At Coram-i, we share expertise with local authorities and other agencies, using a data-led approach to deliver better outcomes for looked-after children. Through our pioneering improvement work and long-term partnerships, we provide support to local authorities, ensuring they are better equipped to achieve permanency for looked-after children.
How we help local authorities
We are committed to helping vulnerable children have the best possible chance to live a fulfilling life. We work with local authorities that want to improve how they deliver children’s services. We offer a range of consultancy services that help local authorities to:
- achieve better performance against government scorecards and Ofsted inspection judgements
- develop innovative solutions to intractable problems, in partnership with other local authorities and private sector partners
- gather young service users’ views to inform service development
- increase staff productivity, satisfaction and effectiveness
- reduce resources spent supporting looked after children as a result of earlier permanence placements
- access more accurate and timely management information
- increase service-user satisfaction
- progress complex cases
We support local authorities to strengthen their work in adoption, fostering and special guardianship arrangements. We offer a range of services including consultations; support and coaching; embedded working within a team; and service management, delivery and integration. Find out more using the dropdowns below.
Tools and improvement services
The Coram-i Network
Turning shared challenges into collective solutions
No local authority can solve placement sufficiency, digital transformation, workforce pressures and reform implementation alone.
The Coram-i Network brings together senior leaders, innovators and partners to tackle shared challenges collectively, reducing duplication and accelerating learning across the sector.
The Children's and Social Care Secretariat
Coram-i was contracted to provided a Secretariat service to the ASGLB between July 2019 and December 2022, which included administering quarterly data collection and Board meetings. The ASGLB has now been closed, but we continue to administer the voluntary, quarterly adoption and special guardianship data collection on behalf of the children’s social care sector in England.
Improvement support
This consists of one-off consultations or longer term support. Our approach is tailored to your needs and we offer a full range of solutions. The different types of improvement support include:
Specialist consultations: Our experienced multi-disciplinary team, including social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists, can provide one-off, case focused discussions to enable agreement on care plans; or advice about the way forward in complex cases, such as sibling separation or placement of older children who have suffered disruption. We also conduct audits of case files.
Support and coaching: Working with staff, we will introduce new ways of operating that will improve performance in line with the national agenda.
Embedded team: Our staff will work within your service to support its delivery and role model how to work effectively.
Managed service: By taking on the management of a particular service within the local authority, Coram-i will share responsibility for the service.
Delivered service: Providing the delivery of the service on behalf of a local authority.
Integration services: Helping with the integration of multiple agencies, based on what we have learnt from the creation of agencies such as Coram Cambridgeshire Adoption Agency.
The Storyteller App: Empowering children in care to own their stories forever
Storyteller is a place where content can be collated and curated for, with and by children in care. Anyone important to the child can upload images, record video and audio clips, plus add text messages for a child to own forever.
Discover the Storyteller App
How we work
We employ a data-led approach to analyse performance and identify areas for improvement, using our specialised improvement framework and diagnostic tools. We also draw on our experience of improving the lives of children to shape and deliver solutions.
Our unique multi-skilled teams of practitioners include social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, analysts and other professionals. This means we can tackle problems on several levels, enabling us to determine the nature and scale of problems and effective solutions.
Our Coram-i team will be happy to answer your questions about our consultancy services, and how we can work with your local authority to achieve the best possible results for children. Please complete our online form with your enquiry or contact us directly on coram-i@coram.org.uk.
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