MS, Minister for Children and
Social Care: The commitment to deliver a National Practice
Framework is one of the core elements of our Transformation
Programme for Children's Social Care in Wales. The rationale
behind this has always been to improve consistency of practice
across Wales and support a strengths-based way of working to
ensure the best outcomes for our most vulnerable children and
young people in Wales.
A national conversation has been taking place with local
authorities and their partners in the delivery of children's
social services across Wales including the third sector, police,
and safeguarding boards as well as national bodies such as the
Children's Commissioner. This engagement and open dialogue
gathered opinions and evidence about how a National Practice
Framework can add the most value. In the last twelve months we
have shared two engagement papers. These papers set out the aim
of the Framework and how it would work in practice as well as
drafts of recommended standards.
The feedback we received highlighted the critical importance of
using this work to strengthen multi-agency working, based around
5 strategic standards: Multi-Agency Infrastructure, Multi-Agency
Strategy, Multi-Agency Learning, Multi-Agency
Governance and Multi-Agency Delivery. To reflect
this strategic approach, the Framework's title has changed
to the “National Multi-Agency Practice Strategy for
Children”.
However, further work is still required, including on
strengthening shared accountability for multi-agency practice
with greater clarity of roles, responsibilities and ownership of
the strategy. In addition, we must have clear
governance arrangements in place to oversee implementation, which
do not increase bureaucracy or cause confusion.
The feedback from our engagement tells us that the Framework
cannot be a standalone document and further work is required
to develop a joint accountability framework, practice notes and
resources for front line practitioners drawing on the original
suite of standards, for example “children and young people who
are missing”, with additional supporting guidance.
To allow time to strengthen the Strategy and the five
multi-agency standards, as well as develop the additional
resources outlined above, we are working to publish both the
Strategy and the first set of practice notes in April this
year. Further practice notes will then be published during
2025 and in April we will also begin work on the development of a
joint accountability framework.
I wanted to share this update with you and emphasise the
importance of getting this Strategy right, supported by the
resources to deliver its aim.
