Welcome from Jo Olsson - Chief Officer for Children's Services (interim)
Welcome
to the second issue of the bulletin for all
partners working with Devon's children young
people and families. My aim is to give you a
flavour of what’s been happening and what’s on the horizon.
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Comfort and joy – Christmas for our care
leavers isn’t always easy
This year our care
leaving apprentices, decided to work with all corporate parents to provide a scrumptious magical Christmas Day
lunch for care leavers aged between 18 and 25 on Christmas Day. Find out how it happened...
Update on partnership
arrangements
Good progress is being made on bringing together
the functions of the Devon Safeguarding Children Board (DSCB) and the
Children’s Alliance into one strategic partnership for children in Devon. A
dedicated project consultant - Heidi Sydor - was brought on board in November
2016 to lead this piece of work. You will be
receiving regular updates from Heidi for your comment/input.
A joint DSCB/Children’s
Alliance meeting will take place at the end
of March 2017 to agree these
arrangements, which are planned to be operational from the 1st
April. We’ve been thinking about branding for the partnership, your
thoughts on this will be welcome.
Self-Assessment and mock-inspection
As part of ongoing work to improve outcomes
for children DCC is currently working on a self-assessment of our children’s
services. The self-assessment will be used as a tool to identify strengths and
areas for improvement. DCC plans to commission a
group of experienced inspectors to conduct a review
of DCC’s children’s services. This will take place in spring 2017, and feed
into DCC’s continued improvement work.
Commissioning children’s health services
The
contract for children’s health services in
Devon, currently held by Virgin Care Ltd, ends in March 2018 and commissioners
are in the process of re-procuring these services.
Devon County Council has decided to consult on three options for Public Health
Nursing (PHN). The consultation started on 18 January and
is open for six weeks.
-
A one year contract that keeps all children’s health services
together pending more work being completed to enable better commissioning and
procurement
- A separate procurement for PHN
- An in-house PHN service
Have your say by taking the survey here.
Consultation
begins on Devon’s strategy for Children and Young People with Special
Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)
The way that education, health and social
care services are delivered to children and young people with special
educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and their families has undergone significant change, both nationally
and locally.
We want to know what you think about our SEND
strategy, in particular the six key priorities areas. Respond to the consultation.
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Peer Review
A SEND Peer Review took place at the end of November with
a view to helping the council and our partners reflect on the provision
in place for children and young people with special educational needs. The review provided helpful validation of our self evaluation and the
experienced review team were additionally able to share their own
experiences of the Ofsted SEND inspection process.
The draft report states that in Devon they found “a strong
commitment to supporting children and young people with educational needs and
Disabilities ( SEND) and to improving the implementation of SEND reforms”. The
review team also felt that the SEND improvement board was well placed, in
terms of composition and role to move forward the changes needed. We are
grateful to the review team for their time and the valuable insights they were
able to provide.
Children's Delivery Plan
The Alliance has agreed the
strategic priorities for 2017-2020.
A multi-agency
workshop takes place on Thursday 26 January to turn the strategic
priorities into the action plan for year one, 2017/18.
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