Setting

Summary report for children and young people

The purpose of the inspection is to look at how well the council and other organisations help and protect children and young people to be safe from harm and to be well cared for.

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Summary report for children and young people

Overall we rated Wiltshire as adequate for how effective their child protection services are. All of our grades are explained in the table below:

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Summary report for children and young people

Outstanding A service that is significantly better than required at keeping children and young people safe Good A service that is better than required at keeping children and young people safe Adequate A service that is doing what is required to keep children and young people safe Inadequate A service that is not doing what is required to keep children and young people safe

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Summary report for children and young people

Here is a summary of the things we found at the inspection that were generally adequate or good and the things we told the Director:

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Summary report for children and young people

When Ofsted inspected children’s services in Wiltshire last year, we told the people who run children’s services that they needed to get much better at protecting children and young people. They have taken this on board and got a lot better at protecting children and young people who need to be made safe straight away.

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Summary report for children and young people

The people who run children’s services, particularly the councillors, are now much clearer about what they want for Wiltshire’s children and young people and they are testing things out much more often with each other to make sure that they are getting them right.

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Summary report for children and young people

The people who run children’s services have written a helpful guide for their staff to help them decide to what level of support children, young people and their families need. They have made sure that all of their staff are aware of it and are using it.

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Summary report for children and young people

Wiltshire already had lots of services to help families in need, and they have added even more services so that they are now able to help an even bigger number of families.

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Summary report for children and young people

When people who work with children are worried about their safety, they are good at letting social workers know, and social workers are good at working closely with the police and all the other people in children’s lives to make sure that they are safe.

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Summary report for children and young people

The people in charge of meetings about children’s safety have been chosen and trained to be good at their job and they make sure that there are good plans in place where children need to be protected, and that everybody knows what is going to happen if the plans don’t work.

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Summary report for children and young people

Here is a summary of the things we found at the inspection that needed improving and the things we told the Director:

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Summary report for children and young people

Where families need the help of children’s services to prevent their problems getting worse, social workers need to draw up a clear plan of what is going to happen by when to make that work. The people who run children’s services need to sort this out at once.

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Summary report for children and young people

The council have employed Principal Social Workers (PSWs) to help social workers get even better at their jobs and this is a good thing, but they need to be sure how they will know whether or not the PSWs have been a success. The people who run children’s services need to sort this out within three months.

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Summary report for children and young people

Social workers are good at seeing children and young people often, and seeing them on their own so that children and young people can tell them how they feel, but social workers need to get better at writing this down so that anyone who was not there can learn about it too. The people who run children’s services need to sort this out within three months.

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Summary report for children and young people

The people who run children’s services need to write a guide for their staff on who needs to do what by when to keep unborn babies safe. The people who run children’s services need to sort this out within three months.

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Summary report for children and young people

Social workers need to get better at finding out what children and young people who are looked after by someone who is not their parent or a close relative need, so that they can be sure those children are safe. The people who run children’s services need to sort this out within three months. Not every child who gets help from children’s services gets what they need assessed quickly or well enough by social workers, although the council has a new way of doing this that they hope is going to make it better. The people who run children’s services need to make sure that children’s needs are always without fail, written down clearly and in good time. The people who run children’s services need to sort this out within six months.

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Summary report for children and young people

The people who know children well and are working together to meet their needs, need to get better at doing this. This is so that they do not need to keep telling social workers they are worried about children and need them to do something straight away. They need to be sure that what they are already doing is keeping children safe. The people who run children’s services need to sort this out within six months.

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Summary report for children and young people

Where children’s need for safety is not obvious straight away, the people who work with children need to get better at realising this and doing something about it. The people who run children’s services need to sort this out within six months.

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Summary report for children and young people

The full inspection report was published on 16 August 2013 . The council will now prepare a plan to show how they will improve things. It will also say when they are going to talk to children and young people about what they are going to do and which groups they are going to talk to.

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Summary report for children and young people

If you would like to look at the full inspection report you can find this at http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/local-authorities/wiltshire

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