 Welcome...
I hope you've all had a restful and enjoyable Easter.
This month we welcomed Andrew Brunt to our team. Andrew is the interim Principal Social Worker following Vicky White's retirement. He will be working with all of us to improve our practice and make sure we're delivering the best we can for children and their families.
Andrew has produced a helpful bulletin on some of the latest standards and consultations around our practice that we all need to be aware of. I'd urge you all to read this.
Thanks as ever for your continued hard work.
John Gregg, Director of Children's Services
john.gregg@coventry.gov.uk
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Feedback from the Department of Education's visit
The Minister's letter following the DfE visit acknowledged that there have been improvements since Ofsted
inspected us two years ago, particularly arrangements in MASH and the
referral and assessment service. But they felt there is inconsistent progress in some areas - a concern was the high and rising rate of re-referrals to social care.
You can read Cllr Ruane's full statement to Council about the visit on Beacon.
 Support The Pledge
Footballers, councillors and taxi drivers
are among hundreds of people who have been getting behind a city-wide pledge to
help spot and report the signs of child sexual exploitation.
You can show your support online at www.coventry.gov.uk/csepledge.
Please share with the organisations you work with so they can show their support and help spot and report the signs of CSE. Read Sue Whitmore's blog about the pledge
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 Easter party puts smiles on looked after children’s faces
More than 100 looked after children enjoyed an Easter party
at the Welcome Centre this week. And thanks to you and the generosity of the
GMB Union, they all received an Easter egg.
Children’s Champion Shelia Bates, who helped organise the
party along with the Participation Team, said:
“Thank you to everyone who donated an egg and special thanks
to GMB who gave us 150 eggs to give out.
“The children really enjoyed themselves and were delighted
to receive an egg from the Easter Bunny.
“It was a fantastic event and a great way to celebrate and
say thank you for the amazing work our foster carers do throughout the year.”
As well as receiving a chocolate egg the children, all aged
under 11, enjoyed face painting, softplay, henna and a bouncy castle. The
children also made their own Easter bonnets and took part in a parade to show
off their brilliant creations.
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News in brief
Children’s
Services have undertaken significant steps to improve over the last two years. The service is working at pace to embed and sustain the changes
already made. The focus continues to be:
- Implementing the workforce strategy to
stabilise the workforce and reduce the reliance on agency workers
- Improving the quality and consistency of
practice by continuing to progress through auditing and quality assurance,
ensuring that learning is being fed back in to practice.
- Ensuring that there is a greater availability
of placement choice for all children by implementing the placement sufficiency
strategy
- Recruiting
more foster carers and specialist carers to increase capacity to avoid
residential placements for more complex children and young people
- Ensure
that the best use is made of the available resource/budget to maximise the
impact on children’s lives.
Get in touch
Email joanne.moynihan@coventry.gov.uk with your updates, comments or suggestions.
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