North East Lincolnshire Children’s Services have experienced challenge with embedding their Signs of Safety model practices within their workforce. With rising demand and a lack of consistent quality of social work practice, Children's Services required support to ease pressures of demand, lower casework for fatigued staff, upskill and coach NQSW and exemplify their SOS model of practice.
"The aim is to engineer a programme which validates and rectifies poor performance, highlights what's working well and meets the challenges of demand"
Ryan Day
Senior Manager Attenti Consulting
Consistency is key
The service had historically experienced high turnover of staff which was effecting the overall delivery of services to children within the council. It was also clear that partner agencies were not working cohesively to support the child's needs. The assessment service was receiving a high volume of referrals that the service could not cope with. In collaboration with the client, Attenti proposed a phased package of support which included a systems and process analysis phase, delivery of assessment phase and coaching and mentoring phased programme. The programme guaranteed quality assured assessments to meet the challenge of demand, reports highlighting strengths and weaknesses of internal processes, coaching and mentoring of lesser experienced Social Workers as well as the experience to build the trust of partner agencies.
Continued collaboration
On completion of the main body of work, Attenti were approached to support other Assessment Service areas by coaching and mentoring staff and alleviating demand.
Sustainable change
The service had experienced an OFSTED inspection prior to our engagement with the client. The OFSTED inspection raised concerns within several areas of the service including quality. During Attenti’s involvement, OFSTED revisited the authority and highlighted that quality of practice and timeliness of assessments had improved significantly. The Department For Education have also commended the work of the project and are conducting a piece of research regarding how effective this type of work can be.
Programme agreed outcomes
"The aim is to engineer a programme which validates and rectifies poor performance, highlights what's working well and meets the challenges of demand"
Ryan Day
Senior Manager Attenti Consulting
Consistency is key
The service had historically experienced high turnover of staff which was effecting the overall delivery of services to children within the council. It was also clear that partner agencies were not working cohesively to support the child's needs. The assessment service was receiving a high volume of referrals that the service could not cope with. In collaboration with the client, Attenti proposed a phased package of support which included a systems and process analysis phase, delivery of assessment phase and coaching and mentoring phased programme. The programme guaranteed quality assured assessments to meet the challenge of demand, reports highlighting strengths and weaknesses of internal processes, coaching and mentoring of lesser experienced Social Workers as well as the experience to build the trust of partner agencies.
Continued collaboration
On completion of the main body of work, Attenti were approached to support other Assessment Service areas by coaching and mentoring staff and alleviating demand.
Sustainable change
The service had experienced an OFSTED inspection prior to our engagement with the client. The OFSTED inspection raised concerns within several areas of the service including quality. During Attenti’s involvement, OFSTED revisited the authority and highlighted that quality of practice and timeliness of assessments had improved significantly. The Department For Education have also commended the work of the project and are conducting a piece of research regarding how effective this type of work can be.
Programme agreed outcomes
- Provide reporting on programme performance deliverables inclusive of statutory compliance requirements.
- All new Assessments created were Quality Assured
- Quality, structure and direction of plans improved across the service
- Children and families building meaningful relationships with Social Workers
