Case Studies

Calderdale Metropolitan Boro' Council

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  Title:

  Corporate Parenting for Councillors

  Overall Aim:

  To enhance personal responsibility and develop practice of Councillors when dealing with Corporate Parenting issues.

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  Details

  A project which started with Bradford Metropolitan Borough Council, has since been delivered in Calderdale and Redcar and Cleveland. The requirement was for Collingwood to provide a means of engagement for Councillors which really got to the heart of their responsibilities with regards Corporate Parenting. It’s very easy when you are a busy Councillor to take the path of least resistance when receiving a complaint about young people in care from a member of the public.

  However, young people in care are effectively the legal and moral responsibility of Councillors, as if they were the parents. Our task was to help Councillors understand the weight of this responsibility and to provide a forum for the development of best practice when dealing with the public and managing welfare of the child through Council services. Three, two hour events were delivered by our facilitator and acting team, to Councillors in each area.

  We showed a scenario depicting a public complaint about nuisance behaviour by a young person in care, and the perceptions often held by the public about these young people, also showing the possible public escalation of such an emotional topic into the wider public arena. One wrong move by a Councillor could light the touch paper!

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  Key Challenge

  The key challenge for us was to generate practices that would satisfy the expectations of the complainant, without denigrating the respect for, and duty to, the child.

  We asked the question 'If this was your child, what would you do?'

  This was the way in – to step away from party politics and service issues, and start with a common set of values shared by the Councillors. Our service to children must be driven by the same level of responsibility we take for our own kids.

  This perspective transformed the discussion from one of policy to one of practice – and the facilitator was able to focus strongly on new behaviours and attitudes that would help Councillors represent the needs of all their stakeholders fairly, and with compassion.

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  Outcomes

  • Councilors had an increased level of awareness of their responsibilities as corporate parents
  • We established the values and principles we share as corporate parents that will ensure we give young people in care a service akin to what we would do for our children
  • We shared and developed strategies, behaviours and attitudes which will make this work in practice in the context of challenging situations
  • Councilors identified personal learning outcomes and practices they would implement in their workplace