How one council is making children-in-care profiles focus on needs not risks

A sponsored feature from Norfolk County Council in this recently published Community Care release raises some interesting ideas.

Edward Wong, head of localities at Norfolk County Council, says: “Placement profiles can be too focused on presenting risks.”

Norfolk is one of several councils that are working with the social care consultancy iMPOWER to develop Valuing Care. iMPOWER is the country’s largest independent consultancy – consider implications of this and read a little more about iMPOWER here.

A benefit of the Valuing Care is that the data from scoring the needs of each child will feed into commissioning, says Edward Wong:

“Our commissioners will be able to use that information to inform better commissioning strategies because we will have a better understanding of the needs of our looked-after children and what they need from fostering, residential or support services,” he says. “Performance indicators tend to capture activities rather than outcomes so we’re hoping Valuing Care will make it easier to identify outcomes.

Lots to think about here. Thoughts? Please leave a comment.

Read the sponsored feature from Norfolk County Council in Community Care – an interesting thought piece worthy of consideration and debate: How one council is making children-in-care profiles focus on needs not risks