Children's social care
North Yorkshire County Council has been rated by the Audit Commission again and our current rating is as a 4 star authority - the highest rank attained by only one third of authorities - and improving well.
Within Children's social care at North Yorkshire County Council we believe that everything we do reflects our vision: "To strengthen current practice and develop new ways of working with children, young people and families, by improving frontline delivery and embedding evidence based practice to reduce demand in services and deliver sustainable positive outcomes." Judith Hay
Assistant Director, children's social care. Children's social care comprises eight key areas:Assessment and safeguarding serviceAccess and input teams provide an initial response to support children in need and protect them from harm. Staff work with families to support them in caring for their children wherever it is safe to do so and to support them through times of family crisis. Children in need (CIN) and child protection (CP) teams work with children and their families to ensure children are safe and their needs appropriately met in the longer term. This service works with children who are looked after by the local authority because a child cannot live with their family for a short period of time, or permanently. The service supports children living with wider family and friends as well as in traditional foster care and children's homes. The leaving care team supports young people as they approach adulthood ensuring they receive the right help to secure appropriate accommodation, education, training or employment. The child placement service is responsible for the provision of three children's homes, three resource centres for disabled children, the recruitment, training and support of foster carers, and the adoption service. The main areas of work are: - to recruit foster carers and prospective adoptive parents;
- to provide training and support for foster carers and prospective adoptive parents;
- to manage the specialist fostering scheme and the treatment fostering project;
- to develop and deliver services in line with the requirements of the Care Standards Act 2002;
- to manage and deliver residential provision for children who are looked after.
The team of Independent Reviewing Officers provide the child protection conference service for children and young people who have suffered or likely to suffer significant harm and the reviewing service for children and young people who are looked after by the Local Authority. The main areas of work include: - chairing child protection conferences and making and reviewing child protection plans for children and young people;
- reviewing care plans for children and young people who are "looked after" by the Local Authority;
- making sure the voices of children and young people are heard, taken into account and that they influence plans for their care and protection;
- quality assuring the services we provide to children and young people.
Family intervention team (FIT)The family intervention team is available across North Yorkshire to support children, young people and families where there is an identified risk of children or young people coming into care. The team works with the whole family to address issue identified jointly, between the worker and family members. The team works flexibly on a seven day a week basis, to support families and deliver interventions to achieve positive outcomes. The service can only be accessed by referral from a social worker. Participation, standards and quality teamCase management is facilitated within children's social care by a well supported electronic case management system - ICS PROTOCOL. A further key support to social workers is provided by the commissioning and contracts team who identify potential placements for looked after children. Finally, a dedicated participation, standards and quality team seeks and collates service user feedback to influence future service delivery and development. Virtual SchoolThe education for looked after children (ELAC) virtual school monitors and directly intervenes in the educational progress and attainment of all looked after children in the care of North Yorkshire County Council. We lead in ensuring that section 52 of the Children Act 2004, the duty of a local authority to safeguard and promote the welfare and educational achievement of a child looked after by them is fully met. This duty applies to all children looked after by an authority, wherever they are placed. We will advise further on looked after children in the care of another local authority where they attend a North Yorkshire school. Irrespective of school status our aim is to support and promote the educational achievement of looked after children. We believe that good practice in equalities benefits everyone and therefore aim to provide equality of opportunity for children and young people in respect of access to appropriate services, and for staff and colleagues with whom we work in partnership.  Children's social work matters
As a region we're committed to making Yorkshire and the Humber the most collaborative, supportive and rewarding place in which to enjoy a career as a children's social worker. So that's why all our 15 of local authorities have come together as one team to support and create change. Visit the Children's social work matters website for more information. A month in the life of a newly qualified social worker: A graduate children's social worker from Rotherham is hoping to raise the profile of the vital role of children's social work teams by writing her own blog. You can access the blog here. Search jobs onlineSearch for our jobs and apply online using this link. Please note, we are committed to recruiting staff directly and do not utilise agency suppliers for direct recruitment. We will not accept applications nor services from agency suppliers in respect of our vacancies. Find out more. 
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