Our staff are at the heart of our organisation. The Children's Safeguarding and Family Support Directorate is made up of various services and teams who all pride themselves on the quality of care and support available to children and families within our borough.
Below you can hear about our services and see #WhyTelfordWrekin is different. It is a great place to live, work and somewhere that you can really make a difference.
“The stability of the experienced workforce creates the perfect environment to benefit children and care leavers. As a result, social workers maintain relationships with children who know them over many years, which contributes to children’s feeling of belonging.”
You can also find out more about our Council Plans and Priorities, and our vision to “protect, care and invest to create a better borough”.
Our services
Emma Martin, Service Delivery Manager
Family Connect, Emergency Duty Team, Strengthening Families, Family Solutions Team
Family Connect
Family Connect is a free and confidential service, made up of a multi-disciplinary partnership of internal and external agencies. Family Connect provide impartial advice, information, guidance as well as support on a full range of services available across the borough including childcare, activities, school admissions and finance.
Family Connect aims to ensure that families are getting the right help in the right place at the right time. It is our front door for all child and young people safeguarding referrals.
Family Solutions Team
The Family Solutions Team has responsibility for minimising the need for children to become looked after by the Local Authority where it is safe to do so, they also provide support to enable a seamless transition to return children home from the care of the local authority. Family Group Conferencing also sits within this service area.
Emergency Duty Team
The EDT provide an emergency social work service for urgent situations requiring support for safeguarding, mental health and crisis for adults, children, and families outside of normal office hours, which cannot be left with an appropriate degree of safety until the next normal working day.
The service operates Monday to Thursday 5pm to 9am and from 5pm Friday through to 9am Monday. The service also operates during public holidays.
Strengthening Families
Are locality based and provide a variety of early help family support interventions. Strengthening Families provide local services for families with children aged 0-19
through children and family centres, in a planned approach to ensure resources are targeted where they are most effective.
All referrals to the Strengthening Families teams are coordinated via Family Connect.
Telford & Wrekin Family Hubs also sit within Strengthening Families. Family Hubs are one-stop centres where families can get free information, guidance and support on infant feeding, mental health, healthy lifestyles and many other services.
Bringing all this support together in one place is a huge advantage for families, as they can go for face-to-face advice and extra help right in their own community, when they need it.
Please use the following links to access the latest edition of:
Telford Family Hubs Offer
This booklet outlines the services available through the Family Hubs to ensure families get the support they need from birth through to adulthood.
Family Hubs Seeds to Orchard
This parenting guide is for parents and carers of children and young people in Telford & Wrekin. It gives practical advice and guidance to help with the most important role of being a parent.
Between Us App Flyer
This app has been developed to benefit all parents whether you are together or separated to improves communications and understanding. The app provides tools and techniques to improve your parenting skills and help your family succeed.
Deb Thomas, Service Delivery Manager
Assessment and Duty Service and CATE Team (Children at Risk through Exploitation)
Assessment and Duty Service
There are three teams within the Assessment and Duty Service (Hadley, Lakeside and Wrekin) who carry out child in need social work assessments, strategy discussions and child protection enquiries.
These teams work alongside families for the duration of the assessment, identifying needs and ensuring children and their families get the right levels of support at the right time and to ensure that children remain in their birth families’ care where it is safe for them to do so. Where this is not possible, the teams will secure the safety of the child in emergencies and issue care proceedings where there is any immediate need for protection.
CATE Team
This is a team that specialises in services for children and young people who are affected by child exploitation. The team works within multi-agency pathways (police, social care, health, and education) to enable children and young people to stay safe.
Paul Grocutt, Service Delivery Manager
Family Safeguarding, Children’s Commissioning and Brokerage
The Family Safeguarding Model is a strengths-based approach which looks to support parents to make positive changes to family life. It aims to keep families together, with bespoke and tailored packages of support around domestic violence, mental health, and substance misuse. This is achieved through a more collaborative way of working where parents are motivated to identify the changes needed within their own families. The approach helps to achieve better outcomes for children and their families.
The Family Safeguarding Model is a pioneering approach, bringing together children's social care professionals with specialists in adult mental health, domestic abuse, and substance misuse, providing tailored wrap around support for parents.
Better for families
Family Safeguarding focuses on a whole family approach, making it easier for parents to access all the support they need from within one team.
This will help them deal with the complex issues of domestic abuse, mental health and drug or alcohol abuse which may harm their lives and those of their children, if these are not dealt with.
Better for professionals
This way of working strengthens information sharing between professionals. It also frees up social workers time enabling them to spend more time working with families and less time on administration.
In other areas of the country that have implemented the Family Safeguarding Model, children's social care practitioners report that this way of working increases their motivation and job satisfaction. Support is offered to families using a technique called Motivational Interviewing. This is designed to empower and engage parents to make the positive changes needed to achieve improved outcomes for their children and their own wellbeing.
Our teams
Family Safeguarding teams are made up of:
- Children’s Social workers - will work directly with children and families, supporting them to identify and make changes that will improve outcomes for the family.
- Domestic abuse practitioners - will work with those who have experienced or are experiencing domestic abuse to support them to understand the impact of domestic abuse on themselves and their children.
- Domestic abuse officers - will work together with parents/carers with children, with the aim of breaking the cycle of abusive behaviour.
- Recovery workers - will work with parents where there are issues with drugs, and/or alcohol. These professionals will provide support to make any lifestyle changes that are needed so that parents can carry on caring for their children.
- Mental health practitioners - will work with parents who are experiencing mental health difficulties.
What are the Family Safeguarding teams doing differently?
Our teams are:
- delivering a whole family focus by spending more time with children and families
- delivering swift and tailored responses for parents where there are issues with drug and alcohol use, domestic abuse or mental health needs
- achieving change through the skilled use of motivational interviewing techniques
- using high quality reflective supervision, within a multi-disciplinary forum, to support information sharing and strengthen decision making using a range of tools to develop an in depth understanding of family circumstances
- using a new way of recording to streamline, ensuring more time is available to undertake direct work with children and families. The workbook will also provide the multi-agency team with a ‘real time’ assessment of how things are going for the family.
Family Assessment and Family Time team
The Family Time team undertakes direct and indirect interaction between children and their families to offer family time when children are no longer placed in the care of their parents. This is tailored to the individual needs of the child and their family to ensure the time they spend together is meaningful and of a high quality. Risks are assessed and managed throughout the time the family is within this service.
The Family Assessment team undertakes bespoke pre-birth and parenting assessments to inform long term plans for children. These assessments focus on all areas of parenting as well as the parents’ lived experiences. The assessments will also provide teaching and make recommendations for any further teaching that can be undertaken to improve the experiences of children within the service and ensure better outcomes for them. The team are all trained in PAMS (Parenting Assessment Manual Software) which is a bespoke assessment using specific tool to ensure that parents with levels of learning needs have a fair and appropriate assessment and appropriate teaching is provided.
Children’s Commissioning and Brokerage Team
The Children’s Commissioning and Brokerage Team are a group of professionals working together for children with disabilities, children in care and care leavers. We play a key role in co-designing and co-commissioning innovative, safe outcome focussed solutions with our Children’s social care colleagues. Within this the aim is to ensure children, young people, and their families (to prevent children from coming into care of the Council) receive the right quality of provision at the right time, with the right service making best use of our resources available.
A key priority is to ensure children and young people have access to good quality accommodation and support, providing the option to live locally, if safe to do so, and enhancing life chances and supporting young people transitioning into adulthood to give them the best start in life. The team work closely with colleagues from across the organisation and with partner agencies to agree shared commissioning priorities
and strategies. They are also part of a regional commissioning network to support regional accommodation and support needs through the commissioned Fostering, Residential, Supported Accommodation frameworks and are lead commissioners for the Children and Families Support Services (CAFSS) framework.
The team consists of commissioners who are responsible for establishing, developing, and leading on commissioning requirements for children’s services. The brokerage team work closely with market providers and operational teams to ensure quality services and placements are commissioned for children and young people. Services are procured using best value opportunities, developing sufficiency through market engagement and contract management.
Kelly Burgess, Service Delivery Manager
Fostering
Fostering Service
The Fostering Service comprises of four teams with specific links to the statutory functions for the provision of fostering service functions. The teams provide a generic service to facilitate and support family placements as well as a significant role in supporting permanency within family placements.
The aim of the service is to ensure that children feel safe and secure in their placements within fostering households, with carers that are appropriately trained, supported and able to provide quality care to meet the needs of our care experienced young people and maximise their life chances by being aspirational and ambitious for them.
The service works in partnership with children/young people, their birth families, the children’s social workers and the multi-agency network to ensure that the best possible outcomes are achieved.
The Teams are:
Recruitment and Family Finding
The team looks to recruit foster carers from a diverse range of backgrounds to provide nurture, support, stability, and care for our fostered children. Our Family Finding Officers ensure the appropriate matching of children and young people to carers to promote the best possible outcomes for them. This team provides support to families who are offering more specialist fostering provision, such as children moving to foster families from residential provision and parent and child arrangements.
Fostering - mainstream
This team is responsible for the operational policies and procedures of the fostering service and to ensure the service meets and complies with statutory requirements and the National Minimum Fostering standards and regulations. The manager overseas the fostering panel functions and other linked responsibilities. Most of our mainstream foster carers are supported by this team, where ongoing foster carer reviews are completed.
Family and Friends Assessment Team
This team undertakes assessments of Family and Friends/Connected people (viability assessments, Form Cs, and private and public applications for Special Guardianship Orders.
Family and Friends Supervision and Support Team
This team provides support and supervision to Family & Friends carers who are approved and providing ongoing care to the children placed with them. The team also supports private fostering arrangements (private arrangements (without the involvement of the local authority) for the care of a child or young person by someone other than a parent or close relative with the intention it should last for 28 days or more.
For further information please visit the Telford Fostering website.
Marie Hatton, Service Delivery Manager
Children in Care, Leaving Care, Children with Disabilities
Children in Care and Leaving Care Service
The Children in Care Service provides ongoing support and services to all children for whom there is no plan to return home. The Children in Care Service also receives referrals for separate unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and provides the planning and support services for those children.
The Children in Care Service provide a 0 to 18 years old service for children and young people who have been looked after. Young people will transfer to the 18+ Leaving Care team when they reach 18 years.
A Leaving Care Personal Advisor will be allocated alongside the social worker from the age of 16. They will then remain the allocated Personal Advisor after the young person reaches 18 and beyond. The Children in Care teams and the Leaving Care service will work closely together and form a transition plan for each young person.
The Children in Care service will be responsible for the following for children allocated in the team:
- after a Care Order is granted
- provision of services to children in Section 20 care who have no plan to return home
- formation and implementation of the permanency plans for children
- children placed with their parents where there is a period of stability needed before an application for a discharge of the Care Order is made.
Children with Disabilities Service
The Children with Disabilities team provide a specialist service/intervention for children with a disability or complex needs. They undertake assessments and provide support to families to agree a plan that will help the child/family. They work with children with disabilities where there are safeguarding concerns or where they are in the care of the Local Authority.
Case Workers support families following assessment where needs have been identified, working with families to devise a support plan. This often results in direct payments and services provided/commissioned in accordance with Short Breaks guidance.
Children’s Occupational Therapists undertake assessments in the home where there may be a requirement for equipment for example bathing aids, specialist seating systems, specialist furniture or adaptations to the layout physical layout of the home.
Mark Tustin
Performance, Quality Assurance & Independent Review Service
The role of the Independent Reviewing Officer and Child Protection Conference Chair is a dual role. The Child Protection Conferencing service provides independent safeguarding support to children and young people by chairing multi-agency Child Protection Conferences on behalf of Telford & Wrekin Safeguarding Partnership (TWSP). The Independent Reviewing Officers (IRO’s) provide independent oversight of children’s care, ensuring that children in the care of the local authority are safe and well cared for. In addition, the team provides independent oversight of the quality of our foster carers through annual reviews of internal foster care placements.
The Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) manages and offers advice and consultation on allegations against people who work in paid employment or who are in voluntary work with children and young people (i.e. who have a ‘position of trust’). The team also oversees the provision of provide advocacy services for children open to statutory services.
This service area leads on Quality Assurance which includes the overarching audit activity across Children’s Services, producing and updating the Quality Assurance Framework and QA Annual Report and leading on the co-ordination of deep dive audit activity for identified performance issues.
Louise Spragg
Principal Social Worker
The Practice Development Hub is overseen by the Principal Social Worker. The Hub consists of:
- Principal Social Worker.
- Consultant Social Worker and Workforce Development Lead.
- ASYE Coordinator.
- Clinical Lead/Team Manager Systemic Service and Systemic Psychotherapists.
- Social Workers.
- Life Story Team.
- Strategic lead for social care reforms
The training and development plan is informed by feedback from families, practitioners, partner agencies, learning from internal audits, as well as responding to actions arising from rapid reviews and national policy initiatives and best practice.
As well as being responsible for the coordination and commissioning of external and internal training we also deliver training directly to the workforce.
We support Student Social Workers either through university, Step up to Social Worker or via the apprenticeship scheme. We support the development of newly qualified Social Workers throughout their ASYE programme. We support the development of Social Workers undertaking their practice supervisor and practice educator qualifications.
Our systemic psychotherapist and social workers within the systemic team continue to facilitate direct therapeutic work with children and families in addition to providing consultations, POD reflective group’s and one to one discussion with practitioners in relation to enhancing our systemic practice approach when working alongside families. In addition to supporting the delivery of our training and development programme.
Laura Moore, Service Delivery Manager
Service Improvement and Efficiency (Children’s Services)
Service Improvement and Efficiency team sits across Directorates, providing strategic improvement and transformation support to all areas of Education and Skills and Children’s Safeguarding and Family Support.
The Service is responsible for the following:
- Business Administration Support
- Business Systems Support
- Complaints and Assurance
- Safeguarding Finance and Payments
- Projects team
- Apprenticeships
- Traded Services
- Youth Offer
- Volunteering Coordinator and Volunteer Services (Children’s Services)
Last updated: 11/07/2024 14:00
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