Agenda item

The Committee considered a report of the Corporate Director Children and Young People’s Services Purpose which provided an overview of the progress being made within Children’s Social Care to embed high quality relationship based social work. Practice and the Strategic Manager of Safeguarding and Professional Practice gave a detailed presentation (for copies see file of minutes).

Members were informed that children and families were at the centre of their practice as the quality of the relationship had a significant impact on achieving good outcomes for children and young people.  Embedding a good relationship was of critical importance in creating good outcomes.  This practice allowed trusting relationships to be built that facilitated honest clear assessments which therefore allowed plans to be aligned to concerns.

The Strategic Manager Safeguarding and Professional Practice advised of the key to ensuring that social workers have the time to build effective relationships was manageable caseloads and that caseloads are regularly audited.  This practice had led to a reduction in complaints and an increase of compliments of the service.  Ofsted too provided a positive summary in their recent inspection.

Councillor Hunt asked whether schools had any qualified support for early intervention and whether any teachers were trained to spot signs of neglect, or social workers were going in to do assessments.  The Strategic Manager of Safeguarding and Professional Practice confirmed that the service had a positive relationship with schools which assisted with early help and preventative work.  There were strong locality meetings taking place with One Point who ensured that early conversations took place and if the statutory intervention threshold was reached, the case would be escalated. 

There was also a Virtual headteacher, who had always supported Children in Care, but the remit has broadened to include children in need and children subject to a CPP and this was a significant change to support and ensure that all vulnerable children had the support needed in school and were progressing educationally.  In addition COVID-19 had strengthened the process for sharing of information between schools and social care.

In response to a further question form Councillor Hunt the Strategic Manager of Safeguarding and Professional Practice confirmed that the School Nursing Service was still in place and there was a requirement for all schools to have safeguarding leads within schools to ensure there was a good awareness and that signs were being identified.

He confirmed that the recruitment and retention allowance related to hard to fill posts and despite doing well in the recruitment of new qualified social workers, the service struggled to recruit experienced social work staff and therefore an allowance had been agreed and he would provide further details following the meeting.

Councillor Walton referred to the number of complaints and although it was good to see they were of a lower level she asked whether there was a common theme of complaints and whether any examples could be given.  The Strategic Manager of Safeguarding and Professional Practice confirmed that often the theme was regarding communication and the way decisions were communicated which ultimately came down to the relationship that a family had with their social worker.  If the relationship was more trusting, the communication was better.

The Chair referred to the report which stated that at time of writing 85% had less than 25 cases and the average caseload was 19 however it had been noted in the previous minutes that the Head of Social Care had advised that council policy restricted caseloads to around 22 at any one time.  He assumed numbers fluctuated due to the complexity of each case but asked if the service had the ability to examine the numbers and provide any further detail.  In addition he asked how the Council were embedding the relationship based and trauma, whether it was through practice or training.

The Strategic Manager of Safeguarding and Professional Practice advised that Signs of Safety was an international organisation and there were tools and resources that could be accessed and a significant investment was in training.  There were two day courses or five day advanced courses and although training was a core part of the implementation, it ran alongside government framework within the service to ensure that each part of child’s journey through the service was as child and family focused as it should be.  In addition, there were over 100 practice leads who had been identified to support colleagues and ensure people were supported and able to work to towards expectations.

Resolved

That the report and presentation be noted.