Paul Wiseman of the University of Wolverhampton discusses the state of Children’s Service and how it is having to change in the wake of funding cuts and job losses:

I was first employed by the University of Wolverhampton in 2001, when I had just left secondary teaching and had become interested in the new targeted interventionist approach the government adopted.

It was a time of unbridled optimism with initiative after initiative being introduced which offered new funding to tackle traditional inequalities that existed (and unfortunately still do) in new innovative ways.

By 2003 it had become clear that prevention rather than cure was the way ahead for children’s services and this was made explicit in the 2003 green paper and subsequent 2004 Education Act which stated that “every child matters”. It was an exciting time to be working within a local authority which was attempting to revolutionise how they worked with children, young people and families.

Fast forward to 2011 and I have recently returned to work at the university (after leaving to work in children services) and the world is a much different place. Gone has the engine of change that seemed to drive and create new ways of working and in its place we see a new world order in which thrift and efficiency are the new buzz words.

Redundancy is common place within children’s services as all agencies whether statutory, voluntary or community try to survive in a world of shrinking resources. It is an uncertain world that we are living in at the moment and it must be daunting for children, young people and young adults as they look ahead to a relatively bleak horizon.

However despite the current economic context I believe that children’s services have not lost any of the earlier excitement and are again on the brink of a new era which offers a challenging and rewarding career. It is true that funding has shrunk however the government is honouring its pledge to protect frontline services and opportunities still exist for a wide range of professions and within these roles.

However these professions no longer offer the security of previous generations and they require a new breed of children’s service professional which have a new skills set and a different attitude.

Gone is the day when the local authority decided who got what and we are now faced with a new highly complex children’s service landscape, which bears little resemblance to that in 2001, in which schools and other children’s services move from the protective shadow of the local authority to become independent enterprises in their own right where head teachers and others in managerial positions now need as entrepreneurial approach from those that work to them as much as the traditional skills that are needed by children’s service professionals.

Despite the uncertainty of the times, services to support children, young people and their families will always be required but the configuration of these will continue to change and be modified.

Professionals therefore need to be adaptable and more importantly offer a range of skills that can strengthen and empower the agencies that work for.

In this respect there is still no replacement for a degree and the one offered by the Children and Families Team offers both the generic and specific skills that are needed in today’s workplace.