Children’s Services & Education Case Study

How it came about

A newly appointed Director of Children’s Services (DCS), with a background in education, approached our Interim Leadership practice to source a Mentor/ Strategic Consultant. The DCS had worked with us on a number of occasions as both a client and a candidate, but up until this point had not worked with our Transitional Leadership team.

The brief

Our client had inherited a service widely recognised to be performing well. However, on the social care side, a few informal concerns around quality assurance and procedure were beginning to surface, and there was a need for someone with strong social care experience to undertake a diagnostic review.

There were also some established pooled commissioning arrangements with health partners that needed reviewing to work for the children’s service more effectively, requiring someone familiar with the interface with health partners.

Key to achieving this was the recruitment of an individual who had a track record of success, both substantively and as an interim manager, who could act both as consultant and ‘critical friend’ to the DCS and the wider service.

What we did

We took a detailed brief and then drew from our extensive database a very select number of interim consultants who we were confident had the required style and credentials (nationally and locally) for this confidential project.

We recommended that the authority work with someone who could be flexible with their availability (3-4 days per week initially, down to a few days per month over the course of a year). This suited consultants with other commitments, such as non exec positions and independent commissions.

Many experienced interims with genuine track records are extremely well suited to mentoring assignments, bringing with them credibility and discretion; traits which are so important for establishing trust.

The outcome

Of the three recommendations we made, our client decided to meet with our first choice. The meeting was extremely successful and an instant rapport and understanding was established between client and consultant.

Also, from this experience a quite different picture soon began to emerge as to how our consultants could work with the service in the future. This included providing support in up-skilling existing SMT members, offering constructive strategic advice, and adding value with objective service review and recommendations.