25 March 2025
Helen Fergusson, Director of Children’s Services and Lifelong Learning at Gateshead Council and Chair of North East ADCS, reflects on our regional improvement work over the last 12 months and shares an update on the priorities for the coming year…
As the new chair of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) for the North East region it feels a great privilege to be taking on the role having spent my entire career working in the North East over 27 years!
ADCS plays a key role nationally in leading and supporting continuous improvement across the sector and championing the needs of children and young people; working with central government and other key stakeholders in designing and delivering integrated services for children and young people and the development of new policy and legislation; as well as championing equality and diversity and issues of disproportionality that children experience.
The national ADCS network is made up of nine regions and the North East regional group comprises all 12 of our Directors of Children’s Services (DCS) and a number of sub groups involving many Assistant Directors. We are superbly supported by our regional team and together we are responsible for regional sector led improvement; working collegiately on themes and issues that impact on children and young people, as well as sharing learning and best practice.
Each year all 12 local authorities in the North East come together to agree priorities for the coming year and review progress over the last 12 months. I wanted to take this opportunity to update you on our shared priorities for 2025/26 as well as taking a look back at some key highlights from the last 12 months.
2024/25 saw:
- Our Regional Education Group and SEND Group delivering two regional SEND conferences to share knowledge and best practice as well as work with school leaders to support our vision for inclusive education.
- Our Workforce Group developed a Memorandum of Understanding for agency social workers in line with new statutory guidance and delivered an Aspiring Leaders Programme alongside supporting equality and diversity champions in each of our places. Over 40 social workers accessed the First Line Manager programme.
- There has been a conference focused on Contextual Safeguarding alongside a series of webinars to support best practice.
- Our Complex Needs Board, working with North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board colleagues, developed a regional position on sufficiency of provision for children in care and have completed a piece of diagnostic work to better understand the external residential market regionally to support our planning for the future.
- Our regional Care Leavers Board has worked to standardise the offer for council tax exemption and are working with housing colleagues on a regional pledge to support care experienced young people and reduce the risk of homeless. We have refreshed our approach to our Regional Children in Care Council with some additional investment and look forward to their annual conference later in the year.
We share a range of common concerns and worries for our children and young people in the North East – not least how the most vulnerable are able to access an inclusive education; the worrying rates of school exclusion and suspension and the challenges around how we support children into a pattern of regular school attendance. We are seeing rising numbers of children with Education, Health and Care Plans and their need for access to specialist support to meet their Special Educational Needs against a backdrop of challenging school budgets and funding for Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND). Planning for enough homes for our children in care with the most complex needs is a common issue for us across the region and in response we are seeing an increase in the development of more homes for children in care across all of our places. This brings with it a need to invest in and support our residential workforce as well as our wider children’s services workforce including social workers, SEND case workers, educational psychologists, teaching assistants and many more.
It is for all of these reasons that we have agreed to a shared set of priorities for our regional improvement work for 2025/26 with a focus on:
- SEND and inclusion
- Supporting young people with complex needs and developing placement sufficiency
- Improving our regional local offer for care experienced young people
- Supporting our workforce
Our team have developed a dedicated website for North East ADCS which went live in 2024 hosting regular updates, useful resources, upcoming events and learning opportunities as well as links to national policy changes which we hope North East ADCS members will all find useful.
We know that 2025 is going to be a busy year with multiple new policy announcements from government. Despite the challenges it’s an exciting time to be a part of Children’s Services in the North East with the expertise and support of so many colleagues focused on improving the lives of children and young people. I look forward to working with you all!