Working as a Pathfinder Area
Warrington is part of the national Families First for Children Pathfinder programme, which means local services are strengthening how agencies work together to safeguard children. How Warrington is doing this can be found here
Child Protection Conferences and Core Groups remain an essential part of keeping children safe, while newer approaches focus on earlier support for families, stronger multi‑agency working and greater involvement of wider family networks.
An Initial Child Protection Conference must be convened following completion of an Assessment by Children's Social Care as part of a Section 47 Enquiry when a child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm.
The Circle of Change is based within the Systemic Model of Social Work practice and provides a philosophy and framework for planning for our children, families and carers.
The underlying philosophy is simple:
“Planning works when the children and parents are fully involved in it.”
The Circle is a tool for collaborative planning which encourages both self-expression and co-production. It can be used in any setting where a group of people want to devise a plan, for any purpose. The open, questioning format of the planning document is designed to allow everyone in a planning meeting to contribute.
The format is particularly useful as a range of people – children, families, carers and agency representatives alike – can be brought together to put their various abilities and responsibilities to work in addressing a commonly agreed issues for the purpose of jointly achieving specific goals.
For further guidance on the circle of change model in practice please read the guidance here Circle of Change Handbook All Planning Circle of Change Handbook for Child Protection Conferences
You can access a blank copy of the circle of change here Circle of Change for Printing A3 and a Microsoft Word version here with text boxes to type one after the meeting.