Issue - meetings

This will be a verbal update presented by John Coleman, Director of Children & Families Service and George Shipman, Head of Children's Pathfinder Programme.

George Shipman provided a verbal update and slide presentation on the Pathfinder Delivery Plan. 

The presentation included the background to the ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’ strategy which had started in May 2022, following the publication of reforms across the children’s social care system.  In July 2023 over £45 million of funding was made available to design and test the reforms.

The ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’ Strategy was built on six pillars, with the government investing funds to address urgent issues and to understand how the reforms could be delivered.  This was felt to be the biggest change to child protection in years.

George Shipman went on to explain how the Pathfinder programme worked, supporting social workers and the number of actions the Council was asked to commit to.  Ultimately, this was a shared ambition and Members noted the four key reform strands that would be delivered as a whole system transformation.

The presentation concluded with the planned timescales to implement the Pathfinder programme, which would require the Council to work at pace.  George Shipman advised that officers hoped to report back to the Committee with more detail in due course.

Councillor Kerridge queried how support was delivered to families who may have differing parental views from each other.  John Coleman agreed that this was challenging and the family help team would have a practitioner allocated to the family for the entire time.  This was hoped to mitigate the need for families to repeat their story and would enable them to keep hold of the same officer or worker throughout the process.  In order to implement this, the Council was going to restructure approximately 500 staff. 

The aim was to get families to the right team in their locality much quicker,  Currently assessments took 45 days to complete and the ambition was to reduce this to 10 days, whilst also reducing the number of strategy meetings held. 

Councillor Sinclair asked for further information on how parents escalated potential failings with their single point of contact and how officers would ensure sufficient handover of information when staff left.  John Coleman explained that Warwickshire had struggled to recruit social workers and carried vacancies.  The Council was now looking to recruit fifteen family support workers and the change in reforms would help to open up the workforce.

In response to the escalation of failings, there was a process that parents could follow if they did not feel they were getting the support they needed as well as a formal complaints process.  The transfer of information would be helped by the use of one recording system being used by everyone, making sure clear transfer summaries were in place and accurate chronologies.

Councillor Dave Humphreys asked if external agencies were used such as community groups, which often added to the support network.  John Coleman agreed that use of the voluntary sector and community links were a critical part of the process.

The Chair thanked George Shipman for his presentation and the update was noted.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8