This is a great time to join Plymouth’s Children’s Services as an Independent Chair. Our ILACS in January 2024 found some good practice and some key practice strengths. Our MASH is now operating effectively. Child protection work was found to be timely and appropriate, with a clear understanding of risks for children with timely assessment and support to families which is preventing drift and delay for children in proceedings. Many social workers know their children well and build positive relationships with them. For most children, decision-making for them to come into care is appropriate and in their best interests.
Through our new three-year plan, Heading for Excellence, we are building on these strengths with a programme designed to ensure all children and young people benefit from the right help at the right time, experience high quality assessment and planning which improves wider outcomes for them, keeping families together where possible and working closely with partners to keep children and young people safe, improve attendance, educational attainment, health and wellbeing.
We are developing a high performing and well supported workforce delivering our trauma informed, restorative and strengths-based practice approach. We are determined that within the next three years we will deliver good and outstanding outcomes for all of the children and young people we are working with.
Our Independent Chairs play a pivotal role in ensuring timely and high-quality planning for our children in care and children on child protection plans. You'd be bringing your experience as a social work practitioner and manager to join an established and experienced team monitoring the progress of children's plans, ensuring outcomes are improving and children are experiencing safe and stable care. You will be committed to building relationships with children and young people and ensuring their voices are at the heart of our planning. Our Independent Chairs play a key role in supporting practice improvement and learning through consultation meetings, mid-point reviews and by participating in our quality assurance process. In return you will be joining a service which is ambitious for our children and young people and is investing in the development of our staff and managers based on a trauma informed and restorative practice approach.