Council Spotlight

Council spotlight

As changes take place at Northamptonshire County Council, there is lots to be excited about. We spoke to Cathi Hadley, Director of Children’s Services, about their improvement journey.

You became the Director of Children’s Services in Northamptonshire in October 2019. What do you enjoy most about the role?

I am really proud of my job role. Northamptonshire truly is a great place to work; I love hearing good news stories from my team and the praise they have received from the families they have helped. One of our newly qualified social workers received a handmade present from a family – a jar with fairy lights inside and each member of the family had written a note saying what a difference she had made to their lives. Seeing the positive impact we are making makes it all worthwhile.

Can you tell us about all the changes happening in Northamptonshire?

We are really benefitting from having Children’s Commissioners Andrew Christie and Clare Chamberlain on board. They bring a huge amount of children’s social work experience as well as common sense and pragmatism. With their support, we are pleased to be seeing green shoots of improvement, which Ofsted confirmed in their previous visit. Our improvements have included ensuring all our children who require social care intervention have an allocated worker, which had previously been an issue for us.

We’re heading towards becoming a children’s trust in 2020 and have appointed Ian Curryer as Chair and James Thomas as Interim Chief Executive. In 2021, Northamptonshire County Council will become two new unitary councils and the new Trust will provide the children’s services for both. We will also be moving to our new case management system during this time.

From April, all of our permanent staff will be receiving a 4% pay rise and our new social work career progression scheme will be introduced. We will have new senior social worker posts to support families with more complex needs and mentoring will be provided to team members, as a step up for more experienced social workers. At the next level, we have advanced practitioner posts who will provide consultation to team members as well as holding a small caseload to keep in touch with families. Both of these roles enable social workers to gain the practice and leadership experience needed to become a team manager.

To increase placements for children, we are developing specialist in-house foster carers to support children with more complex needs and have just opened more residential care provision in the county. We are working hard to embed Signs of Safety across all our services. There’s a lot to be excited about!

You’re currently recruiting permanent staff, what sort of people are you looking for to join the team?

Our staff across the service are our biggest asset. We have a great group of committed and dedicated staff,some whom have been with us for many years and havebeen through all the ups and downs with the Council.Others who have joined more recently have broughtnew ideas and experience from other areas. But theyall have one thing in common; to do the best for ourchildren and that’s what we want - talented, dedicated,enthusiastic practitioners and non-practitioners whokeep children at the heart of all they do, and want to bepart of our improvement journey.

We hear from Northamptonshire’s Children’s Commissioners, Andrew Christie and Clare Chamberlain:

One of your responsibilities as the DfE’s Children’s Commissioners is to oversee the creation of the Children’s Trust in Northamptonshire. What benefits do you think this will bring?

The Children’s Trust brings a real opportunityfor children’s social care services. Being its ownorganisation, but wholly owned and commissioned bythe Council means it will have a single focus on practiceand children’s outcomes. Staff will be able to shape andown the culture in a way that is much more difficult to doin a large council with many functions, and we’ve seenin other areas where this has led to real improvementsin outcomes for children and families.

An introduction to the chair of Northamptonshire Children’s Trust.

We are very pleased to have appointed Ian Curryeras the Chair of the Northamptonshire Children’s Trust,who initially trained and worked in teaching beforebecoming Director of Children’s Services and then ChiefExecutive at Nottingham City Council.

Ian officially started with Northamptonshire at thebeginning of May and, despite the challenges of theCOVID-19 pandemic, has appointed four non-executivedirectors and an interim Chief Executive, all of whomshare his commitment and dedication to ensuring theTrust remains child-focused.

“I’m very pleased to be appointed as the Chair of theNorthamptonshire Children’s Trust and to be going backto my roots of supporting children and young people.The establishment of the Trust is a great opportunityto build both a new organisation and culture. In thisshort amount of time, and despite the unprecedentedsituation, the commitment, enthusiasm and drive of thestaff in children’s services has really shone through.This is an exciting time to join Northamptonshire, and Iwould encourage others to join us as we continue ourimprovement journey.”

This is what one of our Social Workers has to say…

“I started in Northamptonshire County Council’s SocialWork Academy in March 2018, where I was supportedwith my transition from university to frontline work andhave been within Daventry Safeguarding Team forover two years. I have developed my learning throughtraining and working with an Advanced Practitioner,

who has provided feedback on my assessments. I am still in the early stages of my career but have been managing complex cases and completing court work which has enhanced my professional development. I feel extremely supported in my team and my manager goes above and beyond to help my critical thinking, analysis and reflection. I am looking forward to continuing my social work career with Children First Northamptonshire.”

What our families have to say…

“The children have been very fortunate to have you as their social workers. As their mother, I have appreciated your professional opinions and how you have been able to vocalise their needs for them.

“You are clearly very passionate about your profession and I have no doubt that as a result of this, there are many children that are no longer victims as a result”.

This is what one of our Early Help Coordinators have to say…

“I have worked here for 17 years and know colleagueswho have longer service than me… so there must bea good reason for this! There are lots of opportunitiesto move around the directorate and explore differentroles. I think this can only improve as we move intoa Trust with two unitary authorities. The trainingopportunities are also excellent. Overall, my experienceof management and supervision has been very goodand from speaking to colleagues in other areas of thedirectorate, this is improving for them too. As a localauthority and a directorate, we have had a lot of changebut I see change as a good thing”

Apply today.

To find out about the vacancies available, simply visitsanctuarypersonnel.com/jobs or call on 0333 7000 026.