Our Journey
We are determined that Newham be a place where every child and young person enjoys the best possible opportunities in life – through outstanding education; first-rate youth services; exceptional family support, and social care services that ensure no child is left behind.
Led by our ambitious senior leadership team, and supported by Newham’s Mayor and Cabinet, we are making great strides on our journey to “outstanding”.
We know that transformation doesn’t happen overnight. That’s why we remain committed to investing in the service structure, training, and practice programme that will ensure we deliver for children and give our staff the skills, support and confidence to be agents of change and deliver exceptional social work and better outcomes for children.
We welcome regular monitoring visits from Oftsed, who have recognised our improvement journey and continue to encourage the further improvement that we are committed to. You can read Ofsted’s most recent feedback on our progress here.
We want all children in Newham to:
- Grow up happy, healthy and safe
- Flourish in our schools
- Benefit from employment, skills and training opportunities
- Play an active role in the community
These Outcomes require dedication and commitment. We call them our three Obsessions:
- Improve the Care experience
- Increase support to families
- Invest in the workforce, improving quality and stability
We want Newham to be a Centre of Excellence in Children’s Social Care by 2023 – nationally recognised as an example of best practice; working imaginatively to continue to grow, adapt, innovate and improve; forging relationships with academic institutions across the UK; partnering with local schools, colleges and organisations; continuing to invest in workforce development and quality assurance, and ensuring that we continue to learn from families and children – and embed their feedback in our ongoing practice improvement.
We recognise that good social workers need the right environment to grow into great social workers. We welcome different skillsets and are committed to offering the resources, development, training, accreditation and professional challenge to allow you to flourish and deliver better outcomes for children.
The Key Themes in our development are
- Leadership, vision and culture
- Model of practice
- The fundamentals
- Corporate parenting
- Partnerships
- Learning and Transparency
- Workforce
For an in-depth understanding of what this looks like for the practitioner, please go to our Training page.
Practice Framework
The Newham Together Practice Framework is based on restorative values – supporting local families to make positive changes to their lives, drawing strength from their relationships and networks. The Framework provides a context for workers to guide these changes, however it also is a continually developing and changing thing in itself – it is a learning system, using feedback, both positive and negative, from service users and staff to constantly improve our services. Transparency and accountability are an important aspect of the Framework, with the focus being on learning.
The Newham Together Practice Framework is based on restorative values – supporting families to make positive changes to their lives, drawing strength from their relationships and networks.
The Framework provides a context for social workers to guide and support these changes. It is a continually adapting learning system – using feedback from service users and staff to constantly improve services, with a commitment to transparency and accountability. We celebrate difference, using the Social GRACES to recognise the impact of difference in our social work.
Our relational approach uses relationships to build trust and support change through clear communication and empathy.
Systemic theory informs our practice and helps make sense of complex situations. We don’t view people as ‘the problem’, we understand that their circumstances are the product of many interacting factors.
Focusing on relationships helps us better understand their needs, strengths and resources – and helps us develop tools for managing risk.
There are six core principles underlying our Practice Framework.
Co-production
Children and young people are our first priority, and their needs are at the heart of all we do.
Children and young people’s feedback and involvement is central to our work. We listen to them, aim to build trust and will always work with them, never against them.
Curiosity
We use a systemic approach to understand complex issues, always aiming to understand relationships in the context of family life. We recognise that language and difference shape meaning and experiences.
Compassion
We provide support by building on strengths and enabling people to forge stronger foundations from which to improve. We appreciate the individual strengths of those we work with, recognise their challenges and work with them to find solutions to complex issues.
Confidence
We respond to risk with confidence.
We accept it is not possible to eliminate all risk, instead working within a context of safe uncertainty, and using our relationships to mitigate risk.
Clarity
We respond to risk with confidence.
We accept it is not possible to eliminate all risk, instead working within a context of safe uncertainty, and using our relationships to mitigate risk.
Community
We are proud to be part of the community of Newham.
We celebrate the diversity in our community, recognising and responding to difference, and we build lasting relationships and welcome feedback.
