Children's services

Barnet LBC
Youth Justice Service Residential Programme for 14-16-year olds

Barnet Council’s Residential Programme for 14-16-year olds subject to a Youth Justice Order is the first of its kind in Britain. Other councils operate residential programmes, but Barnet’s is unique because it supports those subject to a Youth Justice Order because of their offences. The Programme was co-created with young people and parents/carers. Now in its fifth year, 32 young people have participated.Seven young people took part in 2024. Each completed their Youth Justice Orders and have not returned to the Youth Justice System. Each obtained an AQA certificate and those with leadership skills now serve as peer mentors.

Barnsley MBC
Practice Development Hub

The Practice Development Hub is a one-stop-shop offer for our children’s services workforce. Its impact has been transformational, significantly enhancing our offer to practitioners and improving outcomes for children. Its innovative approach has refined practice, ensuring Barnsley children receive a consistently high-quality response from practitioners with the skills, knowledge and tools to improve outcomes. It has strengthened workforce stability reducing vacancies from 42 to 12 this year, with many agency staff converted to permanent positions and 93% of practitioners accessing development opportunities. It also incorporates our Social Work Academy, launched in September 2024 and collaborates with the Quality Assurance Service.

East Riding of Yorkshire Council
Our Place

The "Our Place" initiative, is a community-driven project, offering mobile youth services, through a youth bus designed by young people. It provides a safe space for ages 10-18 to engage in activities like gaming, sports, and music, promoting inclusivity and addressing educational and recreational gaps. The project, a collaboration between East Riding of Yorkshire Council and the voluntary sector, aims to reduce youth anti-social behaviour and crime through early intervention. It also focuses on raising awareness about risks such as child exploitation, supported by partnerships with organisations including Humberside Police, which has shown 100% reduction in ASB, in some areas

Enfield LBC
Our journey to support young people with SBSS

Enfield’s Secondary Behaviour Support Service has transformed over the years, driven by the urgent needs of its most vulnerable young people. It’s no longer just about getting them through their English and Maths exams—it’s about making sure they’re safe, fed, and cared for. For some, the focus is as basic as ensuring they’re alive, eating, and breathing. This shift has meant pulling together as a community, involving everyone who can make a difference. It’s about meeting young people where they are, tackling their challenges head-on, and helping them survive today so they can have a chance to thrive tomorrow.

Greater Manchester CA
Summer Takeover Project

GMCA, in collaboration with a host of statutory and voluntary services, developed the Takeover Project to tackle child exploitation, and other risks inside and outside the home. Innovatively addressing more resource intensive traditional approaches to engaging at risk groups to deliver prevention and safety messages.An immersive learning experience based on case study of ‘Ben’, delivered by multiple agencies, leads participants around Ben’s house, street, following him through his experiences of exploitation. The evaluation has demonstrated overwhelmingly positive feedback from children, parents and professionals, with over 90% reporting enjoying sessions and learning something new. GMCA are now exploring expansion opportunities.

Haverhill Town Council
Boost - Youth skills and family support

The Youth and Family support team are dedicated to empowering young people to live happier, healthier lives and address barriers these young people face. By working closely within the community, we gain valuable insights into challenges they encounter, which enables us to design and deliver targeted activities and initiatives that directly respond to their needs. The primary issues addressed include isolation, mental-health struggles, low-confidence, and anxiety. To ensure opportunities are accessible to all, we offer a range of engaging activities completely free. We believe the right support at the right time can be life changing.

Hertfordshire CC
The 'Making SEND Everyone’s Business' Programme & Hertfordshire SEND Academy

Hertfordshire County Council’s ‘Making SEND Everyone’s Business Programme and SEND Academy’ is a highly innovative and impactful Children’s Services SEND workforce initiative. We believe this deserves recognition for meeting rising SEND need by rapidly building capacity and capability, whilst reshaping statutory SEND services, resulting in better outcomes for children and young people with SEND. It has enabled us to recruit and train more than 138 staff to deliver large-scale improvements. Launched in January 2024, the programme is enabling us to achieve our ultimate goal of better Education, Health & Care Plan (EHCP) timeliness and quality.

Northumberland CC
Our children’s services are outstanding

Last year, we were proud to have our Children’s Services rated ‘Outstanding’.One Corporate Priorities is ‘Tackling Inequalities’. We’re passionate about keeping our children safe through early support and being an effective Corporate Parent.Attaining ‘Outstanding’ in 2024 represents the latest milestone in a continuous improvement journey which saw our Children’s Services rated as ‘Good’ in 2020’. Advancing from “good” to “outstanding” now places Northumberland amongst the top 15% in the country. Our improvement is based on “highly impressive” senior leadership in Children’s Services and a shared vision with Elected Members to make things better for children and families.

South Gloucestershire Council
WAYPOINT – A point at which a course is changed

WAYPOINT (Working Alongside Young People & Others In Networks Therapeutically) are a team within South Gloucestershire Council’s Children’s Services Department. WAYPOINT provide a range of trauma and therapeutically informed support to children, young people, parents, families, foster carers, kinship carers, residential staff, and any part of the professional network around a child or young person, including education professionals. The work spans from preventative edge of care work, keeping ‘Families Together’, to supporting our children and young people in residential settings with their ‘Next Steps’ towards fostering families or reunification home.

Westmorland and Furness Council
Getting to Good and Beyond

Our journey has been impressive so far. In less than 18 months and following major upheaval following a LGR restructure Westmorland and Furness Council has taken its children’s services on a notable and successful improvement journey. This has seen improved outcomes for vulnerable children and our Ofsted rating improve from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘Good’. We adopted a strategic approach to driving improvement across our service and this has been achieved despite the difficult and challenging environment of major change, financial challenges, and major upheaval for our staff.