WSCC Child Services

I am the after-school club manager at St Mark’s school, Staplefield and I also work as a classroom assistant in Burgess Hill whilst studying to qualify as a teacher with a BA Honours in Primary Education. I have a big interest and investment in education and making sure schools give children the best start in life. Back in 2019, OFSTED reported that the WSCC child services had ‘widespread and serious weaknesses’. They also said that the quality of care from WSCC was ‘a lottery depending on where you lived’ and so rated the service as INADEQUATE. The commissioners report for the DfE said that there had been ‘inadequate and ineffective’ leadership of children’s services in West Sussex for many years. East Sussex County Council were then drafted in to help improve the running of this service. West Sussex County Council was shown to have missed signs of neglect leading to consequences for some children and their families. Although a new report in 2020 said that the service had improved there is still much work to do to bring it up to the quality that children and their families in West Sussex deserve. We need to make sure that services for our children and young people are properly funded and given the right level of support especially at a time where children’s social development has been so profoundly affected by the pandemic - trapped indoors doing home learning. Parent’s and children’s mental health have suffered and we need to make sure we are doing all we can to help, support, and give our young people their best chance of success.