beyond social care, I need to thank the arts community, universities, third sector, user groups and directorates across the council – a reminder you cannot deliver social care on your own.
Mostly, I want to thank all the teams I have worked with over the years – that is where the real change happened, I was just in a position to cultivate and promote their good work. So to Cliffdene, the Armley Resource Centre (later Leeds CIL), the Modernisation Team, the Commissioning Team, the Service Transformation Team, the Enterprise Team and, of course, my colleagues across the council – thank you for your continuous hard work, commitment and passion!
Finally, the future:
Firstly, I want to welcome my replacement, Carmel Langstaff. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Carmel a number of times, and I am confident that she will take our work further, bringing her own passion and knowledge to the role.
Of course, I have to talk about asset-based community development (ABCD), the area of work I have been most involved with in recent years. I truly hope that it forms the basis of future work in Adults and Health, the council and the city. We have seen it at the core of tackling COVID-19 crisis and as key to fighting loneliness, supporting social cohesion, improving health and wellbeing and more.
At the heart of ABCD is creating the space for communities to connect, to identify what needs to be done, lead change, and crucially, at the core of my role, for people to have good friends. If I am to have a legacy, I ask that it be for Leeds to become an ‘ABCD City’.
I also ask, especially in these difficult times, that you work in a way that is values based. The processes and strategies around us may change, but if I have learnt anything from my 42 years in adult social care, it is that my values got me where I am in my career, and enabled positive change to happen for those I served.
On a more personal note, my career has enabled me to look to do some fantastic things as I leave the council. I will carry on my passion for ABCD by working with Nurture Development and will use my skills and knowledge to support work happening in health systems innovation at London South Bank University.
Locally, I will be involved with the great work being done to support older people by the Ciaran Bingham Foundation, the community arts work of Skippko and the support for refugees and asylum seekers delivered by PAFRAS. Gill and I are also on the road to becoming Shared Lived Carers.
None of this would be possible without having learnt so much from my roles and from those around me.
To end, I want to briefly talk about the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, which has defined my final few months with the council. It is a crisis that is impacting on us all in vastly different ways. My heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones, and I extend my deepest admiration to those working on the frontline, be that NHS, social care, bus drivers and many others.
I recognise the incredible work of my colleagues, and the cost it has on staff, with the huge stress, fatigue and concerns over personal and family health that come with it. Most importantly, I note that it is once again the poorer members of society bearing the brunt of this crisis.
However, it is raising the lid on the inequalities within our society, and so bringing with it an opportunity. With many experiencing a sense of this inequality for the first time, we need to use these experiences to inform how we live our lives in the future and change things for the better.
Thank you all, it’s been a hell of a ride!
We would like to thank Mick for everything he has worked on over the years, supporting so many people across the city. We would also like to welcome Carmel into her new role and into Leeds’ adult social care family.
Better Lives for People in Leeds 
A brilliant and authentic farewell ‘speech’ – and a fascinating overview of Mick’s career accomplishments. All the best to him for the next adverntures!
Thank you too Mick, for the leadership and barbecues, and for everything you’ve done for people living with dementia in Leeds, even when the condition wasn’t in vogue. It’s hard to believe that we can’t see you off with a proper drink. Still, cheers ! xx
Thnks Mick for your great support for the third sector in Leeds and for being prepared to listen to all of our suggestions, gripes, campaigns and celebrations.
Bill Rollinson
Chair – Leeds Older People’s Forum