Strengths

Areas for Improvement

Results for children and young people

- Children and young people are able to talk about home/problems related or unrelated to school

- Make a link between home and school (in every case with EBD ISWs)-sometimes the only one

- Provide vulnerable young people with individual and group work support

- Has helped reduce school exclusions

- Reduces need for referral to SSD in many cases and is therefore less stigmatising

- Undertakes direct, preventative work with children and families whose circumstance would not SSD thresholds

- Provides a fast track to other services for young people

- Invaluable support to children and families during transition

- In surveys conducted in mainstream & EBD schools 90% pupils rated the service they received as good to excellent

- No apparent impact on the numbers of looked after children (NB numbers of LAC have increased nationally)

- Still more work needs to be done to improve the relationship between SSD and schools to the benefit of children and young people

Other results

- Fewer referrals made to SSD R&A teams (70% ISW cases would have reached R&A without their intervention))

- Undertakes initial assessments on behalf of SSD

- Increased satisfaction with SSD expressed by children, families and schools and increased confidence in the role of social workers

- High level of job satisfaction expressed by ISWs

- Retention of ISWs (7/10 in post more than 2 years)

- Increased capacity and confidence of schools to address social issues

- SSI inspection viewed expansion of family support services in schools as a strength

- No consistency in location of ISWs in relation to Education or SSD i.e. some based in EBD schools, some based in SSD teams, others based in Behaviour Support Teams in education centres

- Access to training is variable with limited relevance

- No consistent funding or progression for ISW posts-some joint funded by SSD/Education, others funded exclusively by SSD or Education

- No continuing funding available for ISWs who have recently left posts

- No consistent job title

- Only 50% ISWs find supervision useful

- No consistency in who provides supervision for ISWs

- ISWs do not feel valued or supported by existing structures

Processes

- Ill-defined work processes-all ISWs working in different ways

- No clearly defined method for recording work with children and families e.g. some ISWs keep records on school files and copy to the SSD files where there is an allocated SW, whereas Behaviour Support Team have own recording system as part of EOTAS

Staff

- ISWs clear about aims of the post and its usefulness

- ISW role clearly supports the aims of both Education and Social Services departments

- ISWs feeling undervalued by SSD

- Need for consistent career pathways, job titles, management arrangements and standards for supervision

Partnerships & resources

- Good model for partnership working. Posts established by multi-agency steering group which originally had oversight of their management

- Success of ISWs is partly dependent on the attitude of area SW teams towards supporting them e.g. one ISW left without support when area severed links

Policy & strategy

- Education and SSD need to agree the aims of the service i.e. whether preventative or not e.g. BST ISWs are currently tackling crisis work in schools

Leadership

- Inadequate structures for supporting ISWs. More robust management arrangements need to be agreed at senior level e.g. EBD school heads manage ISWs although the SSI is clear that they should not be managed by schools

Strengths

Areas for Improvement

Results for Children

- Child focussed, needs-led assessments completed by R&A in line with the requirements of the Assessment Framework

- The assessment record young people receive from any of the county's R&A services is presented in a consistent format

- Children and young people are included in assessment - their views and wishes are sought and they receive a copy of their assessment, if old enough and able to have contributed

- Improve awareness of equality/ethnicity and resources/guidance

- Increase time available to spend with children face to face to complete assessments

- Ensure all children or young people with the same type of level of need/risk receive assessments within the required timescale.

- Identify demographic need/ONS vulnerability indices in areas to improve equity of access

Other results

- Staff: staff involved in process of review; regular meetings with member of strategy team to resolve policy/procedural difficulties/work on business processes; staff are aware of what is required by Assessment Framework; value involvement in local teams; high level of commitment to children and young people; open to review process and want to improve service they offer; support of team manger and senior practitioners seen as invaluable

- Community: local response from locality based teams with potential opportunities for partnership working/liaison based on local knowledge and networks.

- Performance: regular reports to County Manager & strategy team on workloads and workflow; committed staff who work long hours where necessary

- Staff: reduce staff turnover in R&A, particularly in skilled and experienced staff as they are increasingly difficult to recruit (40% & 50% turnover respectively in 2 teams 2002/3); produce information/analysis of turnover in different teams based on collated exit interviews for sustainable development.

- Community: increase capacity/time to respond to local community, especially relationships with schools/opportunities for co-working/co-location. Identify mechanism to collate expressions of appreciation by other agencies/service users to improve staff morale.

Processes

- processes documented in CM Manual,

- clear and efficient business process identified

- above mapped for new IT system

- apply an efficient & consistent business process in all teams to eliminate recurrent backlogs

Leadership

- regular meetings in place for strategic lead to problem solve/consolidate understanding of policy and departmental priorities

- committed team managers provide local leadership

- link operational SMs with strategic lead & County Manager for operational consistent implementation of departmental policies and priorities etc.

Policy & Strategy

- CM Manual in place and regular updates

- Review provides opportunity to refocus existing strategy to new contextual drivers

- Inter-agency referral form for needs led assessment in place to provide basis for single assessment process

- Enable ongoing, incremental re-focusing

- Ensure policy/strategy consistently operationalised

- Increase focus on outcomes for children and young people

- Regular quality assurance

- Increase use of inter-agency referral form as basis of single assessment process

Staff

- Committed staff group who work long hours where necessary

- Participate with enthusiasm

- Supportive team managers

- Increase capacity

- Reduce retention/turnover

- Reward long hours/commitment, improve morale

- Enable delegation of some management tasks to `senior practitioner'/ increase team manager capacity to manage

- Data accuracy

- Increase smooth and speedy transfer of work to family support teams and reduce delay in R&A.

Partnerships & Resources

- Commitment of staff in R&A teams

- Review service model to ensure greater collaboration with partner agencies

- Need for agreed thresholds of need to and joined up approach to establish a single assessment and care pathways for children

Strengths

Areas for Improvement

Results

- Improved access to the service for public

- Fewer young people accommodated in emergency placements out of hours

- Young people who have been accommodated in emergency residential placements out of hours expressed high levels of satisfaction with the support they received from OOHS and residential staff

- Support work out of hours with young people who are homeless and/or have mental health problems is very limited

- Need for improved access to suitable accommodation for young people who are homeless (all hours)

Processes

- Improved referral processes between SS Direct and area social services teams and the appropriate adult service

- Close integration with NHS Direct systems allowing seamless transfer of telephone calls-reported better communication with SS Direct than with day-time services

- All calls from the public, social services department and other agencies are routed through the service centre and may be passed to voice mail if lines are busy. Many professionals, police custody sergeants and YOT officers in particular, would like direct telephone access to social workers out of hours

- SS Direct cannot access electronic child care information-NB this should be remedied by implementation of SWIFT

- Limited trend and useable management information available at present though work is under way to improve quality of data inputting and earlier problems with the system have been ironed out and there is potential to tailor systems to requirements

- Feedback on SS Direct interventions is communicated to area social services offices and not to the referring agency who may feel left out of the loop

- No mechanism for routinely obtaining consumer feedback from service users

Partnerships and resources

- Strong links with Health and other partner agencies-SS Direct was established through a partnership bid with Health agencies and a borough council

- Substantial investment in IT to improve public access to range of services

- New rota and staffing arrangements maximise staff availability to peak demand times

- Limited knowledge by some professionals (GPs, adult mental health teams) of what out of hours services available and what they are able to provide

- OOHS is limited by staff resources. Face to face contact with children and families restricted as work is strictly prioritised and emergencies take precedence

- As a single service covering the whole of the county resources are stretched,-questionable whether resources are adequate and whether service is able to be locally responsive

- Location in the south east means the north of the county is less accessible although the differential in levels of service is debatable

- Shortage of other resources available to OOHS including foster care and residential placements, family support services

- No emergency bed available in the north of the county

- No emergency bed available to children/YP being supported by `day-time' teams out of hours

- Housing officers say they need better access to client information out of hours and would like more help and support in mediating with YP to return home where appropriate

Staff

- Highly trained social work team, qualified in CP with extensive experience of risk assessment and decision making

- SCOs highly skilled and trained in handling calls, information, signposting and advice. Perform a valuable role which saves social work time

- Positive feedback from partner agencies about helpfulness of staff and joint working with experienced staff (although opportunities are limited)

- Some tensions between SS Direct managers and staff as staff adjust to changes in shift patterns and possible loss of autonomy with increased availability of team managers

- Social service staff in `day-time' district and cross-cutting C&F teams carry out a substantial amount of work outside office hours using flexible working arrangements and/or time in lieu . While this flexibility has the advantage of continuity for service users, teams have difficulty accommodating lieu time

Policy & strategy

- 2001 Housing/Social Services protocol being revised together with reassessment at a county-wide level of support for homeless YP

- Unclear where the main forum for discussion and plans for expansion of children's services out of hours is located

- Unclear what the implications of the technological expansion of the service are for C&F

Leadership

- Operational lead provided since established post of team manager, child care who links with C&F service

- Increased availability of team managers (either on site or on call) to support staff in their decision making

- Need to strengthen links with SS Direct and C&F sector at strategic level as service is managed through Adult services