UPDATE NO 239 24 February 2017

Secondment Opportunity SEO Social Worker – YJB Placements (Ref: 6073)

The post holder must be a qualified Social Worker (HCPC registered) and have knowledge or experience of working with young people in the youth justice system.    He/she will :

• provide advice and support to operational staff in Placements and Monitoring teams;
• advocate defensible decision making.    
• integrate the principles of social work into the team
• have advisory and policy responsibilities and provide advice and guidance in investigations and matters of concern
• establish and manage a safeguarding and practitioner forum
• review and assist in quality assurance of placements decisions
• engage with and work to address the present acute and complex custody cohorts

 If you have any questions about this role please contact 

Improving the Quality of Audits

On 20 February 2017 SESLIP held a workshop for QA/Audit leads, it was well attended with 18 people representing 13/19 local authorities in the South East.

All authorities present had some form of audit programme in place, most included general and thematic audits.  Practice varied in relation to who conducts audits and the use of multi-agency teams.  

The workshop including sessions sharing audit tools and practice. An overview of what research and evidence from social care and other sectors tells us is most effective in having an impact and improving outcomes. 

The final session explored the options for increasing collaboration across the region to improve audit practice.  

The themes set out below were identified as those that were most likely to be beneficial and have most positive effect: 

• Developing a SE shared set of regional standards for auditing
• Work to calibrate and benchmark audits across the region
• Exploring the creation of templates for reporting audits
• Developing an online resource for sharing audit tools and good practice
• Develop regional audit templates in relation to new challenges and demands as they arise (e.g. JTAI).  

We envisage this work will be supported and facilitated by the project, but with much of the activity being led and completed by the local authority QA/Audit Leads.

The next steps in the project will be developing a detailed proposal including a project outline, budget and description of the outcomes that will be delivered. This will be completed for consideration by the Project Sponsor (Michael Bracey DCS Milton Keynes) and the SESLIP Steering Committee.   

Please contact Mark Evans or David Goosey (details below) if you want to find out more.

AD Education Network – 17 March 12.30

There will be an extra meeting of the AD Education Network open to colleagues interested in exploring the emerging landscape of sector-led initiatives attempting to provide a sustainable solution for support, collaboration and co-operation between and for schools.

Some colleagues reported working on creating a “Trust”, others a “Company”, still others a “Partnership” or an “Alliance”. However the group wanted to put aside some time to explore the different purposes of these new organisations as well as the new structures and names.

The meeting will be held in Booth Room, The Abbey Centre, 34 Great Smith Street, Westminster SW1P 3BU, (please note revised time) at 12.30 Friday 17 March. Please can you contact Richard Tyndall (details below) indicating whether or not you would like to attend this meeting, either alone or with other colleagues (to give us a clue about room size and catering numbers).

Whether or not you plan to attend or send a colleague, please can you share with Richard any background papers you have developed on this topic. Please can you indicate whether or not the papers are appropriate for posting to the public section of the SESLIP website (if they remain confidential I will make arrangements to put them in the password protected section of our website and issue appropriate passwords).

SE DCS Peer Challenge

We are now recruiting volunteers to join the visiting teams. If you or a colleague might be a suitable nomination, please can you first discuss this with your DCS. Nominations should be Head of Service or Assistant Director or equivalent level. The commitment is some preparation, some pre-reading and a two-day visit on site. 

Portsmouth (6/7 April) the team led by Lucy Butler (DCS Oxfordshire) is now full; many thanks to Rodney D’Costa (Slough) for coming forward.

Brighton and Hove (27/28 June) to join the team led by Steve Crocker (DCS Hampshire and IoW) and including Rachel Morgan (Head of Standards and Effectiveness at Bracknell Forest) and two more colleagues, one with YOS, and another with Social Care expertise. 

Richard Tyndall (details below) will collect nominations and confirm the teams in due course.

Leadership Development

We continue to offer our successful portfolio of Leadership Development Courses all of which have been positively evaluated by delegates.

We are offering LAs the opportunity to train their own trainers for all our courses. Our aim is to increase the capacity and capability across the region  to ensure future sustainability within LAs. Courses can also be delivered with adult services and/or for schools. Please contact Di Smith, details below, if this is of interest to you.