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Blackpool Families Rock

Following the Ofsted verdict of 2018/19, Blackpool took the brave step to co-produce a Model of Practice, to address the recommendation that Children’s Social Care needed to develop a clear model of social work practice.

Models of Practice are available to purchase, however they prove to be very expensive and there is research to suggest that they are not always suitable for areas with specific needs.

Blackpool Council’s decision to co-produce their own Model of Practice led to a collaboration between social workers, managers, parents/carers, young people in care, young people not in care, researchers and academics who, over several months, explored the ‘problem’ before developing a solution – a localised, co-produced Model of Practice, underpinned by Head, Heart and Hands. This paved the way for Blackpool Families Rock.

Since its creation, Blackpool Families Rock has been critical in the decision for DfE to cease their intervention with Blackpool Children’s Services. In December 2020, the Commissioner letter state:

‘The Director of Children’s Services has led a programme of changes across the partnership and internally, putting in place a new strength –based approach, Blackpool Families Rock, which is shifting service culture away from a focus on process to a much more nuanced one that works with children and families to achieve optimum impact and outcomes for children. This is major building lock to long-term sustained improvement and a considerable achievement’.

Understanding how children and families want us to work with them is fundamental to forming effective working relationships and supporting families to keep children safe. Yet too often practice is based on the needs of agencies and practitioners. In order to reset this balance a coproduction group of children and families, who had experience of Blackpool Council children’s services, met regularly over the course of a year to develop a new way of working with children and families in Blackpool.

It brought people with lived experience, such as young people and parents/carers into the heart of decisions and developments, including recruitment, which consisted of being active members of interview panels and co-producing interview questions, implementing the Blackpool Families Rock principles. Such work has included, Parents of the Revolution taking part in interviews for social workers, support staff and ASYE, and appointed to positions including the Director of Children’s Services. Other activity has also included co-producing mandatory training including a regular session delivered by parents and carers, about what it is like to be a parent or carer in Blackpool today and how practitioners can work well with families to co-produce positive outcomes.

Blackpool Families Rock has created a reference point for ‘the way we do things’, which includes co-production, listening, empathy and putting families’ needs first. It has set the standard and generated more opportunities to co-produce solutions to identified problems such as Born into Care (See Born into Care).

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