Everyone working with children and families will be encouraged to develop their skills, learning and careers through the Surrey Children's Services Academy. This will make Surrey agencies attractive employers to potential recruits, and will help ensure we retain the workforce and skills we need.
The benefits
The Surrey Children's Services Academy will work to:
- Support staff to develop themselves and their careers – refreshing their skills and developing new roles and ways of working.
- Ensure all staff have up to date knowledge and skills to fulfil their roles.
- Introduce and embed new skills, values and ways of working in all agencies that work with children and families.
- Drive culture change and develop a shared language and values for working with children and families across agencies.
- Drive up and help maintain professional standards.
- Build effective leadership skills and capacity across all services, for children and their families, to lead and sustain change.
- Strengthen partnership working. Developing a better understanding of roles and responsibilities between agencies and more effective ways of working together.
- Keep informed of new practice. The Academy will have a responsibility to make and maintain relationships with regional, national and international experts, and to bring their learning into Surrey.
Governance
To drive forward the design of the Academy and ensure we have good engagement from partners and staff we have established:
- A Strategic Stakeholder Board with membership from across partners to shape proposals on
scope, direction and priorities. - A reference group of staff and managers from across the partnership workforce to provide ideas, feedback and help shape content. They will act as ambassadors for the Academy in their services. It will provide a mechanism for regular input from children and young people and from foster carers.
Our partners
YMCA East Surrey
YMCA East Surrey is a vibrant charity that has been actively supporting the local community since 1870. The charity offers a wide range of services including health and wellbeing, housing, youth work and children's services.
They help people to believe in themselves, support them to achieve their goals and inspire them to be the best they can be. They provide services that focus on those who are vulnerable, have a disability or face disadvantage.
Surrey Safeguarding Children Partnership
Safeguarding children and young people is everyone's responsibility
The Surrey Safeguarding Children Partnership is a partnership of all the different organisations working to protect children and young people across the county. This website brings together information for children, young people and their families and the professionals who work with them.
Surrey Police
To find further information about Surrey Police visit their website.
Surrey Police advice and information relating to child abuse. Child abuse is when anyone under the age of 18 is either being harmed or not properly looked after. There are four main categories of child abuse: physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse and neglect.
Surrey Heartlands Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)
Helping people in Surrey live better and healthier lives
Surrey Heartlands Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) is a GP-led organisation. They are responsible for planning and buying health services for local residents out of a budget of around £1.5 billion.
This includes care from hospitals, community and mental health services, social care, ambulance services and other providers. To do this we work closely with other local health and care providers to make sure people in our area have the support they need.
Surrey Virtual Schools (SVS)
What is the Virtual School?
Virtual Schools for children in care exist throughout the country to improve educational outcomes of care experienced children and young people. The Surrey Virtual School (SVS) is not a 'bricks and mortar' school. It's a team who bring together the data and information about children and young people who are cared for by Surrey as if they were in one school. That way, their progress can be closely tracked and supported, and interventions can be targeted in a more strategic way. The school has a Headteacher, who works with the Virtual School team to provide the best possible educational experiences and outcomes for care experienced children. Children placed in Surrey schools by other local authorities remain the responsibility of the placing authority's Virtual Headteacher. SVS will support colleagues with local information and signposting.
For further information visit the Surrey Virtual Schools to find out more.
Contact us
For any enquiries, please email us at surreychildrens.academy@surreycc.gov.uk.
