Key management messages
Dear colleague
As a follow-up exercise to the LGA Peer Review of
children’s safeguarding, which took place in October last year, a further
focused Peer Review will take place between 18-20 February 2015. This will be
led by Andrew Ireland, Director of Children’s Services, Kent County Council.
Please be aware that some of you
may be contacted to be interviewed or attend a meeting. If you are requested to meet
with the team, please do everything you can to attend as this is an important
part of our improvement journey.
Also, many thanks to all of you that have completed both the Social Work
Workforce Staff Survey and the Section 11 Survey. It would be very much appreciated if all social work
team members would complete both surveys to ensure the feedback we receive reflects
the views of the social work population:
Social Work Workforce Survey 2015 - https://services.devon.gov.uk/web/dcc-surveys/swwsurvey2015
Section 11 Survey - http://www.plus4.co.uk/safeguarding/
Newsletter Live – have you booked your
place?
Our programme
of mandatory quarterly updates for children's social care staff has begun, called Newsletter Live. Are you booked to
attend? Sessions are running across the
county during January and February – Find out how more and book a place.
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Ofsted Delivery
Improvement Group (DIG)
At our last DIG meeting, the Group discussed
- Workforce development
- Self Service roll-out
- Quality Assurance Framework
- Working together
 Update from Children’s Safeguarding Improvement
Board (CIB)
At January’s CIB, Sue Clarke,
Head of Education and Learning for Devon County Council, presented an item on
children missing from education and it was noted that Devon is in a good position
regarding tracking children. There is also an improving picture around
supporting children in care with their continued education and training.
A discussion was had around
the work taking place to address the issue of child sexual exploitation, and
the good work taking place across the safeguarding system was acknowledged.
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 Independent Chair Professor Ray Jones, commented that it was reassuring to see good progress being made
across children’s social care with workflows feeling more manageable. He also
stressed the on-going importance of continuing to build relationships at local
levels.
It was also recognised that
with new staff joining the Council’s children’s services over recent months,
teams are still building and consolidating, with variations between teams in
terms of capacity and stability.
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Locality meetings for social workers
Got a burning question for Fiona or Debs? Locality meetings give people in the children’s
social work team a chance to ask Fiona Fitzpatrick (interim
Head of Children’s Social Work Service and Child Protection) and Debs Barlow (Principle
Social Worker) any questions. The schedules below outline the 2015 dates of the meetings
in each locality:
and you can go to any of the meetings.
HR update - Manager Briefing: Recruitment
An update on performance, workforce development
and recruitment. This month's briefing includes the social work health check survey, recruitment, supervision, social media, Oracle Self Service pilot.
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 Your views on safeguarding in Devon needed
David Taylor, Independent Chair, Devon Safeguarding Children Board, invites you to complete the 2015 Staff Safeguarding Children Survey.
It is a confidential online survey, to give your views on safeguarding children practice, and to gather feedback from front line staff and their immediate managers
in order to understand safeguarding children practice in Devon.
Read the latest DSCB newsletter.
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