UPDATE NO 429 13 November 2020

Last Call for Silver Linings suggestions

The Call for Evidence is now closing. Either download the document and return to Richard Tyndall (contact details below) or call him to discuss your idea for inclusion in the Silver Linings Project.

The call is open to all sections of Children’s Services from mainstream schools to special schools to early years to early help to children’s social care to youth justice teams to adoption to fostering.

Here’s a link to a similar piece of work already undertaken by our colleagues in the London LIIA

The Silver Linings Project page is now live. The Covid-19 pandemic lockdown and subsequent adjustments to find Covid-secure ways of working have driven new thinking about ways to deliver Children’s Services, in schools, in early help and in children’s social care.

The aim of the Silver Linings project is to capture and publicise the best of these innovative responses, in an attempt to embed these new and better ways or working into the “new normal”.

Please download the document and return it as soon as you can.

DfE and DHSC write to DPHs about C-19 control measures in education

On 11 November 2020 the Secretaries of State for Education and Health and Social Care wrote a letter to Directors of Public Health in England. 

The letter emphasises the need to keep schools open, and reinforces the message that advice to close a school on public health grounds should be a last resort.

New funding for Complex LAC project

Last week we heard that our bid for £128,600 for the next phase of the Complex LAC project had been accepted by the DfE, alongside 4 other national projects.

In this phase of the project we are going to be working closely with 4 South East authorities (Milton Keynes, West Sussex, Kent and Portsmouth) as development partners, together with three providers. To deliver the full ambition of the bid the project needs to focus work with a smaller group of authorities and providers. As the project develops we will regularly update the wider group across the region. We will also be working to ensure the outcomes of the project are transferable and can be shared with all authorities in the South East.

The overall aim of the project is to develop a specification for new and innovative provision for looked after children with a particular focus on the following key elements:

• Flexible, creative provision designed to meet the needs of complex children, including options to ‘step across’ various forms of provision (e.g. residential to fostering)
• Keeping children local, as close to their home address as possible
• Working with providers who already offer both residential and fostering services and with small providers, developing joined up partnerships, enabling movement between each as appropriate to need
• Exploring options for considering lifetime costs for placements, the potential to invest in more intensive early interventions, with a view to improving outcomes and potentially reducing longer term costs
• Including measures of progress for children placed based on assessment at the point of placement (regularly reviewed up until placement end using an evidence-based assessment tool)

Further information is available from Mark Evans or Rosemary Perry (contact details below).

Social Work England – Deadline for CPD Registration 30 November 2020

It is a legal requirement that social workers in England renew their registration to continue to use the protected title of ‘social worker’. The requirement to renew registration is set out in our legislation, and regulation 13 of The Social Worker Regulations 2018, and Part 7 of the Social Work England (Registration) Rules 2019. Registration renewal must be completed between 1 September and 30 November 2020 or social workers run the risk of being removed from the register. Those with an open fitness to practise case still need to apply to renew their registration.

Here are resources on the Social Work England website to assist with the process:

Renew your registration and How to record CPD You Tube clips

Renewal FAQs

Top tips for recording CPD

Blog on recording CPD while on maternity/paternity leave

DfE Evaluation of the Family Safeguarding Model 2020

This report was published on 4 November 2020 and concludes that multi-disciplinary working – and specifically the integration of specialist adult workers within social work teams – is the foremost success factor of Family Safeguarding. It has given families prompter access to specialist input and has provided more joined-up and tailored packages of support. Other success factors include Motivational Interviewing (which has improved engagement and ownership amongst families) and group supervision (which has enabled practitioners to better manage risk and be more reflective).

The report includes analysis of implementation of the model in Bracknell Forest, Luton, Peterborough and West Berkshire along with an update on progress in Hertfordshire (where the approach was first developed).

The full report is available here

Find more information on Hertfordshire’s Family Safeguarding model

Find more information on the DfE’s Strengthening Families, Protecting Children Programme

LGA Productivity Offer

The LGA’s productivity offer: Supporting your council to innovate, save money and generate income. Please contact Alison Michalska (details below) for a preliminary discussion.

The LGA has a range of programmes featured in this flyer aimed helping councils improve efficiency and generate inclome. For more information go to the LGA website.

New national guidance for local authorities on providing youth services

On 29 October, new guidance was published by NYA, which is the national body for youth work in England. NYA sets standards for youth services’ quality and sufficiency. 

NYA says, “Our new guidance supports local authorities in their statutory duty to secure local services. This includes the meaningful engagement of young people to ensure access to quality youth services at a neighbourhood level, whether they are directly delivered, commissioned by or run independently from the local authority.“

The full report is here

Muslim children in care: a podcast

CoramBAAF has released a podcast in which Dr Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor Assistant Professor at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations at Coventry University discusses her recently published research paper on Muslim children in care.

Listen to the podcast (46mins): In conversation with Dr Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor 

Read the report: Among the last ones to leave? Understanding the journeys of Muslim children in the care system in England (PDF)

Best start in speech, language and communication

On October 30, DfE published Guidance to improve speech, language and communication (SLC) in the early years. The main guidance document supports local areas to develop a whole-systems approach to reducing inequalities in SLC. It is aimed at:

• directors of public health and directors of children’s services
• clinical commissioning groups (CCGs)
• providers of speech and language therapy services
• providers of health visiting and school nursing services
• early years and school settings

The main document is accompanied by supporting evidence and case studies of good practice from local areas.

Public Health England’s Speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) assessment report provides information for health and local authority commissioners to commission effective services for children with SLCN. The report brings together a range of relevant data and evidence on demographics, prevalence and some of the risk factors for each upper-tier local authority and CCG.

National Tutoring Programme launches to support disadvantaged pupils

The National Tutoring Programme (NTP) launched on 2 November as part of the government’s coronavirus catch-up fund. It has been developed to support disadvantaged pupils whose education has been affected by the school closures caused by the pandemic. Evidence from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has shown that an already substantial attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers is likely to have increased significantly due to school closures.

Previous evidence from EEF showed the positive impact of tuition on pupil progress, and the NTP has devised a programme consisting of two pillars: Academic Mentors and Tuition Partners, both with the aim of supporting the progress of pupils most in need.

More information at Coronavirus (COVID-19) catch-up premium on what school leaders need to know about the catch-up premium and the National Tutoring Programme, including funding amounts and how funding should be spent.