Young London Matters Conference

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Young London Matters Conference

• 27th March 2009

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Cross Borough Reviewing ProjectPractising
Towards Independence Liz Gosling
(London Borough of Islington) Shahid Tilly
(London Borough of Tower Hamlets)
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What is it?

• The allocation of an IRO to a looked after child
  who is employed by a neighbouring borough. (In
  this case - Islington or Tower Hamlets)

Started in July 2007. Involved a total of 44
children from 36 families
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Independent Reviewing Officers

• Five permanent IROs and one self employed
  sessional IRO.
• All had at least three years experience of being
  an IRO
• Rosemary Daanwi
• Trevor David
• Masani Moshesh
• Phillip Morgan
• Benjamin Prince
• Lorna Rook

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How will it be evaluated?

• Via interviews and focus groups with
• Children
• Parents
• Carers
• Social Workers and their managers
• Independent Reviewing Officers

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Status of the project

• Evaluation completed by June 2009
• Available in July 2009.
• Still ongoing but no new allocations

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Emerging themes
Information Technology Sharing of Good
Practice Role of Managers Training and
Development of IROs Resources required
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Information Technology
Two different ICS providers and implementation
plans. Two approaches to Government Secure
Extranet Code of Connection. Two different
stages with use electronic and paper records.
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Sharing of IRO practice

• To do this you need

A vehicle Critical Learning Groups An agreed
management framework. Acceptance it will lead to
debate and disagreement. For e.g. whether IROs
should undertake other tasks or when should you
seek independent legal advice
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Training and development implications

• We found we needed to provide

Further I.T. training and admin support.
Standard training on the IRO regulations
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Resources required cost neutral?
Senior manager sign up and confidence. I.T.
support Proximity IRO managers full
support Administration support
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Do it again?

• Yes but be more ambitious with numbers.
• ( Harder to allocate small numbers, took longer)
• Yes give it more time to bed down.
• Yes overcome ICS limitations eg reading files

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What will be evaluating ?
Do children and the people in their network
believe it makes a difference in either
understanding need or implementing the care
plan and or getting things done on time?
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- and in terms of outcomes?
Use of local dispute resolution
procedures Organisational cultures and
professional styles More open learning
culture Counterweight to PIs emphasis on
competitiveness