Phyllis Dunipace, director of children's services, London Borough of Lambeth: Lambeth calling

Dunipace is one of the first few senior leaders in the sector to mentor new DCSs as part of the National College's Mentor Plus scheme, which is designed to give new recruits the benefit of advice from their more experienced colleagues.

"I've just started. I mentor two DCSs," she explains. "They're very good and have great potential. I'm going up to see them in the next few weeks, but I also talk to them a lot and try to be helpful."

New DCSs have a choice of three potential mentors when they join up to the scheme. Dunipace explains: "It's a personal choice. Yes they want someone who has been through the challenges they've been through but you've got to get on."

Although it's early days for the programme, Dunipace is enjoying sharing her skills and knowledge.

"I tell them it's about working at it steadily, keeping clear where you want to go, and keeping it in proportion," she says. "There aren't any magic quick wins so it's about determination. If you want to see sustained improvement then you have to put in sustained investment, so you keep going and you have good staff and teams around you."

New challenges

But Dunipace admits that her mentees, and other inexperienced directors, face challenges that did not exist when she was new to the role.

"I think for them, the job can seem a bit overwhelming, because they're under media pressure that I didn't have when I started. I think that's very different now," she says. "What I'm always saying to them is just try and keep a sense of perspective, you can't wave a magic wand but you've got your team around you."

Dunipace is indeed concerned by the treatment of children's services in the media.

"There's always been media pressure, but it's got more intense and it's got more personal. They're picking on individuals in a way that I think is disgraceful," she says.

"Yes I am in charge but I have 1,000 staff and 4,500 in schools. You have to rely on structures and people throughout the organisation and their professionalism. They are making judgment calls. Sometimes they get it right and sometimes they get it wrong. You just have to learn the lessons from that and move on."

She would like to see a departure from the blame culture that she believes is becoming more prevalent.

"It's like we don't blame the person who did the crime, we blame the person who could have theoretically prevented it," she explains. "I think that's a very difficult judgment to make. Hindsight is very easy."

Rewarding role

Despite the difficulties facing the modern-day DCS, Dunipace says the job is still extremely rewarding.

She is proud of her accomplishments in Lambeth. "This year we're four per cent above the national average at GCSE, even though we're the 19th most deprived borough in the country," she says. "That's an amazing achievement."

She says improvements in safeguarding are one of her greatest successes. "We've been inspected and inspected and inspected and we're good," she says. "When I took it over, it wasn't good. I'm not saying we've cracked every issue but we've now got good staff and a good reputation and it's getting better."

She hopes that constant investment in early years services will be a key part of her legacy.

"It's about having that investment in the early years and sustaining it for the most vulnerable. That's something that when you've got financial challenges is easy to cut because it's so expensive, so I really want investment in the early years to continue and rise."

She admits that whoever replaces her in the deprived south London borough will face a tough job. "In the borough, we have so many people with such complex lives that every one of the five Every Child Matters outcomes is a challenge," she says. "To do Lambeth you've got to be passionate about making a difference, you've got to really care."

PHYLLIS DUNIPACE - IMPROVEMENTS IN LAMBETH

- Phyllis Dunipace has been director of children's services in Lambeth, South London, since 2005 and is due to retire in summer 2010. Prior to that she was director of education in the borough from 2002

- During her time in senior management at Lambeth, significant improvements have been made

- In 1998, 14 schools in the borough were causing concern; now Ofsted judges 72 per cent of schools in Lambeth to be good or outstanding

- Before 2005, the borough had a one-star social services department. Lambeth's recent unannounced inspection rated safeguarding as good with no priority areas for action