Shropshire children’s services rated ‘good’

The support provided to children, young people and families in Shropshire has been recognised with a ‘good’ rating from Ofsted inspectors.

In a report published today, Shropshire Council social workers and leaders are commended for stepping up to ensure children and families continued to receive the right help throughout the pandemic – despite an increase in referrals and the number of children entering the care system.

The report follows a two-week inspection last month, the council’s first under Ofsted’s new inspection framework, and maintains the overall ‘good’ rating awarded to its children’s services department at the last inspection in 2017.

In the three sub-categories, the council was deemed ‘good’ in both the impact of leaders on social work practice and the experiences of children in care and care leavers, while the experiences of children who need help and protection was marked as ‘requires improvement to be good’.

The council said this reflected the findings of its own self-assessment, with work already underway to bolster the areas in need of further attention.

Council leader Lezley Picton said: “This is a terrific indictment of the amount of work that’s gone in from across all the staff in children’s social care.

“The care and compassion and commitment that our social workers have shown over the last two years, from the top all the way down, has been extraordinary and I couldn’t be prouder.”

Sonya Miller, assistant director of children’s social care and safeguarding, said: “It is an incredible achievement to maintain the ‘good’ rating after a two-year pandemic, where things have been extremely challenging for children’s services locally and nationally.”

Ms Miller said the inspectors had agreed with the areas the council had identified as being in need of improvement.

She said: “They said we know ourselves well and we know where those areas are that we need to improve.

“That’s around our pre-court work. We need to work on that being more restorative and family-friendly and effective in moving families away from court.

“There is still work to do around meeting emotional and mental health needs of children and young people in the county but the inspectors did acknowledge we had stepped up to fill those gaps where services had not been available.”

The report notes over 40 key findings, including praise for the way social workers continued face-to-face visits throughout the pandemic, “make decisions that are in children’s best interests” and “are good at listening to children and parents”, ensuring children are able to live with their families wherever possible.

Ms Miller said: “There are several comments in the report about how our services stepped up during the pandemic. We very much provided a high level of support to children and families.

“Inspectors also recognised that where partners were redeployed, the local authority stepped up to ensure children’s needs and risks were responded to, and that’s something we were very proud of.

“That was very much about the personal commitment and dedication of individual social workers who continued to meet children and do that role throughout.”

The report says children in care make good progress, and care leavers “benefit from greatly from the enhanced support of their personal advisors”.

It also says leaders have shifted the culture of the organisation to be be more people-focused, with emphasis on improving outcomes for the most vulnerable members of society.

Councillor Picton said: “In difficult financial times we have increased the budget because we know how incredibly important it is that our looked after young people in Shropshire get the very, very best outcomes.

“All councillors are corporate parents and we instil in them if it’s not good enough for your own child it’s not good enough for our looked after children.”

Councillor Picton said the council was constantly striving to improve children’s services, with plans to put more funding into early intervention with a “prevention rather than cure” approach.

Kirstie Hurst-Knight, cabinet member for children and education said she was “extremely proud” of the ‘good’ rating.

She said: “The council’s teams have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic, and have really stepped up to ensure that even in these most challenging times, we remained fully focused on and supporting those who need it most – our most vulnerable children and families.

“I pay tribute to everyone in our children’s services, and our partners, who work with such compassion and commitment every day to improve the lives of children in Shropshire.

“We know that our work doesn’t stop and there are still things we can improve on, and we welcome the recommendations Ofsted have made to further ensure we are making Shropshire as safe as possible for children, where they can develop to have the best life for young people, with access to good health, education and other services.”