Children's Services

The city council saw "Every Child Matters" and the Children Act as presenting an opportunity to take further our customer centred strategy. This was not just about making structural change, but an opportunity to create a new culture and new ways of working. The Children’s Services Directorate was established on 1 September 2005.

The aims of the service are to achieve the best possible outcomes for the children and young people of the city.

One element of the new ways of working is the operation of four locality-based early intervention teams for children’s services. The localities coincide with those of the primary care trust (PCT) and teams will typically include social workers, educational psychologists, education welfare and PCT staff.

At a governance level, the PCT and Salford City Council have created a Children and Young People’s Partnership Board, which it is intended will have some powers to manage pooled budgets for children’s services. The police, probation service, Connexions, voluntary sector, young people, parents and carers are represented on the group. This builds on a long history in Salford of joint working, particularly with the PCT.

The directorate has been, and will continue to be, challenged. As part of this process a Joint Area Review (JAR) took place in January 2006 and, more recently in September 2007, there has been an Annual Performance Assessment (APA).

Joint Area Reviews and Annual Performance Assessments (APA) aim to judge the contribution which services make to the well-being of children and young people.

The Joint Area Review and Annual Performance Assessments focus on the following:

Is the directorate:

• working in partnership?
• improving outcomes for children and young people?
• making improvements to targets on protecting and improving the life chances of the most vulnerable children?
• listening and responding to the voice of children and young people?  How is this happening?

Whilst the children’s services directorate in Salford has made a positive start, there remains much to do. Work continues across the city to coordinate all services for children and young people (including those provided by the local authority, primary care trust, police and voluntary sector etc).

Who to contact

Name

Strategic Director

Address

Children's Services
Unity House
Chorley Road
Swinton
M27 5AW
Map to this location

Telephone

0161 778 0136

Email

sue.atkinson@salford.gov.uk

This page was last updated on 21 October 2011