Inspectors praise services for children and young people in Inverclyde, report
Inverclyde is leading the way in involving children, young people and their families in designing good quality services.
Families across the area are benefitting from joined up services which have a positive impact on improving the lives of children and young people, according to inspectors.
It follows a joint inspection of services for children and young people delivered by the Inverclyde Alliance community planning partnership.
The inspection was carried out by the Care Inspectorate with Education Scotland, Healthcare Improvement Scotland and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary for Scotland in May and June 2017, and included specially-trained young people who have personal experience of care.
Inspectors looked at how well services are working together to make a positive difference to the lives of children, young people and families. They looked at how services are delivered by staff and assessed how well they are led, planned and organised. Inspectors assess services across nine ‘quality indicators.’
Inspectors found Inverclyde was particularly good at involving children, young people and families in the design and delivery of the services they use. Performance in this, which includes promoting children’s rights and participation, was found to be ‘excellent’. Inverclyde is the only area in Scotland to have achieved this grade in a joint inspection so far.
Across the other eight quality indicators, five were found to be ‘very good’, and two were ‘good’. The way staff assess and respond to risks and needs was found to be ‘adequate’ and the inspection report details areas which can improve to achieve consistently high standards of practice.
Karen Reid, chief executive of the Care Inspectorate, said: “Involving children, young people and families in the way services are designed and delivered is important in meeting the needs of every child and in giving them the best possible start in life. Inverclyde exemplifies how this can be done well.
“Children and young people benefited from ambitious and effective partnership working, driven by a powerful vision of nurturing every child, citizen and community.
“In their determination to ensure that children get the best start in life, partners had committed significant resources to high quality, flexible early learning and childcare.
“The life chances of looked after children and young people were improving as a result of the high priority given by partners to fulfilling their corporate parenting responsibilities.”
Inspectors also said more needed to be done to strengthen joint risk assessment and decision making in response to child protection concerns to ensure that the response to any concern was always robust.
Karen Reid added: “While we have noted some areas which could improve, particularly in the consistency of the initial risk assessment in response to children who may be experiencing neglect, we are aware that action has already been taken to address this.
“We have a high level of confidence that the current momentum in delivering improvement and change in the lives of children, young people and their families will be sustained.”
The full inspection report is available here: http://cinsp.in/2y0VafK
