Our story

There has never been a more exciting time to join our service: alongside making a difference to the lives of individuals and families, we have adopted exciting new strengths-based approaches and are passionate about delivering continuous service improvement that work alongside our Council Plans and Priorities and the vision of “protect, care and invest to create a better borough”.

Our children's services are committed to the use of relationship based interventions with ‘making a difference’ as a core value. It is intended that this style of working will offer a diverse and rich experience and in keeping with this, there will be opportunities across the service to find out about a range of practices to enhance the experiences of working with vulnerable children and their families.

Family Safeguarding

In 2021, we implemented a new approach to Child Protection services developed by Hertfordshire County Council, and began to deliver their innovative and pioneering practice model of Family Safeguarding.

Family Safeguarding is a model of system change where specialist adult practitioners are embedded within Family Safeguarding teams of Social Workers. The intervention supports a whole-system change to a local authority’s child protection approach for children up to adolescence, focusing on supporting the needs of children and adults in order that children can safely remain within their families.

This involves:

• Establishing multi-disciplinary teams where specialist adult practitioners in domestic abuse, mental health and substance misuse are co-located with Social Workers under a unified management structure. This enables a multi-disciplinary whole family response through direct assessment and support from specialist adult practitioners as well as multi-professional group case discussions and sharing of knowledge and skills across disciplines.
• Use of Motivational Interviewing (MI) as a framework for practice for all staff. Staff undergo training and ongoing skills development workshops and follow a structured solution-focussed intervention programme with families which aims to work collaboratively with families and increase engagement.
• Using an electronic assessment workbook which provides a single data tool for all professionals and links to the work programme. This increases ease of information sharing between professionals and reduces social worker time spent recording and sharing information.

Supervision

Telford & Wrekin has a robust supervision policy which is geared towards achieving positive outcomes for you as a worker and for the children and families we work with. We are committed to ensuring that all staff receive good quality, effective and regular supervision in line with their needs and requirements. This includes those working on a temporary contract (including agency staff), staff who are permanent, part time or full time. Whilst this policy is applicable to all staff working within the Children and Families Service, we recognise the specific requirements for practitioners and staff who work directly with children and their families

Staff Consultation Group

This group is comprised of a range of representatives from all areas of Telford & Wrekin Children’s Services. The group meet with the Executive Director, Children’s Services to discuss and respond to our annual staff health check; plan for our annual practice week; and to look at ways to improve practice and champion new developments across the service. 

Staff briefings

Staff briefings are held quarterly and provide an opportunity for staff to network and to keep abreast of developments across the breadth of the service. In addition to formal inputs, regular speakers are organised so that workers can also hear about the national agenda to support learning and development.

Practice standards

Telford and Wrekin Council has clear practice standards and organisational standards of behaviour. High quality social work is vital to safeguarding the most vulnerable families, children and young people in Telford and Wrekin.

Our practice standards have been developed by our social work staff and set out principles that relate to good practice in social work. Adherence to these standards will play a vital role in making Telford and Wrekin a Family Friendly community where children feel safe, and help lead joint working to improve outcomes for the most vulnerable children. At the heart of this document is a new, Systemic Practice Framework that seeks to work with children, young people and families, building on their strengths to better manage the risks and challenges they face.

Our ambition is not just to be the best for families, children and young people, but to be the best council for the staff and services that work with them. This is a great opportunity for us to work together to make Telford and Wrekin a centre of leading practice in social work.

Our overarching principles:

• In all our activities, the child’s best interests come first.
• We will always aim to meet the needs of children and young people and their families at the earliest stage, either through the provision of early help or where necessary intervention from safeguarding services.
• Children are best cared for by their families, and in situations where this cannot be achieved safely they need to be looked after in safe and stable placements.
• Our practitioners act as a resource for children and young people and their families, helping parents to make positive changes. To do this they need to have professional curiosity and take responsibility for self-development, and use supervision effectively.
• In our assessments and work we aim to understand and improve the child’s lived experience.
• Work is carried out in partnership with parents and carers to enable them to meet their responsibilities and achieve best outcomes.
• Children are involved in decisions that affect them.
• In all our work, we maintain an awareness of equal opportunities and the impact of discrimination.
• We work closely with other agencies to improve support that is offered to children, young people and families.
• Work with children and families is undertaken within the legislative framework and makes use of best practice.
• Our records are accurate, complete and demonstrate the child’s story.
• Work with children is managed and supervised to achieve the best possible outcomes.
• We treat children, families and our working partners with courtesy and respect.

Our Social Workers

• Are curious, sensitive, and reflective as well as being authoritative, professional and tenacious in improving life outcomes for children.
• Approach families with empathy, compassion and creativity using relationships for positive change.
• Use a systemic approach to work purposefully, openly and compassionately with the whole family system.
• Use reflective critical thinking and analysis to evaluate and integrate multiple sources of knowledge and evidence to create meaningful assessments and plans.
• Build skilful and influential working relationships with other professionals and agencies.
• Draw on a range of approaches, used proportionately and regularly reviewed.
• Make good and emotionally intelligent use of supervision.
• Have high quality planning and decision making skills.
• Demonstrate understanding and skill in working as a member of a team and organisation.
• Understand their legal and statutory responsibilities and execute these in children’s best interests.
• Take appropriate responsibility for their conduct, practice and learning.

13 reasons to choose to work for Telford & Wrekin Children's Social Care:

Last updated: 22/03/2022 10:20