ALMOST all children in Barnsley who need help and protection receive a timely service which meets their needs, inspectors have found.
Barnsley Council’s Children’s Social Care Services was rated ‘good’ in every area in its latest Ofsted inspection.
This includes the impact of leaders on social work practice with children and families, the experiences and progress of children who need help and protection, and those of children in care and care leavers.
It was also rated ‘good’ for overall effectiveness.
An inspection report said there had been steady improvement at successive inspections since 2012, and that children were at the heart of ‘strategic thinking, decision making and operational practice’ which leads to good, quality services from a skilled and motivated workforce.
The report also highlights the resolute focus on improving outcomes for children is shared across the partnership. It states social work practice in Barnsley is flourishing, adding: “Social workers are confident practitioners, who are professionally curious and tenacious in their work with families, and who know their children well.”
The report goes on to say children benefit from a good early help offer and a committed and ‘pushy’ corporate parent with a determination to raise the aspiration of all children, families and he communities they live in.
However, there are a small number of children whose emotional health needs are not being adequately met by the provision of a child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS).
Also, the response to children going missing is not robust enough for all children, and inspectors found variability in the timely offer of an interview following a missing episode. In some cases, there was a lack of persistence in engaging young people with return home interviews.
Coun Margaret Bruff said: “This ‘good’ rating from Ofsted is most deserved by a dedicated workforce who have worked so well together to improve the services we provide for some of our most vulnerable children. Barnsley Council is an effective and proud corporate parent. I would like to thank social workers and leaders and managers at every level, whose commitment to children and young people shines through every day. Their dedication and commitment is remarkable and we are really proud of them.”
The inspection found that no children were found to be in situations of unassessed or unmanaged risk. Ofsted has made four recommendations for improvement including risk assessment and understanding risks, regular review of the use of private fostering arrangements, the numbers of care leavers aged 19 to 21 in education, employment and training and the rigour of audit and dip sampling activity and how data informs an understanding of the quality of practice.
