Taking Our Work to the Next Level: Suffolk Safeguarding Children Board

2. Taking our work to the next level Suffolk Safeguarding Children Board

3. Aim of presentation To describe how Cafcass: Got to outstanding (Ofsted March 2018) Intends to keep on improving.

4. The journey in Ofsted’s words • 2008 East Midlands – inadequate – ‘significant deficits in the service provided to children’ • 2011 Sussex and Surrey – satisfactory – ‘managers have a clear understanding of the priorities for improvement’ • 2014 first national inspection – good – ‘significantly improved from consistently inadequate to consistently good’ • 2018 second national inspection – outstanding – ‘stability of leadership and strong aspirations to ‘get it right’ for vulnerable children are key factors’

5. Public law demand In 2017-18 Cafcass received 14,207 new care applications.

6. Private law demand In 2017-18Cafcass received 42,058 new private law cases.

7. Our priorities over the years • Improve quality of work through better data use of data and evidence. • Improve staff health and wellbeing. • Develop learning and development strategy. • Develop talent management strategy and future leaders. • Develop a robust quality and impact assessment framework. • Enable staff through technology (stronger performance, flexible working). • Workforce planning and recruitment processes.

8. Organisational culture

9. Quality services: everybody in the organisation makes a contribution whether working with children, supporting L&D, providing practitioners to work more effectively etc. A culture of professional accountability: the services that we provide need to be a source of pride for everyone in the organisation, so that staff ‘police’ themselves and colleagues. There is high trust in staff to deliver. A strong culture of continuous learning: everything that happens is seen as an opportunity to improve. E.g. our exploitation strategy arose from a series of serious case reviews into sexual exploitation which exposed some practice weaknesses A rigorous, strength-based performance framework: an important mechanism for enforcing quality so that there is constant feedback to staff about performance with a focus on the strengths as well as areas of improvement.

10. Child-centred practice Analysis and tools Planning and pace Direct engagement Diversity issues Evidence-based reports

11. Analytical risk assessments are supported by evidence-informed tools and help practitioners to focus on analysis and work more proportionately. Direct work is well-planned, done at the child’s pace, and reflects the child’s ‘voice’. Sensitive work in relation to a range of diversity issues helps the court to understand each child’s unique experience. The Family Justice Young People’s Board (FJYPB) has kept the organisation focused on children through e.g. its ‘top tips’ and its input to training, tools and Area Quality Reviews. • Evidence-based reports add value and promote better outcomes; this has encouraged practitioners to focus primarily on the analysis, and the evidence to support this. Direct engagement with the child informs FCAs’ reports: quoting in a court report what the child has said or encouraging the child to write a letter to the court can be very powerful.

12. Support to practice L&D Apps Practice leadership Evaluation & Research QAI framework Private law pathways

13. L&D: a range of mechanisms to help staff to improve including training, library, consultation with a psychologist, knowledge bites, legal alerts etc. Practice leadership: for example the creation of Heads of Practice and Practice Supervisor roles. Evaluations of innovative pilots such as positive parenting; internal research projects such as private law cases where domestic abuse is alleged and support to the Family Justice Observatory. Two new private law assessment pathways to help our practitioners systematically assess cases which feature adult behaviours associated with high conflict and parental alienation. • A Quality Assurance and Impact (QAI) tool is used to assess the impact of our work upon children and compliance with policies. Apps: Backdrop and This Much have proved successful - a new app called Voice of the Child is being developed to improve our direct work with children.

14. Ofsted’s recommendations for improvement • Ensure management direction is explicit on the case file. • Improve case planning to reduce delay. • Articulate areas for development in performance and learning reviews (PLRs). • Monitor the quality of work when practitioners cease to self-regulate. • Ensure that reports to court consistently explain when issues of diversity are not relevant to the application.

15. Where we go from here “We must now move to the next level. The next level is always the next child and working to ensure she or he gets an outstanding service from us.” Anthony Douglas CEO

16. Priorities for further improvement • Achieve practice of a consistently outstanding quality. • Continue to develop service user feedback, especially from children, to make our service ever more child-focussed. • Continue to develop our Operating Models and Framework, including evaluating our pilots of a child impact analysis framework and the Child Arrangements Assessment Framework (Name TBC). • Become more consistent in the use of casework tools. • Maintain caseloads at a manageable level. • Maintain a flexible workforce to support demand and sustain quality.

17. Priorities for further improvement • Acting as an agency for change in the wider Family Justice system by, for example: • Supporting the Family Justice Observatory’s plans to develop an internationally credible evidence base. • Reinvigorating Local Family Justice Boards • Working with partners on reform. • Innovating and piloting.