Skip to navigation Skip to main content

Children’s Services: Target Demand Redesign

We help councils to design more effective early intervention and prevention models within children's services, managing demand and building family resilience.

The challenge

The demands placed on Departments of Children’s Services have risen continually over the last ten years, and at the same time, austerity has made it harder to meet those demands. However, our work has shown that all demand is influenceable: it can be reduced, delayed or avoided altogether. There are real opportunities to reduce the number of children entering specialist services and to make these services more financially sustainable. This means turning away from high-cost and often low impact statutory provision and towards more impactful interventions earlier on that build resilience in families.

Our solution

We work with councils and their partners to understand demand for children’s services within their local setting using:

  • Demand and workflow analysis to understand the nature of demand, where it has come from, and why it has arisen.
  • Avoidable demand reviews with social workers and other professionals to understand demand, what is happening at the interfaces between organisations in the system, and where demand can be influenced.
  • Partner engagement to gain an understanding of the beliefs and behaviours present across the system.

Our approach

When combined, the above analysis provides an evidence base for change. We use this to co-design new and sustainable systems that are authentic to the local area and that have the confidence of the professionals and practitioners who will deliver it.

This approach provides:

  • a clear analysis of current demand drivers,
  • an analysis of areas for change,
  • a better understanding of partner behaviours and beliefs, enabling their successful engagement in the co-design of a future children’s services model,
  • a clear picture of the demand and financial baseline in children’s services, alongside an analysis of what, where and how resources are deployed to meet demand.

Read more on

Work with us

Relationships start with a conversation. Here’s how to get in touch.

BLOG

Why we need a different approach to children’s social care and health – 4 takeaways from our shared learning event

Why we need a different approach to children’s social care…

IMPOWER hosted a shared learning event focussed on how system leaders, practitioners and commissioners can collaborate to better meet the needs of children and families requiring support from Children’s Services.

BLOG

Guest blog – Jenny Coles: The ‘can do’ attitude of Children’s Services

Guest blog – Jenny Coles: The ‘can do’ attitude of…

Reflections from IMPOWER’s Shared Learning Event which I recently chaired.

REPORTS & PUBLICATIONS

Valuing Care

Valuing Care

Delivering better outcomes and life chances for children and young people

BLOG

Commissioning in complexity

Commissioning in complexity

The complexity that public sector commissioners are working in makes for a challenging environment – and one that invites innovation.

BLOG

Time to reassess children’s mental health

Time to reassess children’s mental health

Time and again over the past five years, children’s social workers have told me that the insufficiency of children and young people’s mental health support is a crippling factor preventing them getting the best outcomes.

BLOG

Fostering Fortnight: 3 reflections on supporting foster carers

Fostering Fortnight: 3 reflections on supporting foster…

How can we ensure that foster carers are as well-supported as possible when they make the huge decision to foster a child?

REPORTS & PUBLICATIONS

Valuing Care Impact Update

Valuing Care Impact Update

Since February 2018, five councils have used Valuing Care to improve outcomes. This report shares some of the learning.

BLOG

Introducing our Valuing Independence and Valuing Children Campaigns

Introducing our Valuing Independence and Valuing Children…

IMPOWER exists to increase the quality of people’s lives by making meaningful and measurable improvements to local public services. Drawing on 20 years of insight and impact, we have introduced two new campaigns with ambitious goals to help us align our purpose with our work in adult social care and children’s services.

BLOG

Value – not variance – is key to reforming children’s services

Value – not variance – is key to reforming…

A focus on outcome productivity in children’s services would unequivocally deliver the step changes in understanding called for in the recent PAC report ‘Transforming Children’s Services’.

BLOG

Why more needs to be done to understand the cross-cutting drivers of demand

Why more needs to be done to understand the cross-cutting…

In a time of growing demand and diminishing resources, it is time to widen the lens in order to better understand and manage demand.

BLOG

Crisis in high needs funding – a symptom of the fractured education system

Crisis in high needs funding – a symptom of the fractured…

Funding isn’t keeping up with demand pressures, but neither is national policy

BLOG

Variation in children’s social care: let’s learn from the best councils

Variation in children’s social care: let’s learn from…

Our response to the NAO's report exploring pressures on children’s social care

IMPOWER INSIGHTS

Newsletter

Sign up for the latest thinking on delivering sustainable change and better public services

No spam; unsubscribe easily at any time. Learn more in our Privacy Policy.

Close
Close