Leaders in Lincolnshire are ambitious for children in care and prioritise resources to support social work to flourish, Ofsted has said.
Inspectors highlighted that this results in stable and experienced teams who deliver high-quality social work which improves outcomes for children in Lincolnshire.
“Strong use of children’s networks of family and friends results in a high proportion of children appropriately leaving care through special guardianship,” said the report.
It outlined that:
Most children benefit from stable homes, with the majority of children living with foster carers recruited and supported by Lincolnshire council. Social workers work well together to assess, train and support foster carers to care for their children. Foster carers’ relationships with children are carefully considered in matching decisions.
Children are supported to return home to the care of their parents as appropriate. However, there is a poor application of placement with parents’ regulations, and a small group of children have not had their arrangements robustly reviewed
The local authority is aware that care proceedings take too long as the current average is a duration of 39 weeks. There have been capacity issue in the courts and consequently, it is taking too long for children to have their adoptions finalised and permanence is delayed. Senior leaders have taken assertive action, Ofsted noted, but it is too early to see the impact of this.
“Senior leaders provide a good working environment to support social work to flourish. Manageable workloads, regular supervision and appropriate training and development opportunities contribute to a supportive environment for social workers who are committed to working for Lincolnshire. Investment in an ambitious electronic child case recording system is bringing together children’s records, but further work is needed to ensure that the system is effective,” the report concluded.
New Deprivation of Liberty court launch for children
A National Deprivation of Liberty Court dealing specifically with applications relating to deprive children of their liberty has been announced by Sir Andrew McFarlane, president of the family division.
The court will deal with applications seeking authorisation to deprive children of their liberty and will be based at the Royal Courts of Justice under the [...]
Independent review into CSE in Oldham finds child protection procedures were not followed
Some children have been failed by the agencies that were meant to protect them because child protection procedures had not been properly followed, an independent assurance review into historic child sexual exploitation (CSE) in Oldham has found.
Evidence of poor practice was attributed to a structural flaw the review team found in the multi-agency system [...]
Sixty Second Interview with Chloe Bach
Find out more about our Business Administrator Chloe Bach who has been with WillisPalmer since 2009.
Tea or coffee?
Coffee (oat milk latte)
What 3 things would you put in Room 101?
Migraines, slugs and war
What is your favourite place in the world?
Wherever my family is (but I do love New York)
If you were on death row what [...]
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