Tracy Jelfs' presentation from Open Forum Events' second annual Continuous Improvement conference

1. Children’s Services Pathway
to Change
Tracy Jelfs, Head of Monmouthshire Children’s Services
May 2015

2. What are the requirements?
• Child focussed
• Statutory Obligations
• Working to a prescribed framework – intervention which is
compulsory
• State intervention which is compulsory and contested

3. What was the challenge ahead?
• Everything needed some level of attention!!
• Children and young people
• Staff
• Perceptions
• Practice
• Leadership challenge was to ensure we moved
forward but not too fast

4. What did we consider?
• Staff were consulted in a number of ways
• Considered what children, young people and their families were
telling us of their experiences of the service
• What research told us about experiences
• We gained feedback from other professionals

5. The vortex at the beginning of 2014!
Barriers
• KPI’s / Database / Tools
• Change
• “Overspend”
• Staffing
What the service wanted• Focus on children and
young people
• To be heard
• Keen to improve
• Appropriate resources to
deliver the service

6. What did we do?
• Listened to staff on an ongoing basis
• Tried to implement ‘quick wins’
• Evidenced that the barriers weren’t all Children’s Services
• Clear with staff of my expectations
• Support to staff during changes
• There were some frank conversations……

7. What did we identify we needed
• Accommodation to meet staff and service user needs
• Development of a service not 4 teams
• Presentation of ourselves as a professional,
competent service
• Change of culture and a move on from 2013
• Consistent policies and practice

8. What did we identify we needed
• IT- that enabled us to complete the work
• Enabling, trusting and respectful culture within a framework of high
expectations
• Training to engage children
• To recruit to permanent social worker posts- using new methods
• Information that was easily accessible

9. What did we do
• Moved staff into one building (within 8 weeks)
• Set up a website only accessible to us
• Weekly Catch Up sessions
• Service Lead based with staff
• Set up development groups for each role
• Organised training identified by staff and the
inspection

10. What did we do?
• Staff trained to engage with children
• Re-emphasis on direct work with children
• Well-being group for children
• Football group
• Garden party for families who have a child with additional needs
• Inspirational speakers
• IT system- to record children’s stories

11. What did the service learn?
• Staff are our biggest resource
• Staff should be listened to and enabled to make
changes
• Systems need to be changed quickly, effectively and
for staff to see those changes
• Unless you make the changes to culture and systems,
effective change can not be maintained

12. Contact Tracy
TracyJelfs@monmouthshire.gov.uk