Praise for council’s ‘outstanding’ children’s services
Joe Lepper
Thursday, June 9, 2022
Inspectors have praised the London Borough of Redbridge for continued improvements to its services to protect children, especially those impacted by domestic violence.
Three years ago Ofsted rated children’s services in the borough as “outstanding” and said its front door child protection and family support services was a “model of efficiency and excellence”.
Following its most recent focused visit on front door provision in April inspectors have praised the council for carrying out further improvements.
They were particularly impressed by the creation of a dedicated domestic abuse support service as well as measures to improve help for families where there are safeguarding and mental health concerns.
Inspectors also note that improvements at the already high performing children’s service have been put in place to provide support and face-to-face provision during the height of the Covid-19 health crisis.
"This visit confirmed that the front door has continued to provide a high-quality service, an impressive achievement given the pressures of the last two years due to the pandemic,” said inspectors in a letter to council leaders.
Inspectors described the response by the council to domestic abuse incidents as “very strong”, especially the “exceptional work” from the council’s "dedicated" reach-out service to help affected families.
Support for children’s emotional wellbeing has also been improved with the creation of single points of contact for cases where there are safeguarding and young people’s mental health concerns, noted inspectors.
Other areas of praise include “thorough assessments” of children with disabilities.
“This results in plans that identify and provide services that meet the children’s and families’ needs,” said inspectors.
Senior managers' strong understanding of services to support families and protect children are also welcomed. Their “impressive range of performance management” that is linked to improving the impact of services, is backed by inspectors.
Areas of further improvement recommended by inspectors include tackling delays in notifications from police of incidents that involve children.
“During the pandemic, we pledged that we would do everything we could to protect the most vulnerable members of our communities,” said Mark Santos, Redbridge's cabinet member for children and young people.
“These recent findings from Ofsted show we did precisely that, despite the enormous pressures we faced during that period. That is a testament to the sheer hard work and professionalism of our staff, who have stopped at nothing to continue delivering an outstanding service.
"Our skilled, talented, and committed colleagues have not compromised in terms of the support they provide. A range of services also pitched in to support when required.”
