Julie Jenkins, director of children's and young people's services at Calderdale council talk to Community Care about the journey to its 'good' Ofsted rating achieved towards the end of 2018.

Ofsted highlighted the council's 'outstanding' services for children in care and care leavers, the supportive and caring culture within the council's children's services and the significant strengthening of performance management.

Jenkins describes the "tailored" nature of the council's children in care and care leaver service, how it took decisive action to immediately address areas of improvement Ofsted highlighted during the inspection process and how the service supports social work staff with regular supervision, monitoring of caseloads and tight management oversight.

The full list of questions, posed by Community Care's associate editor Sarah Dennis, is:

What would you say have been the particular points of improvement for Calderdale since its previous inspection, and were these, in your view, adequately reflected by Ofsted in their findings?

What has been the core contributor to what Ofsted termed a “considerable improvement” in the timeliness and updating of assessments and how has this been measured?

Can you tell us more about the work social workers undertake with the Calderdale Therapeutic Team and how this supports and encourages practice?


What are the particular initiatives behind the transformation of the council’s services for children in care, now rated outstanding, and how were these implemented?


How has the council’s senior leadership team gone about creating a culture where, to quote Ofsted, social workers felt “safe and valued”?

What has caused the strengthening of performance management and what more is being done to further improve quality assurance?

Can you tell us about the two areas of practice with some adverse impact
Ofsted noted that leaders were unaware of, and the decisive action taken to address these concerns that inspectors noted?

What is the council’s priorities in terms of the areas for improvement highlighted by Ofsted?

And finally, what are the future developments for Calderdale’s children’s services?