From the Regional Care Leaver Offer team:
Third time’s a charm as they say. We finally were able to launch the regional care leaver offer blueprint with a great turn out from all local authorities and partners such as the Care leaver covenant, Police and NHS colleagues as well as leading businesses such as the John Lewis Partnership. Most importantly, the day was led by care experienced apprentices, who I must say did a fabulous job keeping everyone on track!
As you know, this is just the start of the journey with attendees having made commitments on the day demonstrating what they are going to do after leaving the event and what they aspire to achieve. We are moving forward to discuss and take action on shared aims with the Combined Authority and wider partners and I know that some LAs are already working towards changes to improve the lived experience for our young people looked after within the West Midlands. A HUGE thankyou to all the care leavers and apprentices, participation leads and colleagues within the region that have got the regional offer proposals to this point.
The hard work starts now and our ask to you is... Please continue to press for change locally and regionally and please do get in touch via info@wmchildrensservices.org.uk if you would also like to share your commitment, make a suggestion or get involved! We will be sharing the slides and commitments with attendees in the next few weeks. The Participation leads network alongside all the partners within the RCLO team will be following up with colleagues and senior leaders to ensure that commitments result in action. And for those of you who have not already taken a look at the final Blueprint, it can be found here. Best wishes The Care Leaver Offer Team
Regional Priority Plan:
At the August ADCS Network meeting the directors signed off our Regional Priority Plan. This covers the next 18 months and builds upon our post-pandemic work of the last year. We have chosen to set out three headline priorities, with an outline plan, with each of our eight workstreams building in the detail to their own workplan. As a picture speaks a thousand words, we have captured the spirit of the plan in a graphic:
However, for those of you who have not yet seen the full plan, it can be found here.
Early Permanence Project:
The Early Permanence Project is a DfE regional collaboration of Adoption Agencies &
Voluntary Adoption Agencies working together to provide better outcomes for children with a plan of permanence.
To find out more about their aims and objectives, read their briefing note here.
Key Events: 22nd September: Culture, Diversity, and
Anti-Racist Leadership – Community of Practice this is a ½ day event for those who attended the Culture, Diversity, and Anti-Racist Practice Leadership Workshops held earlier in the year to meet and review progress on their commitments, as well as share challenges and ideas moving forward with the aim to create an ongoing community of practice. This will be an opportunity to think more broadly around our regional approach to anti-racist practice, building upon the regional priority plan and the work currently being undertaken within the Childrens and Adults Principal Social Work network. - 7th October: Principal Social Workers
Conference 2022- This conference is aimed at social workers across the region and can now be booked on a first come first serve basis. This means you are now able to book through any LA ticket option to secure a place by 29th September. Please use the link in the flyer attached. Keynote Speakers: - Eileen Munro, Marie - Kershaw, and Lara Timms - Workshops include: o Defensible decision making o Relationship based practice beyond ‘disguised compliance’ the power of words o Using evidence and tools in decision making
11th October: Workforce – WM Employers are holding an in person workshop in the morning to discuss their Internal agency with an opportunity for Q&A in which we are expecting attendance from workforce leads, ADs and PSWs, with the Workforce Workstream meeting to be held in the afternoon at the same venue. 18th October: Big Thinking 2 - This half-day event will be an opportunity to hear from and influence the roll out of some of the pre-releas
e proposals coming out of the Creativity and Wellbeing recruitment and retention projects which were developed following the initial Big Thinking Event held last year. These projects will be feeding into the longer-term WM regional recruitment and retention strategy alongside decisions around the Independent Social Care Review which we anticipate have the possibility to reshape and inform the social work, workforce landscape. We encourage representation from DCS’s, AD’s and colleagues from PSW and Workforce networks. We also very much welcome colleagues from the DfE, LGA and of course counterpart regional leads who offered valuabl
e suggestions and insight at the previous event.
21st October: Team Excellence Award – TEA at Molineux, this is our opportunity to shine a light on the best practice that the West Midlands has to offer and where each DCS/Trust CEO will present their “Team of Excellence – 2022”.Of course, we had to pick the best we have, but across the region there are literally thousands of individuals, be they social workers, educationalists, early help professionals and our army of business support, who all come to work every day to serve their communities by doing