The quality of early help services at Dudley children’s services has improved since the last inspection, Ofsted has said.
The sixth monitoring visit since the local authority was judged to be inadequate in April 2016 which concentrated on Dudley’s early help offer to children and families found more children are able to access support as a result of the improvements.
“This has prevented some children from requiring a statutory service and, as a result, more children are receiving a service which is commensurate with their levels of need,” said the report.
Inspectors noted:
However, the report highlights that the local authority is aware that multi-agency referrals that do not meet the threshold for statutory intervention are only recorded on the early help system and not on the children’s social care recording system. Although manual checks are undertaken in the MASH, this could lead to gaps in available information.
Furthermore, early help assessments do not routinely reflect the positive multi-agency engagement that takes place. Historical factors and patterns are not considered sufficiently, and chronologies are not used effectively.
The quality of supervision varies across the family support hubs. Some staff receive excellent supervision which offers an opportunity for reflection and learning and progresses outcomes for children. However, some staff supervision lacks depth.
“Family support workers in the hubs know the children they work with well, they are enthusiastic and committed to providing positive outcomes for children. These improvements have resulted in stronger and more effective practice,” said the report.
“This work is having a positive impact, improving the lives of an increasing number of children and families. The local authority recognises that more needs to be done to ensure consistent practice across all hubs and partners,” the report concluded.
A look back at 2022 with WillisPalmer's Head of Practice, Lucy Hopkins…
2022 saw people trying to get back to some degree of normality following the Covid-19 lockdowns, restrictions and school closures that we had faced for the previous two years. However, the impact of Covid-19 continued and many services experienced, and continue to experience, backlogs and difficulties, including those services relating to children and families.
Social worker [...]Every year people are excited to see what the theme of the John Lewis & Partners Christmas advert will be. This year's advert reminded our Head of Practice, Lucy Hopkins, of all the times she arrived at the homes of foster carers with children or young people who were anxious, scared, worried and hungry, having just [...]
The WillisPalmer Christmas Tree Decorating Competition 2022
We have two Christmas trees at the WillisPalmer office and this year the staff upstairs are going to compete with the staff downstairs to see who has the best decorated tree... and we want YOU to decide on the winner!
Tree 1 - Downstairs
Tree [...]
A Mackman Group collaboration - market research by Mackman Research | website design by Mackman