Cabinet has accepted funding to help ensure children in North Tyneside can live safely at home with their families.
North Tyneside Council, together with South Tyneside Council, has been named the North East’s first Partners in Practice (PiP), along with eight others nationally.
At a meeting on Monday (30 July) North Tyneside Council’s Cabinet accepted more than £1m from the DfE for the council’s Keeping Families Connected project.
The initiative will see a new, integrated service created to support children to live safely at home.
It will be a key part of the council’s strategy to deliver the Elected Mayor and Cabinet’s priority that ‘our people are cared for, protected and supported’.
The aim is to reduce the number of looked-after children and effectively enable looked-after children to return home safely.
It comes after North Tyneside was placed among the top ten of children’s services departments nationally in March 2017 following an Ofsted inspection.
The authority was given an overall judgement of ‘Good’ with ‘Outstanding’ features for its services to safeguard children.
Cllr Peter Earley, cabinet member for Children, Young People and Learning, said: “I am delighted that we have accepted this funding to create our own project to support children to live safely at home, which is one of our priorities.
“The funding for investment in new, innovative provision will ensure we continue to provide those choices and opportunities, and improve outcomes in North Tyneside.”
The Department for Education’s (DfE) PiP programme sees the best performing local authorities work with Government to drive up standards in children’s social care.
North and South Tyneside councils have formed an alliance aimed at working with other local authorities whose children’s services are under-performing or at risk of failing in order to drive up standards.
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