Children and Families Quality Framework

Children and Families Quality Framework

Introduction

The City of Edinburgh Council Children and Families Department is committed to the pursuit of excellence in all aspects of its work. It is committed also to promoting a culture of success, celebrating what is done well, learning from success, and sharing best practice.

In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on pursuing a clear quality agenda nationally, corporately and departmentally. This presents challenges for the service as a whole and for each individual working within it. Equally, the pursuit of quality can only be successful if individuals, teams, units and establishments are properly supported and challenged.

The Quality Framework (PDF, 125kB) has been produced to provide a short but important overview of the policies, processes and practices which underlie this pursuit of excellence, and is intended to be of use to all stakeholders.

Principles

In creating the new Children and Families Department with a new culture, the Council adopted a number of principles within which it should operate. The Department must:

• have a strong child and family focus, and services should be easily accessed
• provide more integrated service delivery and pool resources with other service providers to meet common priorities
• tie into the Council’s strategy for localisation of service and in particular proposals for neighbourhood management and community planning and engagement
• provide effective strategic and local management with clear lines of accountability
• provide effective quality assurance which is supported by high-quality professional development
• ensure engagement of staff at every level in planning and delivering the service on an ongoing basis. Within the new structure of the department there should be a strong ethos of listening to staff