Laurelle Brown Training and Consultancy (LBTC) has worked with children’s services to develop and embed equity and inclusion across systems by developing practice, equipping leaders and enhancing system capacities through change to find solutions to complex inequalities. All work is underpinned by the fundamental frameworks of anti-racism, intersectionality and systems thinking. Founder, Laurelle, has a long background working in and alongside children’s services and completed a Churchill Fellowship exploring foster carer for adolescents with ‘complex needs’.
One local authority project included a comprehensive Anti-Racism audit of children’s social care to support the identification of opportunities to improve systems and practice and children and familial outcomes. Key recommendations included improvements to the commissioning and quality assurance frameworks, establishing clear metrics and goals for equity, inclusion and anti-racism, integrating these into audit, commissioning and staff training materials and processes; as well as review and development of the Resilience practice model to ensure anti-racist principles and approaches and the impact of structural inequalities for minoritised children, families and staff were referenced and supporting inclusive practice. There was also a range of learning and development activity delivered, including a bespoke training programme for the senior leadership team, a new ‘Confident conversations on race’ induction course for all staff and a train the trainer course for staff to facilitate listening circles to support racialised staff.
In another local authority, LBTC co-developed a tailored learning and development programme for children’s social care managers and senior leaders to support implementation of a newly published Tackling Inequalities Strategy. LBTC developed and facilitated training sessions to build knowledge and understanding of managers around key concepts, and strategies they can implement to tackle inequalities, a practitioner service day to support continuity and buy-in, and reflective workshops to advise, guide and support the senior leadership team in driving and embedding a complex change programme of this nature. The collaboration has led to new recruitment approaches being implemented with positive representation and diversity results, the introduction of new programmes to engage staff and hold Heads of Service to account for equalities change and improved outcomes for minoritised children.