NewFocas

Helen Taubman

NewFocas

Helen Taubman, from NewFocas, joined us at our Directors Development Programme to develop her leadership abilities and learn new concepts and ideas that she could implement into her business but also pass on to her successor when the times is right.

Read Helen’s case study below.

NewFocas was founded in 2000 with a vision to build a company that would specialise in offering highly-skilled and family-focused foster placements to children who have suffered significant development damage from prenatal shock or childhood trauma.

After a few years, we developed a unique working model and re-branded as the ‘Independent Trauma Informed Therapeutic Foster Care Agency’, accredited by The University of Chester CREPT (The Centre for Research and Education in Psychological Trauma), who have advised and supported us on our journey to become the best trauma-informed foster care agency in the country.

My business objective is to provide disadvantaged children with stable family placements, so they can experience a normal, positive, family life and preventing them from being placed in residential care which could be a long way from home and not offer them the warmth, trust and love of a happy family.

Having established a successful working model, I want to ensure that the business continues to deliver against our vision after I step down as managing director. I identified that I wanted to further develop myself as a leader, and ensure my successor had the same opportunity for their professional development.

For me, the biggest challenge is giving back to my successor and colleagues through effective leadership. I want to know that when I step down as managing director, the company will continue in a similar manner; striving to care for the children we help.

I home-grew my company, taking it from a desk under my stairs to now having waiting lists for our specialist placements. It’s very important to me that everyone within the company is nurtured and all our carers and their placements are known on an individual basis.

My motivation for attending the Directors Development Programme was very personal. As well as benefiting from the course myself, I also wanted to be sure that the course was the best choice and suitable for my successor.

I found the director development training to be a very well-presented, cohesive course. The course’s four core elements focused on leadership, governance, finance, strategy and marketing. The transition between presenters was done in an almost seamless manner and each module was delivered perfectly by a specialist tutor.

I would say my forte is teamwork, so I particularly enjoyed the interactive sessions that took place throughout the programme.

I really enjoy training and working on ways to improve myself. This programme has given me knowledgeable insight into managing finances and some good pointers for leading and governing a growing team.

I am very satisfied with the overall result of my learning experience.

I have been a managing director for 20 years and a manager for 10 years prior to this so I felt like I had extensive knowledge on leadership, governance, strategy and finance. However, as I found, you can always learn new skills and techniques.

My successor hasn’t had the depth of experience I am lucky to have had and for this reason I am very confident that putting them on this course will give them the required skills and knowledge to be a strong, successful managing director.