Our everyday practice

We have a Good Ofsted rating in all areas. Ofsted recognised that we have transformed Norfolk Children's Services. Read highlights from our Ofsted report. 

How we continue to improve our service

• We are developing innovative schemes to support young people, including:
  • Targeted youth support service
  • New roads
  • Adolescent services
  • Therapeutic services
• Children's advice and duty service (CADS) quickly triages cases to the right teams. This helps our staff focus on where to make the biggest difference. It has reduced contacts, referrals, and the number of assessments which do not lead to ongoing work. Ofsted have described CADS as consistently strong.
• Our family help teams provide the right support to families at the right time. They create a supportive environment for all our practitioners.
• We developed an approach to recruit in-house foster carers through a value-based approach. We are seeing a significant rise in enquiries. 
• We secured £120m of investment to improve our educational provision for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)

What to expect from our everyday practice 

Our operating model supports social workers and frontline practice. It includes: 

• Dedicated support staff for every family help team to reduce admin 
• Bringing together social workers and family practitioners in a single team alongside specialist practitioners, such as:
  • Domestic abuse workers
  • Intensive support workers
  • Network coordinators
• A specialist court work service. This is to support all social workers holding cases in this space
• Specialist teams that focus on risk outside the home and enhanced family help for complex cases
• A therapeutic service with a range of practitioners who you can call to support specific children or families depending on need 
• Specialist managers to support complex cases in areas of targeted interventions and child protection
• Continuous development of all professionals. This includes development pathways for all practitioners regardless of qualification.
• Ongoing innovations using AI and technology to enable social workers to prioritise direct work with families rather than recording

Our multi-disciplinary model:

• Enables us to manage cases better
• Reduces hand-offs between case holding practitioners
• Ensures a greater depth of knowledge of the different roles
• Improves staff well being

We are proud of the feedback our model is receiving from families. 

Our approach 

Through our Flourish framework we work as one system across a partnership. We work with whole family networks.

Our approach is relationship based, strengths orientated, and outcome focused.

• Relationship based -You will have the time to focus on doing direct work with families and being the intervention. This is rather than referring families onto other services. 
• Strengths orientated -You will recognise the strengths that exist in families and their networks. You will build on these and the resilience they create.
• Outcome focused -You will focus on overcoming barriers and achieving the best possible outcomes for children and their families.   

This approach means our children:

• Are prepared and able to learn
• Can build positive and long-lasting relationships
• Receive family-based care

Why you should join us

We are an inclusive employer and offer a range of rewards and benefits.

Learn more about the benefits of working with us.