People are leaving their posts – why must that be?

The article shared a new approach to preparing people for the role by improving pre-role training, and therefore their information and awareness. Surely, that is a sticking plaster over an open wound? It got me thinking about recruitment and retention, workplace support and success, and institutional culture in a wider context. 

In early years and childcare, we have our own well-documented recruitment and retention challenges. I fear things have been made worse by the experiences of the past 18 months. There are contrasts and comparisons to be made across these two different aspects of children’s services.

I don’t think orientation programmes are enough to solve either of these problems. However, they are useful methods to support people to properly consider a career, the jobs at hand, and the journeys they can take you on. We’ve delivered enough of those to know their real worth and effectiveness. We are a fan. But that is not enough. Once you are there, in a job, you need to feel safe and secure, empowered and valued within it.

Both of these roles have huge responsibility. They both take risks, and take responsibility for children’s learning, wellbeing and health. The design of the DCS role was a structural response to the Children Act (2004), a result of the Victoria Climbie Inquiry. It was felt there should be a named figurehead that should shoulder all the responsibility and be the ultimate person accountable for child protection failings. That seems sensible enough – especially when cultures have historically seemed ‘non-stick’ when things have gone tragically wrong. But experiences like that of Sharon Shoesmith, in Haringey in 2007, demonstrated the failings of such an approach. It could, quite simply, be far too much. Perhaps the expectations and realities of the role are impossible to meet. 

The early years role has also grown incrementally over these years, but again I feel the role is overloaded and undervalued. Both would benefit from a greater sense of collective and corporate responsibility. In early years we would relish more responsibility, but that comes at a price that needs paying by commissioners – not at the expense of those delivering it. 

DCSs can attract salaries of well over £100,000 and with benefits packages to boot. Quite a contrast to the many working in early years on the national minimum wage. Money doesn’t drive all work-based decisions and career options. Terms and conditions can attract people in, they can reward people, and they can help retain people in their positions. Too often, though, the opposite is the case. This is something that needs addressing for all of those working in these essential services, that remember, save money in the long run when they are professional, high quality and effective. We must do better. 

James Hempsall is director of Hempsalls Consultancy