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 Devon as inadequate for how effective 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

The staff who work for Devon children’s services are enthusiastic and hard working. They know that they need to make improvements to services to make them better.

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Summary report for children and young people

When social workers visit children and young people they regularly spend time talking to them and listening to their views.

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Summary report for children and young people

Schools and staff from children’s services can be good at understanding when children and young people maybe having problems and can be good at helping families with their problems.

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Summary report for children and young people

The council have got some clear plans about how they are going to improve the help they provide to children and young people in the future. 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

Not all the children and young people who need help to be safe get the right help.

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Summary report for children and young people

Sometimes social workers and managers are slow to understand what children need to be, and feel, safe.

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Summary report for children and young people

Managers do not always know when things have not gone right and sometimes they do not change things quickly to put the problems right.

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Summary report for children and young people

Social workers and managers do not think hard enough about what it might be like for the children they are working with. They sometimes write a lot about what has happened but are not as good at making plans to sort problems out.

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Summary report for children and young people

The full inspection report was published on 29 May 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

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Summary report for children and young people

http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/local-authorities/devon

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