1. Hammersmith & Fulham Children Services

2. Building shared prosperity Creating a compassionate council
Council’s Vision
Building shared prosperity
Creating a compassionate council
Doing things with residents, not to them
Being ruthlessly financially efficient
Taking pride in Hammersmith & Fulham

3. Children Service’s Vision
To improve the lives and life chances of our children and young people; intervene early to give the best start in life and promote wellbeing; ensure children and young people are protected from harm; and that all children have access to an excellent education and achieve their potential. All of this will be done whilst reducing costs and improving service effectiveness ii

4. Children Service’s Vision
To achieve our vision, we will:
Innovate and work differently to achieve good outcomes for children
Strengthen families and work with them to be more self-sustaining and less reliant on our services
Ensure our children, young people, and families develop and retain a strong sense of personal responsibility for their behaviour and pride in the borough
Continue to protect our high-quality front-line services
Continue to improve the effectiveness of our services and reduce costs
Collaborate more effectively with key partners across the statutory and voluntary sector to ensure we are successful
Share services, resources and learning in relation to best practice
** These commitments establish a framework within which we will judge our annual progress

5. Struture Education Services
The Education Service is responsible for raising standards and supporting pupils with special educational needs in all schools across the borough. Services offered are either statutory or discretionary (purchased by schools).
Special Educational Needs and Disability Services
The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Service (SEND) provides a range of services to secure the best outcomes for children and young people with SEN and Disabilities aged 0 – 25 living in Hammersmith and Fulham. This involves the core statutory responsibility of assessment and review of Education Health and Care plans (EHCP) as well as the delivery of early intervention support in education and families to support children with SEND to be included in mainstream education and community resources where ever possible. The service is also responsible for statutory social work and family support and short breaks for Disabled Children.:
Family Services (Children’s Social Care)
Family Services are responsible for providing services to children and young people and their families living in the borough, particularly children and families who are vulnerable to poorer outcomes without provision of support or protection. The local authority has a statutory duty to help children and their families where a child need support to enhance their development or at risk of significant harm.

6. Socio-Demographic Profile
Child Population: 33,777
Child Poverty: 29.7%
Workless households with children: 15%
BME Background: 46%
English as additional language:
Primary school: 43%
Secondary school: 50%

7. Key Safeguarding Data Children in Care: 215; 61 per 10,000 (2016/17)
Contacts: 4873 (2016/17)
4208 (2017/18)
Referrals: 1954; 557 per 10,000 (2016/17)
1651; 468 per 10,000 (2017/18)
Children in Need: 1447; per 10,000 (2016/17)
1496; 426 per 10,000 (2017/18)
Child Protection Plans: 92; 26 per 10,000 (2016/17)
110; 31 per 10,000 (2017/18)
Children in Care: 215; 61 per 10,000 (2016/17)
230; 65 per 10,000 (2017/18)

8. HOW WE KNOW ABOUT OUR WORK

9. yyyyQuality of Service
H&F Children’s Services was last inspected in January 2016 and its overall effectiveness was rated good with outstanding judgements for adoption performance and leadership
H&F local area was inspected in December 2018 and services to children and young people with special education needs and disabilities were rated high
There are 61 schools in H&F 93% are rated Good or better

10. How We Know About Our Services
We do regular audits, reviews and surveys of our practice to learn and see how we can improve. We do:
Practice Weeks – 6 monthly audits and observation of practice by senior managers
Thematic audits and reviews
Annual customer care month - to get feedback from children and families, and the partners we work with
Review of complaints and compliments we review from children and families, our partners and the public

11. WHAT WE ARE DOING TO IMPROVE PRACTICE AND OUTCOMES

12. WHAT WE ARE DOING TO IMPROVE PRACTICE AND OUTCOMES
Practice Assistants – support social workers with administrative tasks and release social worker capacity for direct work with children and families. Pilot in April 2017 and plan to roll out across teams
Parenting Assist – 4 practitioners offer round the clock practical support and coaching to strengthen families caring capacity. Started in November 2017
Aftercare and Resilience support – one practitioner work with families who have had prior engagement with Family Services to help them sustain their capacity to change after their case has been closed by social care and early help services. Pilot started in January Response to repeat involvement with statutory.
Specialist Adolescent Service – multi-skilled team to work intensively with high risk adolescents and their families to prevent entry into care or high-risk behaviours. Started April 2018.
Initial Consultation and Advice Team (iCAT) – conversational and consultative approach to managing contacts and elimination of contacts with agencies at the Front Door. Started in November 2017.
Looked After Children Assist Team – specialist practitioners working intensively with children in care and care leavers with complex needs and/or in high cost placements to minimise escalation of need and/or step down to appropriate lower cost placements. Started in April 2017.
Sector led improvement work with other west London local authorities

13. WHAT WE ARE DOING TO IMPROVE PRACTICE AND OUTCOMES
IDVA – DVIP project – independent specialist advisors and practitioners in social work teams to provide consultation to social workers and directly work with victims and perpetrators of domestic abuse. Started in January 2016
Stephen Wilshire Centre for disabled children – a new state-of-the art learning and play centre for disabled children at opened at the Queen’s Manor Primary School. Opened in March 2018
Youth Offending Service is under social care (Family services). This has allowed coordinated approach to working with young people.
Substance misuse practitioners in social work teams – fortnightly visits by practitioners from the substance misuse service to advice and input into social work assessments
Safe space – new project run by Victim Support and work with children who have experienced domestic abuse.
Stefanou foundation – work with young parents where domestic abuse is an issue. Complement co-located IDVA/DVIP work
Mosaic group working – migrated to Mosaic, an updated and more practitioner friendly version of Frameworki (previous system)
An additional team in FSCP – expanded capacity to ensure that all cases in the service have an allocated social worker and that social workers continue to have low caseloads