Children’s trust launches looking for a fresh start following DfE intervention

Bradford Children and Families Trust ‘goes live’ this week following government intervention in the council’s children’s services.

The decision to form a Trust was made last year in response to a report from Department for Education Commissioner, Steve Walker who worked with the council to establish the best way to improve children’s social care following Ofsted’s inadequate rating in 2018 and high-profile cases, such as the murder of Star Hobson, thrusting failings of the service into the spotlight.

The Trust is owned by, and remains accountable to, Bradford Council but will be run by an independent board and a new management team led by former Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) President Charlotte Ramsden.

Leaders say the new model for children’s service will give them freedom to make changes that are needed as well as building on what already works.

Writing in Bradford’s local newspaper, the Telegraph and Argus, Ms Ramsden said the team’s first priority is to ensure continuity of services, while working on changes for the future.

“We know that families need to understand what is happening where it affects them and I want to reassure families that nothing will change to start with.

“But we’ve been set up to make big improvements, not just to carry on as before, or what would be the point of us?

“There are already some very good services; we need to make sure that we learn from what is working well and do more of it.

Previous inspections highlighted workforce issues across children’s services, and Ms Ramsden added that resolving these issues by recruiting more permanent social workers would be crucial for the new organisation’s success.

Ms Ramsden also said that the new organisation wants children and families to have a voice that has “real influence” on how they are supported.

“We’ll seek to walk in their shoes, to see their world as they see it, and before we make a decision affecting a child or young person we’ll stop and ask ourselves: ‘Would this be good enough for my child?’

“We want to get away from the feeling that children’s services always know best and do things to families, because we know that, in most cases, families do know what’s best for their own children. That doesn’t mean we won’t still need to make difficult decisions for some.”

A number of underperforming children’s services across the country have now been converted to the trust model, generally achieving better outcomes – at least in the view of children’s social care inspectorate Ofsted.

Sunderland’s services for children were placed into a trust in 2017 having been rated “Inadequate” by Ofsted, but in 2021 the Trust had been judged to be “Outstanding”.