James visited Sandwell Children’s Trust on today as he met with the Trust’s Chair Jacqui Smith, Chief Executive Emma Taylor to discuss recent progress as well as current challenges the Trust is facing.
He also had the opportunity to speak with frontline staff to hear first-hand about their experiences, discussing their challenges and hearing about the importance of how they work together in partnership with other local services to deliver positive outcomes for children in Sandwell.
Both fostering and adoption services within the Trust have been found to be ‘Good’ by Ofsted following inspections in August 2021 and December 2022 respectively, whilst a May 2022 inspection found that services across the Trust’s remit were improving following a previous rating of ‘inadequate’.
Sandwell Children’s Trust was established in 2018 and administers all children’s services on behalf of the Council. In addition to adoption and fostering, this also includes early years provision, childcare and safeguarding children at risk of abuse or exploitation.
“For many years the inadequacies of children’s services in Sandwell were a concern for many in Rowley Regis and across the borough, so although there is still work to do it is pleasing to hear that progress is being made", said James. "I pay tribute to the leadership being shown by Jacqui and Emma and commend those working in fostering and adoption on their ‘Good’ Ofsted reports.”
“It is important that local authorities are diligent in their duty of care to children, particularly those who are vulnerable, and I will continue to do what I can to act as a conduit between local and central Government and ensure they have the resources and support they need.”
Sandwell Children’s Trust Chair Jacqui Smith and Chief Executive Emma Taylor added “We were pleased to welcome James Morris to the Trust where we had the opportunity to speak with him about the progress being made by the Children’s Trust and a range of issues currently impacting on the social care sector, workforce stability and pressures within the care market in particular. We appreciated the time he spent speaking with our staff who also shared their direct experiences of these challenges.”
