Things are looking up for vulnerable children and their families in Slough, as practice changes made by the independent trust appointed to run services start to kick in. The place buzzes with new ideas and more social workers are considering a position there to be a shrewd career move.
“One measure of how much things have changed here, is that when we took over we had too many agency staff in our social work teams,” says Eric de Mello, operations director for Slough children’s services trust. “Now our staff are predominantly permanent. That’s because we’ve created an environment where good social work can flourish and staff feel supported in doing what is, arguably, one of the most difficult jobs there is.”
Quality training is a priority, as is developing and nurturing staff – which, in part, has led to a greater number of those in training staying on. Along with retaining local staff, better working conditions and a growing reputation for keeping children safe mean the trust is also starting to attract social workers from further afield. Some are even deserting the leafier London boroughs to join the team, taking advantage of a train journey of less than 20 minutes.
The benefits for new frontline recruits include generous market supplements, a £1,000 one-off payment for staying more than 18 months, and manageable caseloads, but it is the different model of practice that is really starting to attract social workers.
Before his move to Slough, de Mello was an interim manager at a number of children’s services. His experiences greatly helped inform his thinking around how things are done in Slough. The practice model he champions involves social workers being given training in systemic family therapy and working intensively alongside specialist clinicians. The aim – and the trust’s vision statement – is to make sure children are “safe, secure and successful”.
“We’re helping families we work with to rewrite their individual and collective scripts, looking at the child’s behaviour – or the parents’ behaviour and its impact on the child – in a different way,” he says. “Our focus is on ‘deep impact’ work to achieve substantial and long-term change in families to improve child care. Children in Slough are safer and that’s a fundamental fact that didn’t exist when we took over.”
When the trust succeeded the council in late 2015, on the direction of the Department for Education (DfE), children’s services had had a series of “inadequate” ratings by Ofsted. While the watchdog is still monitoring progress, it now says services and social work practices are “improving”.
Maggie, a senior social worker in one of three child protection “hubs”, started on a student placement under the old council and says the culture has changed dramatically. “There were huge gaps: looking back at the quality of work then – when child protection was often a tick-box exercise – we’ve seen a massive shift since that time,” she adds.
The hubs are overseen by experienced consultant social workers and typically have six or seven staff, mainly social workers but also a family therapist, a child and family worker and an administrative coordinator, who all share a caseload of up to 120 children and families between them. Cases are “owned” by the hub as a whole, rather than by individual social workers. Weekly case discussions put the emphasis on acting quickly to prevent family problems like domestic abuse and substance misuse from getting worse.
“You get different views and perspectives from other members of the hub instead of working in isolation, so it’s easier to progress things with the family and not get stuck,” Maggie says. “All of us know about the cases and that’s emotionally valuable to you as a social worker because the support you have in the hub makes it easier to deal with any stress you are feeling about a case.”
There are hubs for every stage of a child’s journey through care, from first contact all the way to leaving care, but the trust tries hard to intervene early so that children can stay with their own families where possible. In 2017, it made a successful bid for £1.4m from the DfE for an “enhanced early intervention hub”, which boasts a ground-breaking project relating to domestic abuse. Other initiatives – outside of that funding but also showing successful early results – include the Pause programme, helping mothers avoid repeated pregnancies where the children will be taken into care.
As an early intervention social worker, Simon joined from a local authority in October and describes it as a great move. “What attracted me to come here was the innovative way of working, the variety of workers you can reach out to. We’re well rewarded for what we do, we’ve got flexible working, and even the small things make a big difference, like the free tea and coffee, and cake and fruit once a month. Things like that are very rare,” he says.
“But I think the main difference is the proactive nature of the teams. We’ve got our own specialists to call on – domestic violence, mental health, police, family support, benefits advice – you name it. Rather than refer a child or family to a service elsewhere and wait for them to act, which can take weeks, we can put in support pretty much straight away,” he adds.
And de Mello agrees, if you support and value staff in the right way, they will be much more able to do the best possible job they can: “We cherish our staff so they can cherish the safety and security of children.”
