Case Studies
Northamptonshire Children’s Trust (NCT) oversees children’s social care on behalf of North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire councils and is currently on an improvement journey to take the service from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘good’.
NCT commissioned IMPOWER in early 2023 to help it better understand children’s needs and improve their outcomes by developing impactful interventions while developing a robust approach to cost and demand management.
Our initial work quickly demonstrated to the client that there was no correlation or ‘value curve’ between needs and cost. In a nutshell, a vicious circle had developed in the local care system with no link between what’s being spent and the outcomes achieved for children and young people. As a result, there were multiple children with low needs in higher cost provision.
We therefore worked with NCT to introduce our Valuing Care approach – used successfully with a number of local authorities – which strengthens the links between needs, support and investment.
Valuing Care helps to identify, track and articulate needs and outcomes for a child or young person. It allows practitioners, teams, children, and families to: identify, describe and tailor the support that will best meet a child’s needs and track how needs change over time; and understand, describe, and plan for the needs of children now and in the future, e.g. through our easy-to-use model which codifies children’s assessment reports based on 13 types of needs.
One of our first pieces of work was to develop trajectories of demand and spend linked to that demand for the children’s care system in Northamptonshire. That enabled NCT to: take a longer view of demand patterns and associated spent; plan interventions that influence that demand in order to improve outcomes for children – with corresponding savings targets; and get a clearer view of what’s working.
The local children in care council named the programme Circle 2 Success, reflecting the engagement of young people in shaping solutions while helping to develop a sense of ownership at an early stage.
We introduced a number of interventions to demonstrate the effectiveness of Valuing Care on the ground and implement it incrementally. From the outset, we worked in partnership with those working within children’s services and provided training around the approach as well as follow-up briefings.
Crucially, we identified a number of opportunities early on to reunify children with their families or step them down from residential care.
Alongside the client’s team, we introduced a number of interventions often to test out approaches which can then be rolled out at scale. Examples include a two-month project aimed at using Valuing Care tools and insight to explore whether reuniting children and young people with their families or another permanent setting is achievable.
Another project explored ways to prevent children from re-entering care by working with families to understand their ability to meet the child’s needs and the additional support required.
While our work continues with NCT, clear impact has already been delivered in a short space of time:
• One fifth of children currently in care have been identified for reunification with their families (based on a sample of children in Northamptonshire).
• More than 140 social workers have been trained in the Valuing Care approach, changing the mindset towards enabling children to find permanence in the most suitable setting to meet their needs.
• NCT has invested £1.3m in the programme and it is projected to achieve savings and cost avoidance in the range of £12.6m–£25.4m between 2023-24 and 2025-26.
The workforce supporting children in care in Northamptonshire is critical to sustained improvement and therefore resilience moving forward.
More than three-quarters of social workers have received training around Valuing Care and we have also ensured the approach is reflected in the local social work academy so it can continue that legacy. Dedicated Valuing Care Champions are supporting the roll out and engagement of fellow practitioners.
A number of other innovations will help to anchor the approach moving forward, such as the Circle 2 Success Forum, which has been established to review plans for children, and the use of need and capacity assessments in safeguarding to reduce demand into the care system.
Equally crucial is the engagement of partners across the system – in particular, care providers. This is being facilitated by everything from a multi-agency forum to assist decision making and regular sharing of insights with health and education partners to Family Finding events with providers to build deeper relationships.
Work with us
Get in touch if you’d like to discuss the challenges your organisation is facing.