Work Projects Case Studies & Testimonials
Social Work Projects
Background Information
To work in partnership with a large county council to add capacity to a critical situation within the referral and assessment area. We did this by providing a service improvement project team within the Children’s services
sector.
Purpose
To provide a taskforce of 30 associates within a structure of Senior Practitioners, Assistant Team Managers, Team Managers and a Service Manager who was project lead.
Aims and Objectives
To clear a large number of unallocated cases and to secure the front line in 3 different localities within the referral and assessment service.
Established Practice
All recruitment activity was managed by our experienced resourcing division. We followed our rigid vetting process to enable the right associates to be part of the project team. We worked very closely with our partner organisation, this therefore taking away the time consuming administrative elements of the recruitment campaign.
Activities Delivered
Following our proactive recruitment campaign to ensure that we were able to resource such a large project, we thoroughly interviewed and vetted the team. The project was mobilised thoroughly, ensuring that all parties were aware of the desired outcome and timescales to be met. The Project lead established a set of tools and trackers to be used through the duration of the project to ensure that delivery was assured. One of the success factors was ensuring that all systems and policy & procedure training was established at the outset of the contract so as not to waste time.
The Social Workers were allocated cases from the backlog across the localities. Each case within the backlog was Risk Assessed and Prioritised prior to allocation to ensure that the most severe safeguarding issues were addressed immediately. Team Managers reported on a weekly basis on progress, timescales, closure of cases and direction of cases. A Risk register was kept throughout the project, this was managed by the project lead. The team were retained by our strong relationship management, ensuring that when times were ‘tough’ they had access to appropriate support and challenge.
Methodology and Tools
Tools from a previous contract were utilised as a basis for the development of the bespoke tools for the needs of this contract.
Conclusions and Recommendations
A team of 27 contractors were placed into the county council with overall rating of 4/5 for the project. The team successfully ran for a period of 6 months. Closing down the large number of unallocated cases and implanting a safe and robust front line service to children and families within this area.
Difficulties
OUK responded flexibly to client needs. For example, change in team location to meet the needs of the service.
Transferable Benefits
OUK successfully have pre and post this project supported struggling local authorities with service improvement teams to secure and support, both front line and long term service areas. Therefore enabling local authorities to support vulnerable families and communities. Through experiential learning we have since developed even more robust tools and processes to underpin any projects such as this.
A Placements Manager registered with Outcomes UK has 15 years' extensive Social Care experience. Broad range of experience in Children’s Services Our Placements Manager’s experience consists of Youth Work, Probation work, Residential work, Child Protection work, Court work, Looked After Children case work and h Read More...