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Working for Sunderland city council: 'We can make this the best place to practise'
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Like all local authorities, Sunderland city council’s social care workforce is facing pressure on its services. An ageing population, a higher proportion of older people with disabilities and a rise in the number of children being taken into care have all resulted in increasing demand.
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As its starting point for tackling these challenges, rather than looking at what services it can cut, the council is finding innovative ways to accomplish its objectives. Neil Revely, executive director of people services, says: “We try to look at how we can focus on the outcomes we need to achieve and how we can achieve them with the resource base that we have.”
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This has required a rethink of how the council works, starting from the top. The key to improving both adult and children’s services has been early intervention: the right support, offered at the right time, can prevent greater demands on services further down the line. In adult services, this approach is already quite advanced.
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For example, the council has a substantial programme to build extra care housing, such as small villages of apartments and bungalows for older people, with care offered on site 24 hours a day, all year round. Sunderland has combined this with a programme of telecare, enabling people to stay in their own homes for longer. The result has been a reduction in people moving into residential and nursing care, offering a better quality of life for residents while reducing costs for the council. Ultimately, says Revely, the council “will eradicate the need for institutional care”.
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Sunderland is now working to transform its children’s services, focusing on providing a more integrated approach. An independently created improvement board, which includes multiple partners, such as the chief executives of local health organisations and representatives of the police, has been working to develop the best outcomes for children, including fewer children in care.
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One initiative has been the introduction of Strengthening Families in Sunderland, a multi-agency programme that helps families to do more for themselves and their communities, giving them the opportunity to improve their own lives and the lives of others and in the process reducing demand for services. This can include supporting people to parent more effectively, for example.
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Sunderland’s clinical commissioning group (CCG) has been chosen as one of the 29 vanguard sites in the country to develop more integrated care, and the council is now reorganising its locality teams to reflect the integrated approach. The idea, says Revely, is to “wrap professionals around children and families”. The new teams will include more of the early help functions developed through Strengthening Families, and other professionals, such as health visitors and those working with young offenders, will also be brought into the teams.
Making sure that danger signs are spotted early is important, so the council is creating an intelligence hub, which will enable agencies to share information that could lead to identifying and supporting those at risk, reducing pressure on services at a later stage. There is evidence says Revely, that the more integrated approach will “ultimately lead to fewer children being in care”.
The council is also improving its process for dealing with at-risk children, says Revely. Previously, all referrals for children at risk were dealt with by the multi-agency safeguarding hub (Mash), which was overrun with numbers. Instead, Sunderland is now introducing a system whereby children and family’s needs will be triaged to the most appropriate service and this may include a decision to provide support for the family from an integrated team. This means that those children who do need to go into care are dealt with much more quickly and efficiently.
This preventative approach benefits the vulnerable adults and children that Sunderland works with, but it also creates a more supportive working environment for social care professionals. “We can make this the best place to practise your work, whatever profession you are,” says Revely.
The three senior posts that Sunderland is recruiting for (director for children and adults, chief social worker and head of children’s social services) will play a key part in leading Sunderland’s transformation. Appointees will be promoting an innovative, forward-thinking approach to social care, in a particularly invigorating location.
This is a good time to be part of Sunderland’s social care team. It’s not just that the council’s innovative approach has been recognised nationally and internationally, but Sunderland itself combines the attractions of a busy, vibrant city with the welcoming outdoor feel of a seaside town. As well as an expanse of sandy beaches, the city has plenty of parks equipped with adventure play areas, cycle and walking routes and sculpture trails. And that’s not forgetting the museum and Winter Gardens, the Silksworth Sports Complex where you can try skiing and snowboarding, and the Washington Wetland Centre, home to rare birds, flamingos and ducklings.
Find out more about Sunderland’s current vacancies here.
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