In the past, children's services were handled by a host of different public sector bodies with different remits and objectives – leading to confusion and inefficiency. But the Children Act changed all that and set national targets for the care and support of future generations – while at the same time, it offered local service-providers the opportunity to tailor their services to the specific needs of the individual children in their area. To be effective, it requires a joined-up approach. This meant councils working together with schools, Primary Care Trusts, police and other organisations which could make a difference in a child's life. Havering has successfully brought together these different elements and developed a shared approach, co-ordinated through the newly-created office of group director of children's services at the council. On my appointment as Havering's first group director, I was pleased to find the council's different internal and external partners – such as schools and the local PCT – provided a strong foundation to implement the Children Act. There was already a common sense of ownership. The starting point was a series of one-to-one discussions with frontline managers to identify how best we could empower our staff and break down the silo mentality. This resulted in bringing together the council's sections responsible for delivering children's services together under one roof to enhance cohesiveness in delivery and communication between staff. Personally, it was a steep learning curve. Coming from a social services background from outside of London, I needed to get up to speed with the perspectives of colleagues in health and education. The open communication approach, and our willingness to understand their perspectives, helped build a trusting relationship, which resulted in partners committed to the success of the process. We agreed on an evolutionary approach, with small changes becoming embedded in the process. Obviously, the strategies and frameworks are only as good as the results they achieve on the ground. The focus of all our strategies has been to ensure we keep our children healthy and safe, and that we provide them with a good quality of life and opportunities to achieve. In health, we worked closely with the PCT and healthcare professionals to address key issues, including prevention. Some of the achievements in this area have been the progress on access to planning and delivery of child and adolescent mental health services, SureStart and health promotion on obesity issues. Similarly, we have developed common approaches to ensure our young people are not victims of crime, or become involved in criminal activities. All our partners in Havering can and should take pride in the results we have achieved in our recent Joint Area Review. But we have much still to do. We should challenge ourselves continually to improve our services through more integration, identifying better ways to build on the strengths of each partner and developing frameworks for long-term planning. We have demonstrated in Havering the value of early intervention, and the challenge is to keep that progress going and develop the services needed. Our community is constantly evolving, and to keep pace with the change in wider society, we need to have the flexibility within our systems to allow us to build on successes and discard those which do not deliver results. But local service-providers and councils cannot continue to improve alone. Central government can play its part by helping embed legislative changes and create a sense of partnership between local service-providers and policy-makers. We must not lose sight of the ultimate goal of children's services which is to ensure our future generations are well prepared in every sense to be productive members of society. Our experience in Havering shows that a shared approach, empowering public sector professionals at all levels, can make a real difference. w Andrew Ireland is group director of children's services at Havering LBC
