Our Teams

Our fostering team believes that all of Solihull’s children and young people should grow up with a sense of belonging, feeling safe, supported and part of a family. They work closely with carers and workers on behalf of the Foster for Solihull campaign.

The team works closely with the Residential Operations Manager to shape our newly refurbished children’s homes building a service that truly centres around the needs of children and young people.

The family time team delivers services in relation to the provision of designated supervised contact between parents and children (Family Time). The team facilitates Family Time in designated settings which enables children and young people to have positive interactions with their parents/ carers during their period of separation until a decision regarding their future is made.

The Family Group Conference service works with families who are facing difficult situations regarding the well-being and care of their children and young people. ​ Working in partnership the team builds good relationships with families and identifies what support and networks are available to them. The team ensures the voices of children and young people are heard at all times.

We are a hardworking and dedicated team of social workers working with some of our most vulnerable children and families. Our social workers are passionate and committed to making a difference in the lives of children subject to child protection plan and / or involved in care proceedings. Successful candidates will integrate one of our Social work pods supported by their line manager and will be expected to work alongside partners to deliver timely evidence based interventions both within the child protection process but also within pre-proceedings/care proceedings through to permanency planning.

We work with children and family in need of support. Our social workers are passionate and committed to making a difference in the lives of children being supported as part of a Child In Need intervention. Successful candidates will integrate one of our Social Work pods supported by their line manager and will be expected to focus their work on good quality assessment and dynamic planning and work alongside families and partners to deliver a timely and intensive intervention to children and families in need of support.

MASH is our single point of contact for children across the borough. The role of MASH social workers is to gather information from partner agencies to complete MASH enquiries under the direction of a manager and make recommendations on the needs of children and their families, agreeing the most appropriate intervention to meet those identified needs.

The Children's Assessment Teams complete child and family assessments, section 47s, and child in need work. They work on a 5-week duty model enabling social workers ample time to produce high quality child and family assessments. They work with families until the point of the first court hearing, ICPC or CIN meeting.

A small supportive team of dedicated social workers who cover Solihull outside of usual working hours, evenings, weekends, and night on call. The team have a wide range of experience in Children’s, Adults and Mental Health areas of social work.

The Early Help team provides support and intervention as early and as effectively as possible to prevent problems from getting worse and achieve successful outcomes. The team works directly with targeted vulnerable children, young people and families in a range of settings, including the family home, to help improve outcomes.

Our new multi-skilled team works restoratively with families, building on their existing strengths. The team takes a ‘team around the family’ approach, supporting families when they need it most, holding the value that children should remain living within their families where it is safe and appropriate to do so. We aim to create sustainable relational and emotional change for families whilst strengthening local community connections for children and their parents or carers. The teams are multi-agency and are headed up by social work team managers reporting into the early help and front door service. Families together team does work out of hours as well as through the day and has close links with the EDT team.

Working with children who have complex needs and require intensive intervention to ensure that their needs are met, and they can achieve their full potential. The team have significant experience and knowledge in working with children with complex needs and undertaking varied and diverse case management activities.

The Exploitation team undertakes direct work with children, young people and their families, who are being exploited/trafficked or missing with the aim of making a positive impact on the lives of children and young people across our borough.

The Missing team works directly with children and young people, having conversations with children and young people who have had a missing episode about returning home. The team works closely with the exploitation team and plays a key role working with parents and children who are being exploited. They also liaise with multi agency partners to identify and reduce exploitation within communities and across local authority borders.

Solihull Youth Justice Service is a multi-agency partnership committed to preventing and reducing youth crime and anti-social behaviour across the borough of Solihull. The Solihull Youth Justice Service is passionate about improving outcomes for young people and victims of crime.

The team works with children and young people to ensure they do not remain in looked after care for longer than is necessary. They support unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people with appropriate and safe accommodation. The progression of matters related to immigration status and the safeguarding of young people who have been trafficked and may be victims of modern slavery.

The team supports all young people who are care experienced and eligible for services under Leaving Care legislation. They offer long term relationship-based work to develop Pathway Plans for young people that support them to be ambitious for their futures and to achieve independence into adulthood.

SSCP is about partnership working within and across Solihull and ensuring that partners work together around safeguarding and planning for children and young people. They deliver and promote multi-agency training and undertake a wide range of work across all partner agencies.

Within Safeguarding we also have a Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO). Their role is to follow up and respond to allegations involving individuals who volunteer and work with children and young people.

Our Principal Social Worker works across all our teams and services supporting our social workers and social care workforce across children’s services. We also have our Quality Assurance function within the service, and this includes all our quality assurance and auditing work aimed at improving and driving practice outcomes for children and young people.

This team is focused on improvement, quality assurance and partnerships. They are responsible for the implementation of the service Improvement Plan and provide the leadership and expertise in ensuring the ongoing effectiveness of children’s safeguarding arrangements within the Council and the wider partnership, including the Solihull Safeguarding Children Partnership.

All children and young people who are looked after by Solihull Local Authority are part of the OVOS community. The OVOS team encourages and supports children and young people to have their say and we support the delivery of the Voice of the Child work.

Our Solihull Social Care Academy guarantees that all practitioners have access to high quality training and development opportunities, beginning with a comprehensive induction, ensuring career progression, and the support for staff’s wellbeing.