No Wrong Door - Strengthening Families Protecting Children Programme

No Wrong Door - Strengthening Families Protecting Children Programme is a pioneering way of providing support to young people who are within or on the edge of the care system across selected local authorities.

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Our work is child-centred and there is a longstanding, clear model of practice, based on building effective relationships.

Every child should grow up in a safe, stable and loving home where they feel supported to take on the challenges life can present.

We are determined to help children and young people who are at risk of entering care and we have developed the No Wrong Door model to address the chronic problems the care system faces. This approach is already proving to be successful in keeping families safely together, and giving stability for children where it did not exist before.

Through No Wrong Door we always work with families, strengthening networks and reconnecting young people with their families. We know young people will often drift back to their families after leaving care and we believe it is best for the young person to strengthen their relationship with their family and make the environment safe. The No Wrong Door approach avoids the high costs of placement breakdown, of having to use out-of-authority care and preventing young people’s descent into the very expensive criminal justice system.

The Department for Education have invested over £84 million over five years to support up to 20 local authorities to improve work with families and safely reduce the number of children entering care. North Yorkshire is immensely proud to be one of three authorities nationally to attract significant funding from the Department for Education’s Strengthening Families Protecting Children Programme. We will extend No Wrong Door to five local authorities. These are:

Rochdale
Norfolk
Warrington
Redcar and Cleveland
Middlesbrough Council - the trailblazer

The objective of the Strengthening Families Protecting Children Programme is to improve social work practice and decision making so that the best choices are made for every child, and overall results are improved. As well as better outcomes for children and families - which will be indicated by, among other things, contacts with police, health and schools - it is also hoped that the programme will lead to a reduction of demand at the critical end of the spectrum leading to a reduced spend on children’s social care.

Each local authority has a dedicated No Wrong Door team, consisting of:

a registered residential manager
two deputy managers - a residential lead and an edge of care lead
six portfolio leads who shift lead and also have responsibility for a key portfolio area
8.5 residential and edge of care workers
a life coach - a clinical psychologist
a communication support worker - a speech and language therapist
a police liaison officer and a police intelligence analyst
a performance and intelligence officer
and a range of support roles

Are you ready to join us as we bring the No Wrong Door approach to other local authorities?

A man talking to a teenager in an office.

Our current job opportunities

There are currently no job vacancies.

About North Yorkshire’s No Wrong Door Approach

North Yorkshire’s No Wrong Door model launched in April 2015 after being the first nationally to successfully bid for and receive Department for Education’s funding around rethinking care for adolescents. No Wrong Door is an ambitious innovation that aims to improve the life chances of young people with complex needs. Working in hubs, it brings together a range of housing options, services and outreach support under one management team, thus resulting in a young person’s needs being addressed within a single team.

The No Wrong Door innovation has made substantial progress towards achieving its intended aim. From April 2015, North Yorkshire’s No Wrong Door model has supported 677 young people with the result that 86.5% of those young people are not Looked After.

No Wrong Door has improved:

accommodation stability
engagement in education
employment and training
relationships with others
resilience and wellbeing
access to support in a crisis

It has also reduced high risk behaviours such as criminal activity, missing incidents and substance misuse. No Wrong Door has helped to reduce North Yorkshire’s looked-after population by 18% in five years and has led to a £2million year-on-year saving.

Elements of No Wrong Door’s scale and growth plans have been shared with over 120 organisations. In addition, the No Wrong Door leadership team and the evaluation team have worked together to produce presentations for national and international conferences to provide emerging findings to inform the potential future and wider application of the innovation.

Read the No Wrong Door model privacy notice.

Ofsted Outstanding

Children and families in North Yorkshire receive a consistent, high-quality service and North Yorkshire is the only authority nationally to have received Outstanding across all provisions. North Yorkshire is dedicated to supporting children and young people in remaining close to their home and local community, which has a demonstrably positive impact on effecting change for children and families. See the Ofsted report 2018 (pdf / 242 KB).

At the core of our work is the belief that children and young people deserve to receive the outstanding care and support they need to live and reach their full potential. Our work is child-centred and there is a longstanding, clearly embedded model of practice, based on building effective relationships with children and families.

Watch this video to find out more about our No Wrong Door model.

Young people holding tablets and sitting on a wall.

Working for us - what we can offer you

We can offer you a range of employee benefits including a competitive salary, generous leave entitlement, a government pension scheme and access to our ‘Everybody Benefits’ package which includes a variety of retail discounts.

You can also expect to receive ongoing support from the North Yorkshire No Wrong Door central delivery team throughout your role and to be part of a friendly and dedicated team.

Our benefits

We can offer you a comprehensive benefits package including:

modern flexible working practices
a local government pension scheme
family friendly leave
salary sacrifice, employee cash backs and discounts schemes
learning, development and career advancement opportunities

We can offer you multiple opportunities for career progression working across diverse services and with access to a range of technologies to support modern and agile ways of working.

As a council we are very much committed to encouraging flexible working for our employees, which will include using modern technologies to connect with clients, working from other bases across the county as well as working from home.

How to apply

When completing your supporting evidence, please do cross reference the job description and person specification and give examples where possible. Please note: CVs uploaded are not seen by the recruiting manager.

We will look forward to receiving your application.

Additional resources

Department for Education - Strengthening Families Protecting Children Programme

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