Information – inspiring staff to deliver outstanding services through their children’s centre

There is a body of evidence that suggests that many children’s centres are having a positive impact in their areas. Forty-eight per cent of the 89 children’s centres inspected by Ofsted between April and June 2014 were graded either good or outstanding.

The outstanding children’s centres that I hear about tend to have certain things in common, and one of these is a strong team of people.

Shared goals

One thing that is crucial to an effective children’s centre is a team of staff who are bound together by a shared vision. Everyone needs to understand the objectives that the centre is working towards as they will then be better equipped to help meet these goals.

In a previous blog post, I touched on how important it is for children’s centres to understand the needs of the children and families they serve. Good centres regularly share this kind of detail with all staff and I have heard how effective this can be in helping them to focus on delivering the right kind of support to those who need it most.

But staff also need to see that the help they are providing is making a difference.

Rewarding gains

Delivering services to vulnerable children and families can be a demanding yet rewarding task. Successful children’s centres depend on the hard work and dedication of their staff so it’s important that the achievements of the team are recognised.

I was interested to see how one outstanding centre celebrates the progress it makes by displaying brightly coloured charts and graphs on the wall for staff and visitors to see. An engagement thermometer takes pride of place, showing the centre’s impressive attendance figures. There are also posters that track achievements in targeted areas of need, such as the number of vulnerable children who attended the immunisation clinic, or the take-up of funded childcare by two-year-olds.

The charts and posters are simple to put together as all the relevant data on children and families coming to the centre can be pulled quickly and easily from its computer system. This visual approach to team building motivates staff to deliver the best possible help and support – the result is that the number of families attending the centre over the last 12 months has increased by 35 per cent.

Like any successful organisation, everyone involved has a crucial role to play in ensuring children’s centres deliver the help their communities need. When centres get it right, the result is more families engaging with the support on offer and more children getting a better start in life than they might otherwise have had.

Phil Neal is managing director at Capita One