Column by South Gloucestershire Council's cabinet member for children and young people, Sam Bromiley.

One of the council’s key priorities is to create the best start in life for our children and young people. Which is why it was so distressing that the Covid-19 pandemic had such a harmful impact on some of the most vulnerable children and young people in South Gloucestershire.

Our social workers played a crucial role in continuing to support families, showing commitment and humanity in some of the most demanding conditions imaginable. But we can and must do better.

We have responded quickly, setting aside funding in next year’s council budget to invest in these vital council services. We are proposing an increase of more than £10 million in children’s services funding over the next four years.

Part of this money would help fund an expansion of our frontline social worker teams, to reduce caseloads for staff, so they can spend more time supporting individual families. In a highly competitive market for great social workers, additional funding would also be used to help us recruit and retain staff and enhance our training and development programmes.

The funding would also increase specialist expertise and capabilities, such as expert trauma support and psychologists. New initiatives proposed include introducing the Mockingbird fostering model, where one foster home acts as a hub, offering planned and emergency sleepovers and short breaks, advice, training, and support, for six to ten other households.

These are just some of the measures we are taking to give our staff the tools they need to support children and families to thrive.

Social work rarely grabs the headlines ahead of more visible council services, like bin collections, libraries and roads. The magnificent job our social workers do too often goes undetected, except by the young people and their families whose lives are changed for the better. If you feel as strongly as I do about giving vulnerable children and young people the best start in life, please contribute your views to our ongoing budget consultation open until 9 January 2022, and if you know of a qualified social worker looking to join a genuinely forward-thinking team, we’d love to hear from them.

https://apply.careers.southglos.gov.uk/vacancies/1636/experienced-social-workers-children-s--apply-now.html