BLOG No.7 - July 2010
Where did it all go wrong? The future’s bright, the future’s Dartford...
In my last blog I finished with ‘And if none of this appeals, there is always the World Cup!! Surely we will not be national champions of two sports in the same year??????’
And so my prediction came to pass - we are not World Champions - not even remotely close, we just have the Ashes to lose in Australia in the winter to round the sporting year off! By then of course we will be well into the new arrangements within KCC for taking forward Children’s Services. At the time of writing this blog there are still many uncertainties as to what exactly these will look like, but some things are beginning to shape up.
What we definitely know...
For those of you not already aware, I have been appointed as Preventative Services Manager for Dartford with effect from 1st September. Although there are some similarities with the LCSPM role, my new responsibilities will be different and there is an expectation that I will work very closely with the District Manager for Social Services in trying to ensure that fewer children reach the level of need that requires specialist support from Statutory Social Workers. The District Manager and myself will now both be reporting to the new Head of West Kent Children’s Social Services, Kathy Lambourn, who is replacing Andrew Hickmott on his retirement at the end of August.
I will continue to line manage Children’s Centres as well as Mandy Fischer, our CAF Co-ordinator, and have inherited responsibility for the PSA’s and FLO’s that are currently managed by Lynda Hammond and who work in a variety of schools across the whole of Dartford. I have met with them recently and am optimistic that the excellent work that they do will be continued and built upon.
The review of Senior Specialist Teaching staff is now complete and Teri Rutherford has been appointed as the Dartford District Co-ordinator. My understanding is that Teri will now be line managing the STS across the district and will have a pivotal role in ensuring appropriate support is provided to those children and young people identified as having additional needs.
The new posts of District Heads of Standards and School Improvement have also been recruited to; in the Secondary Sector Matthew Munro will be covering Dartford while the primary role has been offered to someone new to Kent whose name will be announced once the contract details have been finalised.
Children’s Social Services are being re-organised to fit along District lines and therefore Sevenoaks and Dartford will be separating (again) with Dartford regaining its own duty desk. Peter Tree, who has made a significant contribution to integrated working over the past two years, will be staying in Sevenoaks. Interviews for the Dartford District Manager post are scheduled for late August.
What we think we know..!
I will be losing the direct line management responsibility for a wide ranging group of staff who have hitherto been key members of the Dartford LCSP team. The expectation is that myself and other key local managers such as the District Manager for Children’s Social Services, Senior Ed Psych, District Inclusion Co-ordinator and the District Head of School Improvement and Standards and others will meet regularly to agree how best to deploy local resources according to need as identified within the District Children and Young Persons’ plan. These discussions might focus on a particular community or school, or perhaps on a specific issue that is causing concern and for which a co-ordinated multi-agency approach is needed. Once the appointments into all the local management arrangements have been finalised we will hopefully get cracking!
I anticipate that the arrangements for how we provide support for the identified needs of individual children in schools will broadly remain the same, at least in the short term. Obviously the slightly different systems currently operating in the two Dartford partnerships will need to be merged but for now all referrals for the Dartford West Education Forum or Dartford East Education Based Review should continue to be sent to Rachel at rachel.hill@kent.gov.uk . CAF and SPA arrangements are thankfully not changing. Marie and Mandy will continue to administer and lead the process locally.
What we definitely do not know…..yet
The expectation is that Local Children’s Trusts replace the LCSPs with effect from the Autumn. There are ongoing discussions at a County level with the Children’s Trust executive as to what the terms of reference, membership and chairing arrangements for these groups should be. Dartford representatives are significantly contributing to these discussions and I am extremely grateful to Denise Hatton (YMCA), Alan Milner (Parents Consortium) and Adrian Gowan (Dartford Borough Council) for all their efforts in this regard. It is heartening that the work achieved here in Dartford is helping to influence future County arrangements. However we do need to be constantly mindful of the changes at the most senior level at KCC (Katherine Kerswell has now taken up post as Group Managing Director) as well as the direction of travel being taken by the new Coalition Government. Proposed changes to the Education and Health landscapes in particular over recent weeks will no doubt have a bearing on how we collaborate in the future in the commissioning and delivery of services to Dartford children.
And Finally…
It would be wrong of me to finish without mentioning a few folk who will be leaving over the coming few weeks. Sharon Bell, our Pre School SENCO is off to Bexley to continue her SENCO work, this time with school age children. Susanne Watson, our Education Psychologist is off to Camden where she will join Alison Farmer- who previously worked in Dartford. Lallie Godfrey is taking up a headship in Thurrock from September but will be back in Dartford occasionally next year as she continues to help with the roll out of Mantle of the Expert across North West Kent schools.
My sincere thanks to them, and to all members of the LCSP team, who have worked with an exemplary commitment to collaboration over the past two years
This is my final LCSP blog - the next time will be as a PoSsuM. Thanks for all the support given to me and the LCSP and enjoy your holidays!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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