Whether it’s the young woman who’s in her third year of training to be a doctor, or the young man who’s recently qualified as a pilot, Arvinder Karda has had a lot of highlights in her 11-year career with Hillingdon council.
She’s a personal adviser, helping care leavers aged 16 to 25 prepare for adulthood, and as a care leaver herself, she knows it can be a tricky time. “There’s a lot going on at that age. They often feel like their prospects are really low. I wanted to be the person I needed when I was younger, to be the change I wanted to see. Many young people tell me that sharing my experience has been life-changing for them. They can see that going to university, having a career – it’s all possible.”
Hillingdon is London’s second-largest borough by area, and 22% of residents are under the age of 17. Last year, Ofsted rated its children’s services as outstanding, despite an increase in demand. Since its last inspection in 2018, the council has introduced family hubs, to provide early help and 24-hour support to children and families, and launched a dedicated adolescent service. The approach of frontline social workers has also evolved – young people are now able to choose their own social worker and co-produce their own intervention plans.
Such changes have had an empowering effect and are helping engage young people in the process straight away, says Harriet Langford, a senior social worker with Hillingdon’s first response team. “It can sometimes be difficult to get young people to agree to work with us,” Langford says. Her role is to conduct child and family assessment before handing over to the relevant social work team. Now, that team will provide profiles of the social workers who are available to work with that young person, who can then choose who they’d like to move forward with. “As social workers, we go into people’s lives and we know as much as we can about them, but they don’t know about us,” Langford says. “This breaks down that barrier. Social workers might share what their cat’s called and/or that they’re interested in football or mountain climbing. It builds a connection from day one.”
Frontline social workers are also given access to personal budgets they can spend without managerial approval. Kelly Johns is one of the advanced practitioners working in the specialist adolescent team, which focuses on young people aged 10 to 18. She has used the budget to take someone shopping for college supplies, or to buy a condenser dryer for a family in temporary accommodation.
Having access to those funds helps build trust and a more authentic relationship, Johns says. “One of the really important things is humanising social work a little bit. We’re not just there to tick boxes and go through processes.”
Many of the innovative approaches used by Hillingdon were the result of consultation work with children and their families that started in 2018. Kudakwashe Kurashwa, team manager of the adolescent team, says: “Their views shaped the service we deliver today. They told us they felt their social workers didn’t know them, and they questioned why they weren’t given the opportunity to choose their own social workers.”
The audit work also revealed an increasing number of children were coming into care because of risks outside of the family home. “We felt we needed to disband child protection and child-in-need plans, and have something more robust for young people. Now social workers sit down with the young person and co-produce that plan. They are part of the process.”
Social workers are also engaging in ongoing training, says Kurashwa. The service is now implementing an enhanced cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) model by upskilling practitioners to use CBT principles, in partnership with clinical psychologists. The morale of the team has improved as they’ve upskilled, he adds. “Our social workers feel they’re in control. They have time to do the work. They feel they’re able to deal with more complex cases and risk factors, and can prevent children from going into care unnecessarily. And what we have seen is when workers are moving on, they are taking more challenging roles and better jobs, which is having a positive impact on the team.”
Johns, for example, has benefited from Hillingdon’s emphasis on development. She joined as part of the administration team, before becoming a support worker, and then completed her social work degree through the Open University. She qualified as a social worker in 2019, and in 2022 won the children and families social worker award at the National Children and Young People Awards, which celebrate excellence in social care. “I’ve been really fortunate to have managers who have believed in me,” she says.
Johns is now a practice educator and mentors newly qualified social workers. “We’re very good at nurturing social workers within our team. People are able to progress and enhance their practice across a large array of cases. And we’ve got a stable senior management team as well, which is helpful.”
That emphasis on evolution, while listening to the needs of children and their families, will continue to shape the future of Hillingdon’s children’s services. But for Karda, it comes down to a real human need to make a difference. “I’m one person among almost 8 billion in the world, what impact could I possibly make? But the ability to be able to give someone a little bit of hope and faith … when that young person says: ‘Thank you,’ that they couldn’t have done this without you – that’s massive.”
For a rewarding career in social care, consider working with children’s services at Hillingdon council
