Services for homeless children praised in city

Improvements have been made to how a city's children's services responds to homeless and missing youngsters, inspectors said.

Ofsted carried out a visit to examine the organisation in Wolverhampton at the start of October with a focus on the city council's arrangements for children in need.

The local authority had made improvements in the area since a previous inspection in 2022 and the watchdog said it had "strengthened" its responses.

A spokesperson for City of Wolverhampton Council said they were proud of the findings.

Children's services were rated as good during the inspection in 2022 but the authority was told it needed to improve how it tracked and monitored children missing from school.

The information given to 16 and 17-year-old homeless children about their rights and what they were entitled to also needed improving, inspectors said at the time.

In October's visit, they said there was now a "proportionate and considered" response when children went missing or were homeless.

Those who were homeless also received specialist support to tell them of their rights and entitlements along with safe accommodation and care.

Senior leaders, managers and practitioners were strengthening the culture in the service in Wolverhampton, inspectors added.

But they added that supervision in the area needed to be of quality and more consistent.

Work to transform social care services in Wolverhampton was making "excellent progress", city councillor Jacqui Coogan said.

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