Great stories from our children and families social work teams

August 2024

Coming into care packs (supply packs)

Earlier this month workers came together with children and young people to help pack the 1^st 60 packs which are now on their way to reaching the children and young people who need them.

Supply packs consist of a bag containing comforting age-appropriate items that will be shared with the child or young person on their first day into care to help them settle into their new home, to feel safe and to send them a message that are not alone.

Here at Durham, we love listening to our young people and their experiences and encourage them to make their own ideas to make our young people's stories the best it can be, and this project is just a start of what can happen when we work together.

July 2024

Fostering Care STAR Awards

Durham's Fostering Service have been celebrating this month!

A wonderful event was held at Bishop Auckland Town Hall, joining together the children, young people, foster carers, families and supported lodgings providers who have been part of Durham's Fostering service over the years. Everybody enjoyed the red carpet experience and attendees were treated to entertainment from our 'Care to Dance' Young People.

This event was a chance to celebrate everybody involved in Durham's Fostering Service who continuously go above and beyond, providing young people with love, guidance, and a safe place to call home. Those in attendance were also recognised for their ongoing commitment and dedication to the young people they look after and support. A huge thank you and congratulations to them all!

June 2024

Next Venture Fund

At County Durham we pride ourselves in hearing the voices of our care experienced young people and our care leavers have been awarded a funding pot of £10,000 by our Chief Executive to fund projects which will benefit all our care leavers. Since this project began we have named this fund the Next Venture Fund and young people are encouraged to apply for the funding and the brilliance of the initiative is that applications are taken to a panel ran by care leavers themselves, it is they who steer the direction of the project and help administer the finances. This initiative enables our care leavers to develop a whole range of skills to support them in their future careers, whether that is by applying for the money or being involved in the panels.

The purpose of Next Venture Fund is to promote positive emotional health and wellbeing by building social networks, reducing isolation, and seeding new opportunities for care leavers to participate in. Since its introduction in March 2024, the fund has awarded almost £7,000 of activities, funding ten different projects to date ranging from funding Young People Advisors (YPAs) and care leavers to go for a day activity to build relationships. The benefit of this project is it enables professionals close to young people can be more of a friend who can support them a worker. Other projects of the result of this initiative include equipment for our baby and toddlers' groups running from the hub, start-up packs for young people moving to start university, training for young people to start applying for their own funding through the key fund and cinema passes for our care leavers.

The Next Venture fund has got off to a great start and there are many more amazing projects to come, and we cannot wait for the brilliant work that our care leavers will lead on.

April 2024

Lifelong Links

Lifelong Links aims to build lasting relationships for young people in our care in Durham. It helps bring together people that you want to connect with. These can be people that you know well but have not seen in a while (like a previous foster carer, a teacher or neighbour), family members that you have lost contact with or even a family member that you have not met yet.

The intention is to help young people establish lost links, re-enforce existing relationships or form new connections, so they can develop a strong, stable, and consistent network of support as they leave care.

This example of good practise is a choice for young people but with the support of a Lifelong coordinator, they can build a network that might have been lost, find out more about family history, and find answers to some of the questions they might have.

Lifelong Links - Building lasting relationships for children in our care

March 2024

World Social Work Month

This year we encouraged practitioners to take some time out of their busy day to stop and reflect with colleagues on their roles, their values, and the difference they can make when they work together with children, young people, families, and multi-agency colleagues.

One way our staff make a difference is how we support our neurodivergent practitioners to thrive in practice. One of our social workers, Debbie Cruddace, and our principal social worker, Shelley Gill, co-delivered a workshop for Social Work England with academic colleagues from Sunderland University. This was an online workshop following on from four similar workshops which offered face-to-face for leaders in Durham Children's Social Care as part of the leadership academy. Debbie graciously shared her lived experience of being a neurodiverse social worker with honesty, vulnerability and humour. We have co-produced neurodiversity guidance for practitioners and managers.

It also saw the last of six workshops focussing on anti-racist practice, equality, diversity and inclusion: Culturally sensitive practice co-delivered with the acclaimed author Vivian Okeze Tirado. It is crucial that social workers have high quality anti-racist practice Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Durham Children's Social Care have a strong commitment to this. 

February 2024

This month Durham celebrated Durham Practice Week. Over 700 practitioners, managers and directors attended events. We have received such wonderful feedback about our keynote speaker Nick Barwick and the experience and message he shared with our staff, carers and young people. We have learned so much about how we can come together as a service, and we will bring this learning into future events.

Watch Nick's message for Durham by watching the video at Nick Barwick on LinkedIn.

The focus of Practice Week this year was 'permanence and belonging'. We all have a part to play in supporting the children and young people we work with to feel safe, loved and have a plan that means they feel connected and secure with high aspirations for the future and space to heal from trauma and rebuild relationships that may have become fragile. This is how we aspire to practice in Durham, and you can find out more in our practice framework at Durham Children's Services Procedures Manual: resource library.

January 2024

Event to celebrate our care leavers

This month we held an event at County Hall to celebrate our care leavers and reflect on the publication of our Ofsted Focused Visit in November. Thank you to all our young people who presented, performed and attended, and of course to colleagues who helped organise the gathering which included poetry, song, sharing of experiences and cake. We are very proud of this recognition by Ofsted of the quality of the work we do!

Read about what Ofsted had to say about our staff who work with our young people at Ofsted inspection reports for Durham County Council.

December 2023

Grand opening on the Stanley One Point Hub

This month featured the grand opening of the Stanley One Point Hub. This is a safe space for care leavers to talk to Young People Assistants (YPAs) and other workers about questions they may have or any support they feel they need as well as a space to talk with other young people and get involved in workshops like cooking and life skills.

The grand opening included many young people and staff in attendance who supported the launch to see the rooms that are designated for young people that have been painted and decorated by the young people themselves and joined in with Christmas games and a Christmas quiz and lots of food!

Find out what the young people thought about the opening of the hub by watching a video at Facebook: grand opening of Stanley One Point Hub.

November 2023

Recognising social work good practice

In November we praised the great work of a Social Worker Assistant in helping two young people aged six and eight understand their care plan. The two young people were struggling to understand what was happening and what their current and future plan was. They had both been 'matched' to current foster carers but were struggling to understand what everything meant. Laura produced an amazing story that explained their situation but involving animals, further increasing their understanding of who has made the decisions on their behalf and, more importantly, why.

This is the type of initiative that we love to see across the council and what Durham thrives for to make the lives of young people better.

October 2023

National Adoption Week

This month recognises the national celebration of Adoption Week. John Pearce (Corporate Director of Children's Services) spoke internally about the importance of Adoption Week. "National Adoption Week is really important in celebrating all of the wonderful stories and fabulous outcomes we achieve for children and adopters". John goes on to say, "Our starting point when working with children is to try and keep them with their families or extended networks". If this is not possible "adoption is a great way to bring them permanence in a loving family home".

September 2023

Foster with North East launch

In September the region's new fostering support hub, Foster With North East, was launched. Foster with North East is a collaborative partnership between 12 local councils from across the North East of England. Fostering services all across the region are joining forces to recruit much needed prospective foster carers.

Take a look at their new website at Foster with North East.