Fran Giblin, Head of Service – Quality Assurance and Safeguarding
I joined Plymouth City Council in June 2022 as the interim Quality Assurance and Audit Lead and really enjoyed leading the development of quality assurance activity to understand our practice with children and families.
I immediately felt welcomed and soon recognised the unrelenting commitment that practitioners have for children, and it was this that caused me to apply for the permanent Head of Service role.
I have previously worked within Youth Justice, Front Door, long term social work teams and the Permanency service and this breadth of experience really supports me in my current role.
In Plymouth, the Quality Assurance and Safeguarding Service incorporates:
- The team of Independent Chairs who oversee and drive all child protection and child in care plans
- The Academy of Social Work, who oversee all practitioner and manager learning and skill development
- The Participation team who work with children and young people to enable them to genuinely influence the improvement of practice and strategic development
- The Quality Assurance team who support all the service areas to identify practice strengths and practice that we need to strengthen
- The Partnership team who support the development of partnership working with children and families
- ·he Core data team who ensure that we are capturing the right data on behalf of children
I really enjoy all these teams being part of the Quality Assurance and Safeguarding service because it not only enables us to identify practice that needs to develop, but it allows us to then put in place the right support and learning for the workforce, to ensure that children and families receive the best possible services from us all.
Plymouth recognises that it is on an improvement journey and there is a positive energy and ambition in relation to this which makes it an exciting place to work. The Children’s Services team is really building its trauma informed, strength based, restorative practice style of working and we can see the impact of this in the office and within our work with children which is lovely to see.
There is a mounting focus on understanding and supporting the importance of emotional wellbeing and resilience within the workforce and our offices next to the sea provides a wonderful opportunity for increased mindfulness!