BEING THE BEST

The Children, Young People and Families Directorate is a public sector organisation within Warwickshire County Council, which supports the needs of young people and families across Warwickshire.

The vision of the Directorate is that: ‘Every child and young person, including those who are vulnerable and disadvantaged, has the greatest possible opportunity to be the best they can be.’ To fulfil such a necessary but daunting task, the Directorate wanted to ensure staff were also given the opportunity to be the best they could be.

“The development of a skilled, flexible and effective workforce is a key objective for the Children, Young People and Families Directorate,” said Kam Singh, Learning and Development Team Adviser. “By putting a formal training programme in place, we wanted staff to gain recognition of the skills they already had and then to identify areas for development and improvement. We were also keen to develop job roles through provision of different qualifications and wanted to address a gap in development opportunities in administration roles.”

Most of the staff who chose to sign up to qualifications work in administration, but due to the variety of roles within that sector, they have taken on NVQs in Team Leading, Customer Service and Management, as well as in Business and Administration.

Kam is pleased with their progress and has seen many of the staff already complete their qualifications.

“The feedback I have received has been very positive, with staff saying they feel valued at having the opportunity to undertake these qualifications. Generally they seem to be more self confident and motivated. I and the Directorate are very happy with the programme and intend to continue with it and bring more staff on board.”