Progress has been made in The Wirral strategic response to children looked after, through the implementation of new processes and procedures, said Ofsted.
In the sixth monitoring visit of the authority since it was rated inadequate in September 2016, Ofsted found progress had been made after the experiences and progress for children looked after and achieving permanence was deemed to be ‘requiring improvement’ in the September report.
“However, more work is needed to improve social work practice to ensure that all children looked after receive a good service that improves their experiences. The local authority is aware of the shortfalls in practice and is taking steps to address them,” said the report, which focused on the experiences and progress of children who had recently become looked after, including those children at risk of child sexual exploitation and those on the edge of care, including pre-birth assessments.
All the children’s cases reviewed by inspectors met the threshold for care. Their progress towards legal permanence is monitored to ensure that it is timely. Children of all ages are appropriately considered for care and older children have a suitable range of options to help them progress towards independence.
All of the children reviewed are benefiting from being looked after and having social work input and inspectors saw good examples of purposeful direct work with children. Despite this, assessments of older children who have had lengthy involvements with children’s services take insufficient account of their earlier experiences. This means that important information is missing from their assessments and therefore does not inform their plan.
The report found:
“Recently introduced arrangements to oversee children at risk of child sexual exploitation are robust. However, practice is too variable and some children at risk of child sexual exploitation need better support and protection,” 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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