UPDATE NO 391 21 February 2020

AD Education Network – next meeting Friday 1 May – Joint with SEND19

The next meeting of the AD Education Group will be a joint event with the SESLIP SEND Network on Friday 1 May, is planned to run from 10.30am to 3.30pm, more details are available from Chris Owen (Education) or Tracey Maytas (SEND) contact details for both below

The Children Missing Education group met on 14 Feb 2020. Key points from the meeting:

• Mike Stoneman and Cate Duffy’s presentation about the group and CME to SESLIP DCSs had been well-received.
• Agreement that there are several aspects of CME where the group could develop recommendations for a shared SESLIP position. These include:
• promoting a role for LAs to manage in-year admissions for all schools,
• a core set of CME data for all LAs to request from all schools,
• agreements with local schools about reporting all pupils moved onto a reduced timetable.
• Next meeting 5 May, 1pm – 3.30pm, Shaw House Newbury. There will be a focus on pupils with medical needs and exclusions and fair access protocols.
• LAs yet to nominate a representative: Milton Keynes, West Sussex, Kent, Wokingham, Southampton.

Social Work England – National Advisory Forum – Vacancy

Kate Metcalf, Regional Engagement Lead (South East) writes,

Hello,

At Social Work England we’re building an engagement forum to provide expert advice, support and challenge to our work and how we achieve our objectives as the regulator of social work in England. I would be really grateful if you could share this message and invitation as extensively as possible, as well as with those who may be in a position to, and be interested in applying 

With very many thanks

Who can apply: You can apply if you are a:

• practising social worker
• social work student
• person with lived experience of social work
• social work education and training provider

How to apply: Find out more about the role and how to apply here

2 recent research reports

Education Policy Institute says: High quality CPD for teachers is one of the best ways for schools to increase pupil attainment

FFT Education Datalab says: EAL and progress 8: Education Datalab analysis by ethnic group and year of entry to school. Most variation is due to ethnicity and other research shows, by year 11, as many as half of EAL pupils are proficient in English. 

Developing and sustaining an effective local SEND system: a practical guide for councils and partners

LGA has published Developing and sustaining an effective local SEND system: a practical guide for councils and partners 

This report has been written as a concise, practical summary of good practice in developing and sustaining an effective local SEND system.

The LGA commissioned Isos Partnership to work with local councils and their partners to: 

• draw together what partners in local areas have done to develop and sustain effective, system-level approaches to supporting young people with SEND;
• from these approaches, distil some key practical messages that could be used by partners in local areas across the country, adapted to their local circumstances and priorities;
• and share, develop and refine these key messages formatively and iteratively through co-productive discussions with leaders from local areas across the country.

The full report is here.

UNREGULATED CHILDREN’S HOMES CONSULTATION

The government has launched a consultation over unregulated children’s homes, including plans to ban the use of provision for under-16s and the introduction of a minimum national standard for accommodation.

You can respond to the online consultation here

The LGA have said “ Making the use of unregulated settings for under 16s illegal will not solve the problem if the Government does not, first and foremost, work with councils and providers to make sure that we have enough high quality, registered places for children to live so that we can keep them safe.”

This consultation closes at 10:30pm on 8 April 2020

The number of children in care aged 16 or 17 placed in unregulated settings has increased from 2,900 in 2009 to 6,100 in 2019. We want to ensure these placements are good quality. Proposals include:

• banning using this provision for under 16s
• introducing national quality standards
• ensuring independent reviewing officers represent young people’s interests
• requiring local authorities and policy forces to cooperate with each other
• new legal powers for Ofsted to take action against illegal providers

Taking a look together at memoranda of co-operation to manage the demand and supply of Children’s Social Workers

Colleagues from the East Midlands have organised a regional seminar on the topic of MoCs for managing the supply of children’s social workers.

It will be held on Wednesday 18th March 2020, 1.00pm – 4.00pm at Kegworth, nr Derby DE74 2DF

You can download a flyer for the event here

The conference will be chaired by Andy Smith, DCS Derby and EM ADCS Chair.

Book places: Please can you contact Pete Chilvers to book places or Mark Evans (details below) who is organising SESLIP reporesentation

Education Data Group – Update

Next meeting 27 February (only LA not represented so far is Milton Keynes).

For more information, please contact Daryl Perilli or Chris Owen (contact details below)

• Work is progressing on the children missing education indicators which all SESLIP LAs can reasonably be expected to collect robustly and collate. The aim is to have the first iteration of a dashboard for review by May / June.
• Reduced timetables (RTT): the group will plan carrying out a trial, ‘census point’, snapshot of RTT at the next meeting. This will then inform how to design RTT in the dashboard and the feasibility of annual, total reporting.
• Some LAs are working with the Office of the Children’s Commissioner on a project to promote national reporting of elective home educated numbers and data. Currently looking at patterns of EHE by school year group.

LGA/Government Equalities Office – Return to Social Work Campaign

The Return to Social Work programme is an initiative developed by the LGA and Government Equalities Office, designed to help councils fill their social worker vacancies. The programme will run a recruitment drive on behalf of councils and give them the opportunity to hire experienced social workers without the associated recruitment costs. 

It also gives 200 social workers currently on a career break, the opportunity to receive free training so they can return to their chosen profession. More details are here.

The communications toolkit is here, with templates for multiple platforms, to make sharing the opportunity as easy as possible. A full overview of the programme can also be found in the employer information pack.

Developing Quality Assurance Capacity

The QA project continues to develop momentum with another well attended  meeting of QA Leads held on 11 February.  The group agreed a proposal for Common Components of a Quality Assurance Framework which will be shared more widely in the very near future. The group also started to explore how to develop a shared understanding of ‘good’ with  presentations from Hampshire and West Sussex.  The ‘restricted’ area for the QA work is ready to go live with access for QA leads, their nominated officers and AD Safeguarding network.  This will provide a forum for sharing QAFs, audit tools, practice standards and report templates. 

There was agreement to holding 4 extended meetings a year, continuing to be sponsored by Hampshire, and the dates have been fixed for  

•   2nd June 2020
•   17th September 2020
•   9th December 2020
•   10th March 2021

The meetings will involve a mixture of whole group work; discussions in the Triad/Quartet Groups and discussions in contextually similar groups.  Hopefully, by developing the relationships and network of QA leads this will help with the support and challenge in the Triad/Quartet groups with increased shared understanding of practice and QA, common understanding of the components of QA and common language.

AD Safeguarding Network – next meeting 6 March 2020

The next meeting of the AD Safeguarding Network will be held on 6 March 2020 – 9.30 for a 10.00 start at The Abbey Centre, 34 Great Smith Street, Westminster SW1P 3BU. Please let Mark Evans (details below) have any items you would like to add to the agenda for this meeting. To date we have:   

• Memorandum of Cooperation
• Complex LAC Project Update
• SESLIP Models of Social Work Conference
• Unregulated/Unregistered LAC Placements

The dates for next 4 meetings have also been identified:

• Friday 5 June 2020
• Friday 11 September 2020
• Friday 11 December 2020
• Friday 5 March 2021

Complex LAC Project Film

As part of the Complex LAC project we commissioned Luke Rogers of the Care Leaders Social Enterprise to make a short film about the lived experience of children in care in the South East. The mission for the film was:

To develop a film to highlight young people’s views and ideas about how services can be improved & raise awareness to senior leaders to invite the voice of young people into strategic decisions, especially those which directly impact children in care.

Luke worked with 17 young people from 5 local authorities (Oxfordshire, Southampton, Portsmouth, Milton Keynes and East Sussex) to make a compelling and interesting film. The project produced a film that is both challenging and uplifting, it contains the authentic voice of young people talking about their experience of the care we provide.

The film can be used with social workers, carers and others involved in work that aims to improve the lives of looked after children, but should not be posted on websites or used for other reasons (if you are unsure please check with Mark Evans – details below)

Please take a moment (14 minutes) to watch the film, which can be accessed on request to Mark Evans – contact details below). It would also be great to get your feedback

Developing Models of Social Work Project – Hold the Date Monday 8 June 2020

The Developing Models of Social Work Summer Conference will be held on Monday 8 June at the Arora Hotel Gatwick.

More details of this project can be found here, or from Diane Williamson (contact details below)