Our story

Children and Families are at the heart of our work in Telford and Wrekin. We remain focused on achieving the best possible outcomes for the children young people and families we work with. This is a collective endeavour supported through activity across the whole of our organisation and is not solely the responsibility of Children’s Services we 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”.

Relational practice is at the core of our support, we acknowledge that in order for children, young people and their families to reach their full potential and make and sustain change the relationship with their practitioner is the core foundation. 

Family Safeguarding

We have embedded family safeguarding within our child protection and family support services. Our Social Work teams work in collaboration with adult practitioners to provide a whole system approach to supporting children and young people supported by child in need and child protection processes. 

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.

Systemic practice 

We have enhanced our Systemic practice offer to include check points for consultations to aid care planning and relational working alongside families from a therapeutic lens. This has also included direct therapeutic work to support children and their families. Every service has a POD to explore systemic concepts to aid relational working. There is a programme of training to aid the embedment of systemic practice across Children’s Services. 

Training

We have enhanced our training and development offer to include wider advice, tuition and reflection on trauma informed and transformative practice to aid connective practice that builds upon strengths and seeks to enable change. The training and development plan is firmly set within the National agenda of children’s social care. 

Co-production 

We are committed to learning from children, young people, carers and parents who have been supported by our services. This includes listening to their feedback as well as co-producing ideas and training to continually improve the support we provide. 

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 reflective 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 practitioners 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.
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 support from safeguarding services.
• Children are best cared for by their families and we will continue to work alongside families for this to be achieved. In situations where this cannot be achieved safely children need to be looked after in safe and stable alternative caring arrangements. 
• Our practitioners act as a resource for children and young people and their families, helping parents/carers to make positive changes. To do this they need to practice under the lenses of reflectivity and professional curiosity whilst taking responsibility for self-development, and using 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/alternatively qualified practitioners 

• Are curious, sensitive, and reflective as well as being authoritative, professional and tenacious in improving life outcomes for children.
• Work alongside 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: 24/09/2024 14:58