How To Improve Services For Young Children

Future of intendance: Improving outcomes for children and young people past spreading innovation

Futurity of care – No 5, October 2017

People who piece of work in children's services are motivated to improve the lives of children, immature people, families and communities. Across the state staff in local authorities, voluntary organisations and private sector companies want to run across children thrive, families grow and young people develop into happy adults. Appropriately they are trying out new ideas and approaches to give the children and families they work with the best chance of success.

This briefing jointly produced by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) and Innovation Unit aims to contribute to the debate most how to mobilise learning from these new ideas, and so that children and young people across the country can do good.

The briefing draws on the insights of people leading innovative change in local organisations who took role in a workshop chaired by Nigel Richardson, quondam Director of Children'due south Services (DCS) at Leeds City Council, hosted at SCIE.

It introduces theoretical models to help with ways of thinking, draws on the experience of SCIE and Innovation Unit of measurement in supporting innovation and improvement across the country, and uses case studies to provide insights into what we tin learn from each other.

Innovation is the development and awarding of ideas in practice. [It] is virtually doing new things.
West et al, 2004, p. 271.

Primal messages

The Department for Education Children's Social Care Innovation Programme has put a spotlight on many new approaches; the challenge at present is to maximise the touch of this piece of work.
Innovations in practice that benefit children and immature people can be adopted and spread more effectively by drawing on both theoretical models of change and years of feel.
Case studies of innovation advise at that place is no one-size-fits-all arroyo, but that some common weather condition for success include:
- a clear vision of both the modify beingness sought and the core features of the innovation that will achieve it
- as much evidence of impact as possible
- organisational willingness to be in it for the long haul
- visible and accessible leaders
- sustained engagement with children, young people, families and communities
- a willingness to learn from experience.
Issues for farther discussion include how:
- organisations can introduce innovation and implement evidence-informed practice, while existence responsive to the local needs of children, young people and families
- the social care system every bit a whole, including policy-makers and the voluntary and private sectors, tin can create the conditions in which innovations that deliver better outcomes can spread more effectively and make more difference to the lives of children and young people.

Policy context

Innovation is a critical upshot in children's social care, with the Department for Education's Children'south Social Care Innovation Programme providing £200 meg in funding to 95 projects since its launch in October 2013. Over 50 evaluation reports have been published, plus 4 thematic reports drawing together threads and making recommendations.

The focus is now shifting to how to maximise the bear on of this plan for the benefit of children and young people beyond the country. The DfE has started the process of establishing a new Children's Social Care 'What Works Eye', which is expected to collate, synthesise and review the learning from the Innovation Programme, alongside other sources of inquiry and evidence, and support the implementation of findings into practice.

At the aforementioned time Alison Michalska, President of the Association of Directors of Children's Services (ADCS), in her countdown presidential speech spoke almost her desire to focus on

how we mobilise the learning from those projects, and other sources of innovation and excellent practice, and share information technology.
Alison Michalska, President of the Association of Directors of Children'due south Services (ADCS)

In that location is an opportunity to develop a collaborative approach to learning beyond the sector, led by the sector, and drawing on the all-time of innovative practice and improvement.

Means of thinking: frameworks and reflections from feel

Theoretical frameworks and models tin can help recollect about generating and spreading innovation. Following are some models that leaders in children's social care have found useful, as well every bit reflections from Innovation Unit and SCIE'southward experiences of leading innovation and learning.

Facilitating organisational change: Relational approaches and the Social Discipline Window

Restorative practice is an approach to working with children and families, and to leading organisations in innovation and alter, which is now being used by a number of leaders in children'due south social care.

Leeds Urban center Council used this approach in its Innovation Programme-funded children'southward social intendance project, focusing more attention on working with families to identify means forward with their children. The project went farther, addressing how the resources of the City of Leeds could be used to work with families and children to brand it a nifty place for a child to grow up in. (Family unit valued – A new approach to Children'due south social intendance in Leeds)

At the heart of restorative do is a hypothesis that human beings are more likely to make changes in their behaviour when those in authority do things with them, rather than to them or for them (Wachtel & McCold, 2001). Information technology is represented in the model of the Social Field of study Window.

Effigy one Model of the Social Subject area Window

Figure 1: X axis, Support. Y axis Challenge.

Adjusted from: Wachtel, T. & McCold, P. in Strang, H. & Braithwaite, J. (eds), (2001) Restorative Justice and Civil Lodge, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Learning from experience

Innovation Unit of measurement has identified key points from their ten years' experience of supporting innovation across the public sector. These tin can exist summarised as:

It is of import to differentiate between comeback (better employ of existing resource to achieve incrementally amend outcomes against existing metrics) and innovation (using unlike resources in new ways to attain dramatically better outcomes against new metrics). Both are needed in a flexible, high performing system.
Innovation requires unlike practices, processes and habits. In children'south social care, these take to use beyond circuitous systems, and involve taking risks in a adventure-averse culture. New voices are required to provide the stimulus for change: young people, carers and families, likewise as practitioners.
The confidence to innovate comes from strong relationships. As in children's lives, so in organisations – relationships of trust are transformational. So how an innovation is developed is as of import as what is adult.
Successful scaling and spreading of innovation is also relational. Some of the well-nigh successful DfE Innovation Programme projects, such as the Pause project, which works with women experiencing, or at risk of having, repeat removals of children from their care, comprise a partnership of a national atomic number 82 working with a group of local sites to introduce and acquire together.

Learning Together

SCIE has developed the Learning Together arroyo equally a dissimilar way of learning lessons from safeguarding issues, including Serious Instance Reviews (SCRs). This approach has a number of characteristics:

The Learning Together arroyo moves away from identifying what did non happen and what should have happened, and towards an understanding that in a circuitous adaptive arrangement things will always go off course, and an effective response requires continual adjustment, not more tightly specified processes.
Learning Together requires collaborative learning across hierarchies and boundaries within and between organisations, and leads to ongoing dialogue betwixt people in unlike roles and functions about their part in the organisation and their perspective on the organization.
Learning Together is not a 'manual' for completing a SCR, just an approach to understanding how learning happens in that locality and how it tin can be cultivated and grown.

Detect out more than: Learning Together

Spreading innovation: organisational learning models

Theories about how innovation spreads in a public service environment can aid to consider how positive innovations that are introduced in 1 place can exist adopted and adjusted for another. Theoretical issues arise such as:

The distinction betwixt 'explicit' and 'tacit' cognition – not merely what is written down but what is embedded in individual and group practices (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995).
Whether knowledge can be 'transferred' or whether it has to exist adjusted and reinvented.
The role that networks and social learning environments play, such as Communities of Exercise (Wenger, 1998).
The motivation of the source organisation to share innovation and the recipient organisation to learn (Langer et al., 2016).

A useful conceptual model of how interorganisational learning takes identify was developed by Rashman et al. (2009). It suggests that attention needs to be paid to both the source and recipient organization, the relationship between them and how they interact, and the context in which they operate.

Figure 2: Inter-organisational learning model

Human relationship Characteristics

Source (Organisation, social network, unit)
Policy & Practice Context
Recipient (Organisation, social network, unit of measurement)
Communities of interaction

Source: Rashman et al., 2009

Research on spreading innovation would advise that activities expected to outcome in the recipient organisation having enough information to implement the innovation in their own identify are likely to have four characteristics:

Social engagement - people connecting face-to-face to uncover tacit also every bit explicit knowledge.
Situated engagement - enough information to be able to understand the characteristics of the source organization, and to reverberate on those of the recipient organisation.
Sustained engagement - over fourth dimension to build trust and enable responses to issues every bit they sally.
Beginning from the question of the learner - led past those who want to adopt.

Case studies

Doncaster Children'southward Services Trust's Innovation Journey

The Doncaster Children'due south Services Trust is an independent organisation prepare up to evangelize social care and support services to children, immature people and families in Doncaster, following a history of service failures inside the local authority. The Trust has received Innovation Programme funding for projects to tackle child sexual exploitation (CSE) and the impact of domestic violence, and to introduce the Mockingbird fostering model and Intermission model for mothers in repeat care proceedings. The evaluation of the Trust was published in July 2017.

The Trust inherited a social care workforce that had been through very difficult times, and with low morale. Turning this around was the first priority. The Trust was able to recruit new staff to set up its finance, 60 minutes and other support functions, ensuring that they were motivated to support the new organisation. The senior managers focused on increasing the connection with staff, through increased visibility and encouraging staff to contribute to decisions most the time to come of the Trust. The key turning signal came when there was a serious incident and the managers went to run across the squad, not to read the riot human action, but to offer support. This demonstrated consistent supportive leadership, fifty-fifty when under pressure.

Staff morale was at present irresolute, with 78 per cent of staff recently reporting they were happy at piece of work, and all of the team managers existence permanent staff. One young person had recently reported that she'd had the same social worker for two years; the previous year she had had 7.

The adjacent challenge was to continue the work with local partners to increase their confidence in the service, repairing over ten years of hard relationships.

West Berkshire District Council: Innovation through restorative practices

:The restorative do arroyo and a focus on relationship-based practice underpinned the work being undertaken with communities in West Berkshire, across both adults and children'south services. Using the Social Discipline Window, teams discussed how to move from 'doing to' and 'doing for' to 'doing with', and how to use skilled conversations to appoint families and communities.

The Communities Directorate inside W Berkshire Council has made 4 commitments:

We will work with, non 'do to' or 'exercise for'.
We volition see people equally a collection of strengths and assets, not equally problems and issues.
We will be interested in people'south lives, not in our services.
Nosotros will stop saying 'no' and learn to say 'yep' differently.

In children'due south services a restorative practice approach was used in setting up an Emotional Health University to develop the Hereafter in Mind recommendations. The key features of this innovation were the recruitment of new staff that had a psychology background but were not pursuing a clinical pathway, and a series of 'doing with' conversations with children and families most their experiences and how they wanted emotional and mental health support delivered. Where children said they did not feel safe talking to people in their school, services were set upwards in the community; whereas in the by a one-sizefits- all approach would have been taken.

The outcomes of this work included a 43 per cent reduction in the tier 3 child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) waiting list, and resolution of a number of applied bug such as housing and family unit income that were worrying children and immature people, through the staff squad taking activeness to engage other council services.

The restorative practice approach has now been adopted by the Council's corporate center, which has established a Building Communities Together team to take this work forward.

Improving access to mental wellness services: The Children'due south Society Birmingham Pause Service

The Children's Society's Suspension service is a driblet-in emotional wellbeing and mental health service in Birmingham City Eye. It is commissioned equally function of an integrated mental health service for children and young people upwardly to 25 years old, which also offers a 24-60 minutes telephone access service, and tier three and four CAMHS. Immature people came upward with the name Pause to convey taking time for a break from the pressures they were facing and talking to someone when they needed to.

Consultation with young people as experts-byexperience showed that they wanted a identify that was a cross between an electrical store, where you can scan, option upward information, but simply have to speak to a member of staff if you want to; and a coffee shop, where anybody can sit and conversation informally. The service is staffed by people from a range of professional backgrounds, including therapists, youth workers and nurses, and with a large group of regular volunteers. Young people, or parents with young children, or those who are worried about their son or daughter, tin walk in any time between ten am and 6 pm, vii days a week, and talk to someone in an open surface area or a private room, as they choose.

In the first yr of functioning the service has seen 7,500 walk-ins, comprising 3,500 individual visits. This had doubled the capacity of the overall CAMHS service at five per cent of the cost. Staff say that parents and children oft arrive stiff with fear at inbound a mental health service for the first time, only leave visibly relaxed and at ease.

The service is at present holding regular open days, and supporting an action learning gear up, to enable people from other NHS trusts, voluntary organisations and local authorities to learn from the approach.

Creating the conditions for successful innovation

Key bug

From the instance studies, information technology is clear that in that location is non a 1-size-fits-all approach to innovation, but that some themes can be identified as key to creating the weather condition for success:

A clear vision of both the change beingness sought and the core features of the innovation that will achieve it, for example aforementioned day access without appointment in the Birmingham Pause service. This vision should guide the change throughout, even if the fashion it is implemented may alter. Being specific about what you desire to change helps with reducing dubiousness for staff and partners alike.
Equally much evidence of impact as possible, even if it needs to exist drawn from disparate sources, to reinforce the case for change.
Organisational willingness to exist in it for the long haul. For example, it took the Doncaster Children's Trust near three years of relationship building before partners began to believe that change was happening.
Visible and accessible leaders who understand that it is building quality relationships with staff that volition inspire modify in their behaviour, rather than simply changing structures or processes.
Sustained engagement with children, immature people, families and communities throughout pattern, implementation and operation, to understand what it is like to exist a child or young person experiencing your services. Professionals need to be prepared to 'play an away game' rather than a 'dwelling game', i.e. working with families on their terms through conversations such as Family Group Conferencing.
A willingness to learn from experience once the innovation is introduced – a commitment to learning, reviewing and improving.

Challenges

The challenge of finding metrics or indicators that capture the quality of relationships being developed, and the impact on children, young people and families' lives, rather than changes in presenting issues or inputs and processes.
The claiming of a lack of shared understanding of what 'success' looks similar for children, families and communities, rather than as represented past the regulatory framework.
The challenge of managing different accountabilities, for example to national and local politicians, to regulators and partners, and to the children, young people and families being worked with.

Enablers

The importance of time and space for staff to reflect on their exercise together.
The critical importance of listening and responding to the problems of children, immature people and families, and designing services around their solutions. An example of this was W Berkshire's acceptance that, in areas where children did not feel safe sharing their concerns at school, customs-based rather than schoolhouse-based emotional wellbeing services needed to be developed. Local regime were generally better at listening to children in the care arrangement than others, for example where there were concerns near neglect.
The do good of a focus on shared outcomes, enabling a mutual linguistic communication among partners.
The value of developing partnerships with 'unusual suspects' to let different voices to be heard.

Futurity issues

Individual organisations

Future issues for individual organisations, including councils, include:

Agreement the 'how' of introducing innovation, also as the 'what' of identifying what to modify.
Turning a negative feel, such as a poor Ofsted inspection judgment, into a positive, strengths-based change programme.
Implementing evidence-based do, while also responding to the local needs of children, immature people, families and communities.
Harnessing the capabilities of elected members to help to create the conditions for innovation.
Distinguishing betwixt innovation that works because the model is effective, and that which works because the organisational conditions are favourable.
Identifying the conditions for success for particular innovations; for example, are they the aforementioned for introducing digital innovations or are different or additional considerations required?

The children'southward social care system

Future system-broad issues to consider include:

The rest between outcomes and cost: Is a focus on innovation just a cover for cost cutting? For example, is the focus on new fostering models actually most fugitive expensive residential provision rather than understanding outcomes?
Learning from failure: Innovation implies that some ideas will neglect, just it is noticeable that very few of the DfE Innovation Plan projects received a negative evaluation. Was this considering risky, just potentially effective, projects were screened out at the application stage? Children'south social care is a take chances-averse civilisation where failure is likely to be buried rather than shared, but at that place is much that can exist learnt from ideas that do not succeed. What would it have to be able to fail quickly and safely to enable rapid learning?
The office of the private, voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors in introducing innovation: How can each sector be included in conversations about what success looks like and how innovation tin spread?
'Freedoms and flexibilities' from legislation and guidance: Why have and then few innovation projects successfully requested 'freedoms and flexibilities' from the DfE?
Innovation and integration: What part tin innovation play in integrating features that have been unhelpfully split, such every bit health and social care or assessment and treatment?
Boosted capabilities: What additional capabilities, for example in understanding and working with communities, does social work need to develop or enhance to 'piece of work with' more effectively?
Policy-makers' role: How tin can policy-makers be encouraged to understand and facilitate the organisational and systemic atmospheric condition for innovation to accept place, outside of a dedicated funded programme?

Conclusions

While in that location is no i-size-fits-all approach, there are mutual themes in the 'conditions for successful innovations' across all the case studies. These include: a clear vision, evidence of impact, being in it for the long haul, visible leadership, sustained engagement with children, young people, families and communities, and a willingness to go on learning. It is too possible to place common enablers and challenges beingness faced by organisations innovating in children's social care.
At that place are helpful models and useful experiences to draw on as we think about how organisations acquire and innovation spreads, including in public services.
There are enough of encouraging examples of innovative practise in both the public and voluntary sectors from which other organisations tin acquire, including organisation-wide change and the introduction of new services and ways of working.
The importance of relational approaches is increasingly recognised, both in services for children, young people and families, and in underpinning organisational change and innovation.

The about of import status for success was plant always to be the quality of the relationship between the child's family unit and the responsible professional.
Child Protection, Messages from Research – Department of Wellness 1995

However, the research also concludes that there are many problems that local public service organisations are still juggling with, including how to residue implementing bear witness-based practise while genuinely listening to children and immature people; the role of elected members in creating the conditions for change; and how to plow a negative trigger (such as an adverse Ofsted judgment) into an opportunity for change.

There are also issues for further discussion about how the children's social care system tin continue to be innovative and spread successful innovations more effectively. These include the role of the voluntary and private sectors in introducing and spreading innovations, whether in that location is a need for 'freedoms and flexibilities', and how in a risk-balky civilization to encourage innovations that have the potential to fail and yet still provide useful learning, likewise as encouraging those that succeed.

Download

All SCIE resources are gratuitous to download, however to access the post-obit download you will need a gratis MySCIE account:

Register now
Log into your business relationship

Available downloads:

Improving outcomes for children and young people by spreading innovation (Future of intendance)