Wolverhampton City Council

This award is open to a single council or where appropriate a partnership of councils, or a council-owned company. Private sector partners can enter on a council’s behalf, with the permission of the council itself. Children’s services are very much under pressure, and ever more so in the face of challenges facing families and services since Covid-19 hit, adding to the numbers of potentially vulnerable children. There is an imperative to protect vulnerable children, the importance of early intervention and the changing relationship with schools – all under an intense media and now social spotlight. This award is intended to recognise the success of those councils that adopt a genuinely strategic approach to this vital service area in the face of extraordinary challenges, potentially including the Covid response. Entries can focus either on a specific aspect of the council’s work on children’s services or the entirety of its work on children’s services.

The way children and young people are supported in Wolverhampton has changed beyond recognition in the five years since we launched our transformation programme. From the way we work with partners to the level of involvement children and young people now have in shaping services, our city is a very different place to grow up in. We’ve launched a range of successful projects that are getting to heart of deep-seated issues, breaking down barriers and delivering far better outcomes for young people. We’re still on our journey, but through an embedded commitment to continuous learning we’ll keep driving improvement.

Attenti Consulting is a specialist consultancy delivering bespoke sustainable solutions to a wide range of health and social care clients. Our work is centred around taking a positive approach to connecting strategic goals with operational practice; improving the quality of outcomes for service users whilst reducing demand pressures by embedding consistent delivery and enhancing the efficiency of services. With a passion to promote best practice across the sector, Attenti also facilitates webinars, commissions research and white papers and hosts events to encourage shared learning and sector-led improvement.