‘She’s a team manager who always has your back’

For Community Care’s 50th anniversary, our My Brilliant Colleague series invites you to celebrate anyone who has inspired you in your career.

In this entry, the deputy team manager of a learning disabilities team, Jahan Aslam, celebrates her former supervisor and now team manager, who once stayed with her throughout an assessment in a complex case, to ensure she had sufficient support.

My former supervisor [now our team manager], Hannah Taylor-Rowe, has always been responsive to any question aimed at her, never shying away from a task.

No matter the challenge – or the frustration – she always manages to see the best in people and has become a nurturing influence, not only on me but on the entire team and the wider service.

She works tirelessly to get things right and will always go the extra mile to provide a resolution – a true inspiration and, as they say, the ‘glue’ that keeps our service together.

Once, when I was working on a complex legal case, she stayed and supported me throughout a comprehensive assessment to ‘hold my hand’, as she later revealed, through the challenges.

She is a rare gem – a team manager who always has our backs.

How to nominate a colleague

For our 50th anniversary, we’re expanding our series My Brilliant Colleague to include anyone who has inspired you in your career – whether current or former colleagues, managers, students, lecturers, mentors or prominent past or present sector figures whom you have admired from afar.

Nominate your colleague or social work inspiration by either:

• Filling in our nominations form with a letter or a few paragraphs (100-250 words) explaining how and why the person has inspired you.
• Or sending a voice note of up to 90 seconds to +447887865218, including your and the nominee’s names and roles.

Despite the need to provide your name and role, you or the nominee can be anonymous in the published entry.

If you have any questions, email our community journalist, Anastasia Koutsounia, at anastasia.koutsounia@markallengroup.com.