Below is a compilation of  video interviews recorded at the recent children’s services sharing learning event in Birmingham. Speakers from Birmingham City Council include: Colin Tucker, service director of children’s social care services; Owen Pearson, head of service; Ray Chim, performance and information manager, and Yvette Waide, head of service, care management.

Following the video is a review of the event.

Improving children’s safeguarding has been a priority for many local authorities in the wake of several high-profile cases in the past two years. It was with this in mind that practitioners and managers in children’s services came together in Birmingham recently to attend a lunchtime workshop, Improving Safeguarding in Children’s Services – Sharing Learning, run by Birmingham City Council.

The intention of the event was to share good practice and information with other local authorities and discuss some of the common challenges faced in trying to improve children’s safeguarding.

Colin Tucker, service director of children’s social care services at Birmingham City Council, set the scene by talking about the work undertaken to improve safeguarding in Birmingham’s children’s services department in the past year following a series of critical reports by Ofsted.

Colin also outlined some of the key challenges facing children’s services departments in general. These included:

• Improving political leadership and governance
• Addressing budget versus performance tensions
• Raising the standards and confidence of social workers.

The improvement to safeguarding in Birmingham was discussed in more depth by Owen Pearson, head of service, in his presentation: ‘What have we done and what are we planning to do to make Children Safe?’

He spoke about how the council prepared for its unannounced inspection from Ofsted, including putting plans in place to improve services and communicating this plan to staff at all levels – helping to win ‘hearts and minds’.

Owen also talked about the work undertaken to change the culture within the council, including restoring confidence to the workforce after the critical Ofsted report and the media storm over the Khyra Ishaq case.

His speech was followed by a series of workshops that covered various aspects of safeguarding, including:

• Simplifying the Integrated Children’s System
• How to better engage frontline staff
• Improving case recording by social workers.

These sessions were designed to generate discussions and to give delegates the chance to talk about what they have been doing in their authority.

In the workshop on data collection, interpretation and improving case recording, led by Yvette Waide and Ray Chim from Birmingham City Council, the discussion included the importance of getting individual workers and managers to input information. Yvette and Ray emphasised that data needed to be added throughout the involvement of the case and not just at the start. Such practice could help to build up a local team area and contribute to the national picture.

Elsewhere, delegates discussed the importance of IT, especially the Integrated Children’s System, and how this needs to develop in line with what managers and social workers expect – rather than what IT professionals may think they need. Also, systems and forums need to be developed to be much more user friendly for children and families to use. This in particular was felt to be a neglected area.

Additionally, it was generally agreed that the government’s eCAF system should have provision within it for systems integration with other local systems such as the ICS – which it currently lacks. Delegates believed it is not practical for the Department for Children, Schools and Families to develop a system that will not support information sharing via electronic means beyond its boundaries with other local IT systems.

This review will also appear on www.careknowledge.com.

There will be more detailed analysis and video footage on CareKnowledge of the upcoming Improving Children’s Safeguarding event, which will be held on June 14th 2010 in London. There is a special discount on this event for CareKnowledge users, and we also have footage from last year’s Lessons from Laming event -  click here for more information.