Children’s Social Care National Framework

The child/young person is at the centre of our decision making that their safety and wellbeing is the most important thing.

We hear the voice or how best they communicate. Children and young people are encouraged to share their wishes and feelings so that we understand their lived experiences.  This is taken into account and is reflected within practitioners work and service design.

Our practice framework is Signs of Safety which is about working collaboratively with families and their wider network to identify solutions that will work for their family. We take a trauma informed approach to practice which recognises that a family’s history and experience can impact on how they present and access services.

We work with families to understand their difficulties through our assessments to make sure that they get the support that they need. We use family network meetings to bring families together to understand their experiences and identify support what they might offer to strengthen or repair relationships.  Where it is not been possible for a child to remain within their family, we maintain their important connections and work hard to make sure that they have a sense of belonging and live in a safe, stable loving home.

We have strong relationships with our partner agencies across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, and multi-agency decision making takes place at the earliest opportunity, ensuring that families access the right support at the right time.

Practitioners develop cultural genograms with families to understand their social GGRRAAACCEEESSS and how these interconnects and influences their lived experiences. We link families to community resources through our Family Hubs.

• By making it central to our plan: Achieving Excellence through purposeful practice which drives everything that we do
• Our case notes and key documents are written to the child
• Seeking children and young people’s views through having a dedicated Children’s Rights and Participation Team 
• By making it central to our career progression pathway that in progressing our staff need to evidence how their practice reflects the practice principles and has helped achieve the outcomes of the framework. These expectations are set out in our Social Work Career handbook and our in our Guidance on how we will grow our Social Work Practitioners.
• Biannually senior managers go out into practice for three days observing different activities and talk with children and families hearing directly their experiences of our services. This provides the opportunity to observe the implementation of the framework within practice.
• We have a Voice Strategy underpinned by the Lundy model; the plan is driven forward by a voice network.  The voices of children, young people and families is regularly sought and feeds into the commissioning and delivery of our services and support. 
• We are revising our Quality Assurance Framework so that we will be able to measure practice against the National Framework. This methodology already involves auditors seeking views from children and families.
• We continue to work with our partner agencies to develop multi agency learning opportunities to share knowledge and resources, through strategic and operational groups. We work with partner organisations in our Family Hubs to provide a one-stop shop and offer advice, information and resources to help families. We have established a shared trauma informed approach across LLR so everyone can engage constructively in delivering effective support to children, young people and families.
• Our leaders drive conditions for effective practice through ensuring our staff have a strong development offer, influenced by what workers say they need. There is a strong emphasis on staff wellbeing and there is a robust offer in place. Social Workers are provided with an additional 3 CPD days on an annual basis to make sure that workers have the time for professional development and learning.
• We have invested in the Practice Excellence Team who support and develop practice, through 1-1, group support and training.
• We have a dedicated Team Families Together team whose role is to provide intensive support to families on the edge of family breakdown. 
• We will continue to provide 3 annual conferences (Social Work Conference, Pride in Practice and Leadership Conference) providing the opportunity to come together to set out our expectations, review where we are and share great practice.
• We are involved in discussions on the development of the performance dashboard nationally which will provide a further opportunity to measure ourselves against the outcomes of the Framework. 
• We co-produce documents with our Children in Care Council such as the Language that Cares Toolkit.