Support for children and families in Telford found to be ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted

The inspection team judged the overall effectiveness of the service as ‘outstanding’, with the same grading being received on the impact of leaders on social work practice with children and families, the experiences and progress of children in care, and the experiences and progress of care leavers.

A ‘good’ rating was received for the experiences and progress of children who need help and protection.

“Children and families in Telford and Wrekin continue to experience exceptional social work practice when they are in care and as care leavers,” said lead inspector, Rebecca Quested.

“Innovative social work practice means that many more children are now benefitting from early help within family hubs.

“More children who experience social work intervention are now being supported to live permanently within their family networks without children’s services involvement when appropriate.

“Participation is a real strength and children’s and families’ involvement is threaded throughout service developments.”

The report added that, since the last inspection in 2020, there has been a focus on improving the effectiveness of plans, the recording of management decisions and significant improvement in the use of pre-proceedings to enable more children to remain living safely within kinship care.

“Senior leaders know there is more to do to improve the management of contacts within Family Connect, the multi-agency safeguarding hub, and to ensure that 16 and 17-year-olds who present as homeless are consistently made aware of their rights and entitlements to become accommodated by the local authority,” said Ms Quested.

Councillor Shaun Davies MP, outgoing leader of Telford & Wrekin Council, said: “We welcome this Ofsted inspection of our children’s services and the feedback it contains and are proud that the overall assessment means we have retained our ‘outstanding’ judgement.

“We were one of the first local authorities in the country to move from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘outstanding’ in our last Ofsted inspection in 2020, are one of only a handful of councils across the country to retain this ‘outstanding’ rating and are the only ‘outstanding’ authority in the region.

“This latest judgement shows that we have continued to put young people in the borough at the heart of everything we do, and follows the excellent Ofsted CQC inspection report that our support for children and young people with special needs or disabilities, SEND, received last year.”

Councillor Shirley Reynolds, Cabinet member for early years, children and young people and education, added: “We are proud that the overall judgement of our children’s services continues to recognise exceptional and innovative social work practice in Telford and Wrekin.

“Whilst we have retained our outstanding judgement, we are unwavering in knowing that there is always more we can do and more ways in which we can adapt our service offer by listening to the voice of children and families within our borough.

“We do know our children well, but we also know ourselves well – I think that this is what makes our services unique. We are continually looking to challenge ourselves to be even better in order to achieve positive outcomes for children and families that we work alongside.”