OFSTED report on Children's Services published
Following our recent inspection, OFSTED has now published its report on Children's Services in Warwickshire. Whilst the inspection has found that Warwickshire Children’s Services ‘requires improvement', overall we are very much moving in the right direction. This is evidenced in the OFSTED report and the assessment that ‘children are safe in Warwickshire’.
We are on a journey of continuous improvement and striving for the transformation of children's services so as to achieve excellence. We accept the report reflects where we are on our improvement journey and support the recommendations made by OFSTED, which once delivered will strengthen further our direction of travel.
Positive Findings
The OFSTED report endorsed that children are safe in Warwickshire.
Practice was praised in a number of areas, including our work with our most vulnerable children through, the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH); arrangements for tackling Child Sexual Exploitation, our work around children missing from home, care and education and effectively supporting children looked after with disabilities.
The report also highlighted the effective work undertaken by our family support workers, our Emergency Duty Team and the high quality of social work assessments.
Adoption is a real strength and we have more “fostering to adopt placements” than many other authorities, this means that children become part of their new permanent families at the earliest opportunity.
Our work with Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking is culturally sensitive and responsive to these vulnerable young people’s needs. We work closely with Care Leavers to ensure they are aware of their entitlements to financial support to set up home or to access education and training and to ensure their achievements and progress are recognised.
The report noted we have a vibrant and active Children in Care Council (CICC), supported by a well-designed system of elections to ensure children looked after and care leavers of various ages are involved.
The Inspection was extremely complimentary about our staff and the relationships which they forge with children, young people and families.
Ofsted Action Plan
The 12 recommendations and additional learning from the report have been incorporated into an action plan.
Our top four priorities are:
- recruiting additional social workers to ensure the size of our caseloads are reduced
- embedding the case-recording system
- improving our strategic engagement with Health
- working closely with partners to ensure children and families get the right help at the right time.
There are some specific actions set out in the plan relating to the Virtual School, improving education, employment and training opportunities for care leavers, and working with partners to ensure the Early Help Strategy is clearly understood and delivered in partnership with all agencies.