Cate McLaurin
Director
Children's social care
We help improve outcomes for children and families by transforming how Local Authorities work with their partners from the very first point of contact.
Overview of the programme
An effective front door is fundamental to good social work practice and achieving good outcomes for children and families.
Combining user research, service design and social work practice, we help social work teams redesign how they work with partners and how referrals flow through the system.
The model improves social work decision-making at the front door, so families get the right support they need at the right time.
This approach implements an evidence-based approach based on 25 years of research by Professor David Thorpe, who has implemented the Transforming the Front Door model social work teams in the UK and Australia.
This research has been formalised into a 12-month programme of discovery, service design, training and data analysis.
This introduces and embeds a conversational aproach at the front door, changes how social work teams work as collaborative partners with other agencies, and controls how referrals come into social services.
An evidence-based approach
The Transforming the Front Door approach involves:
- Reviewing how the front door currently works through ethnographic user research with social workers.
- Redesigning referral pathways and processes to simplify the front door and ensure the right help is provided at the right time.
- Training and coaching social workers in conversational techniques and high quality partnership working.
- Data analysis, monitoring and evaluation to track the impact and ensure it the approach is being delivered consistently and sustainably.
Professor Thorpe's model is backed by two decades of published research evidence. It has reduced social work referrals on an average of 30%, reduced social work caseloads, staff turnover, and statutory interventions including the number of children in care.
The approach has been reviewed and validated in multiple Ofsted inspections and its impact in Darlington was cited in the 2022 MacAlister Review.
Since 2023, Public Digital has been working with Professor Thorpe and his team to bring its benefits to more local authorities across the UK.
Impact
- Quality of referrals
It improves the quality of referrals into social work, enabling all partners to better respond to children and families’ needs.
- Stronger partnerships
It embeds true, proactive and collaborative partnership working to achieve the best outcomes for children and families.
- Reduced caseloads
It reduces social worker caseloads by up to 30%, allowing them to focus on proactive work with children and families who need their support.
- Reduced interventions
It has been proven to reduce the number of Looked After children and Child Protection Plan, by giving the right support at the right time and preventing children drifting into care.
Our experience
Public Digital is a specialist consultancy that delivers digital transformation for health and care, government and private organisations around the world.
Our team of senior digital, design and technology practitioners helps social care leaders improve everyone’s experience of care with outcomes-focused, user-centric and agile ways of working.
We are working in partnership with David Thorpe and his team to deliver this work.
David brings extensive experience working with local authorities to redesign the children’s social care front door, including teams in Bradford, Darlington, Kirklees, Leeds, London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, Manchester, Norfolk, and Oldham.
Our social care team helps create the conditions for sustainable change at the organisational level, considering operating model design, funding, culture and ways of working.
Meet the team
MacAlister Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, May 2022
Having direct conversations with social workers at the front door helps partners become more effective and confident in their decision making about how best to help families.
Children and families are now more likely to receive the most appropriate intervention at first contact, meaning they are better supported.
