Leeds Children’s Services awarded £390,000 as a national ‘Partner in Practice’

Leeds City Council’s Children’s Services have won a £390,000 funding bid from the Department for Education, recognising good practice through the pandemic.

The latest funding, to be used by the end of March 2021, will allow Leeds to build on areas of success for its Children’s Services in recent months, in addressing food poverty, supporting mental health and an additional focus on supporting early intervention.

The Partners in Practice programme is a partnership between national and local government to ‘understand, capture and spread excellence’. Leeds City Council’s Children’s Services was selected to become a ‘partner in practice’ in 2016, in recognition of the city’s innovative restorative approach to working with children and families and our ‘good’ Ofsted rating which has since been upgraded to ‘outstanding’.

Cllr Fiona Venner, Executive Member for Children and Families said;

“In Leeds our outstanding Children’s Services have a strong track record in attracting innovation funding and we welcome this short term grant.

“Despite unprecedented pressures on local government finances over the past decade we’ve remained committed to investing in Early Help – to ensure families receive support as soon as they need it. This funding helps us to keep championing that approach which has been key to improving outcomes for families, safely reducing the number of children in care – bucking the national trend.

“During the pandemic our fantastic workforce have adapted to changed ways of working, using innovative approaches to provide high quality services to families. This funding will help strengthen our support for families through our Early Help clusters, to mitigate poverty, and to add to the delivery of services that have a positive protective impact on our communities.”

Activities to be funded will include £200,000 to support cluster innovation and practice with families impacted by Covid, £40,000 to provide additional outreach support for young people at risk of crime and poor outcomes and £30,000 for additional mental health support in hubs/clusters.

Notes for editors;

Full list of activity to be funded through the Partner in Practice award;

• £200,000 to support cluster innovation and practice with families impacted by Covid

• £30,000 to expand and develop Family Group Conferencing/peer led approaches.
• £20,000 to pilot welfare rights approach in Early Help hubs
• £40,000 to provide additional outreach support for young people at risk of crime and poor outcomes
• £30,000 additional mental health support in hubs/clusters
• £10,000 to develop peer/parent led approaches.
• £10,000 to develop online Positive Parenting Programme
• £20,000 to expand family support in Emergency Duty Team
• £30,000 Evaluation and impact