CONSULTANT

Based on her Lived Experience of being placed in England’s Children’s Social Care System, Judith Consults Departments and Teams within this Sector, on how to improve their Systems and Practice, to improve the Care, Outcomes and Life Chances of children and young people in their Care.

CLIENTS

Testimonial from Bristol City Council, Children, Families and Safer Communities

In March 2021, a Working Group across Bristol City Council Children and Families Services was formed to formulate a Support Package for Black, Asian and other minority ethnic group children and young people in Bristol’s care.

With a focus on children and young people in the care of fostering households who do not reflect or share similar cultures and ethnicities, we felt that carers and staff would need support to understand the children’s cultural needs to be able to meet them comprehensively. We noted that without such support most of the children would grow up knowing nothing about their cultural identities, not learn how to embrace their cultural differences and not accept who they are, which would lead to identity crisis and low self-esteem.

A need for part of the Support Package, was to support all the workforce which includes our Foster Carers to recognise the importance of cultural identity of Black and Brown children.

Following this, I met Judith Denton, at “The Black Care Experience Black Table Talk for all Directors of England’s Children’s Services and their Leadership Team Members” in September 2021. This was a webinar organised by Judith and her team to gather us together to share our views and experiences of what works and what does not work in how Black Children and Young People in our Care are being cared for, across Children’s Social Care and across our Country.

The discussions at the Table Talk fitted perfectly with Bristol’s project. Therefore, Bristol invited Judith (who is originally from Bristol) to join them to work together to realise our vision.

In November 2021, Judith joined the Working Group, working together to discuss and plan the next steps, which was to plan, organise and hold a Workshop for all the Workforce and our Foster Carers, which was held in June 2023. Judith was also our Co-Host for the event and our Key Note Speaker.

The purpose of the Workshop was:

• To recognise and celebrate the good work that is already being done in this area, in Bristol.

• To learn from our experiences and information across our Children’s Services Departments and understand what else we need to do to improve the care journeys of black and brown children in Bristol.

• To commit to being the change we want to see.

The Workshop was attended by 150 people who were Children’s Services Workforce, Foster Carers and Senior Management, with huge participation and positive feedback. We sense a unanimous motivation and driving force to make much needed change across all services.

So what are the next steps for Bristol?

Our Working Group will now be comprised of Bristol City Council Champions (BCC Champions), team members represented from each area of Bristol City Council Children and Families Services.

The Working Group of BCC champions will continue to meet with a focus on what we want to achieve, based on the output from the June 2023 Workshop.

The Champions will also take our action strategy back to their own services to devise workstreams to realise and achieve our goals.  We are proposing that this Working Group will initially meet every 3 months to revise our action strategy and keep holding ourselves to account.

We also aim to have a second Workshop in 2024, to build on what we have started.

Judith has been a charismatic, great fountain of knowledge and her great passion, to improve the outcome for Black children and young people in care was inspirational for the Working Group and the Workshop participants.  Her support and guidance was invaluable and her hosting skills exceptional. We look forward to working with her again in planning and delivering our second Workshop in 2024.

Felicia Bonsu - Team Manager Fostering Service at Bristol City Council