Practice Academy

At Innovate, we have always been committed to a process of ongoing improvement… never standing still in our quest to develop and deliver the best possible standards of care and support to children and families across the UK.

Innovate’s Quality Assurance (QA) Team work alongside Innovate Managers and Social Care Teams to conduct regular reviews on our work with children and families; making sure that we deliver the best possible service and that we are ultimately able to respond to the ‘ever-evolving world’ of children’s social work.

Innovate Practice Academy

Our Practice Academy Services Training and Support.

Children in Need

Do you need support in progressing your current child in need cases?

Innovate CYPS’ 14-week Children in Need (CIN) programme significantly reduces the long-term reliance on CIN plans, eliminates drift and identifies those children at risk, earlier.

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Duty & Assessment

Are you looking for more capacity within your duty and assessment team to clear a backlog of cases?

Or do you reprieve to look at a service restructure? We can help by managing cases coming in for referral and assessment.

Explore how
Edge of Care

Do you need support to reduce your Edge of Care costs and breaking the cycle of care?

Our award-winning solution brings statutory social work and multidisciplinary support together to deliver sustainable positive outcomes and huge cost-savings.

Break the cycle with Innovate
High-Cost Placements

Do you need support to secure better outcomes for children with complex needs?

We can support you in providing a sustainable alternative by managing cases to identify suitable stable placements or by taking children and young people through our residential Innovate Therapeutic Care programme.

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Discharge of Care

Do you have a high number of children at home on care orders that you need support in reducing?

Innovate can support you by reducing your children-looked-after (CLA) numbers and create direct cost-savings.

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Safeguarding

Do you need additional support due to further requirements around capacity to manage your most complex cases?

We provide extra capacity to handle incoming cases and/or to work those that may have drifted, and introduce proven sustainable longer-term solutions to reduce the risk of drift and delay.

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Children with Disabilities

Do you need support to manage your current cohort of children with disabilities?

Innovate CYPS’ 14-week Children with Disabilities programme reduces costs whilst identifying new care pathways for children, young people and their families.

Find out how
Service Auditing

How confident are you that you know the quality of your service?

In complex children’s social work environments, it can be difficult to pinpoint the exact causes of under-performance. Whether you’re preparing for Ofsted or are on an improvement journey, knowing what ‘Good’ looks like is important.

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  • Children in Need
  • Duty & Assessment
  • Edge of Care
  • High-Cost Placements
  • Discharge of Care
  • Safeguarding
  • Children with Disabilities
  • Service Auditing

Therapeutic Training

Our innovative therapeutic approach gives you the evidence and the confidence to reframe your services using an invest to save model. Being social work-led, our focus is on changing the way frontline social work services are delivered so that service users receive the right support, at the right time for the right cost.

Quality Assurance

To secure better outcomes for children and young people, we take a deep-dive diagnostic review of your practice and infrastructure. To identify practical – and most importantly – cost-effective solutions that deliver long-term, positive outcomes around plans, supervisions and assessments.

Who we’ve helped

We couldn’t be where we are today, making the difference we do – on the ground and at a
service management level – without the commitment from our local authority clients.

Innovate Insights

“My advice would be to make full use of Innovate Practice Academy and soak up their knowledge and approach. By working closely together we’ve got a clear improvement plan.”

Paula Jemson,
Quality Assurance Manager at Middlesbrough Council

View case studies and blogs

Our people

We’re a dedicated team of highly-experienced social work practitioners, change-management directors and multi-disciplinary professionals.

Innovate Services team, children's social work, SEND and inclusion services, Emma Blakemore, Phil Stock, Sir Martin Narey

Emma Blakemore

“We’re really excited by this important new development, and we look forward to developing this much needed service for our teams, ultimately making sure that we deliver the best possible outcomes for children and their families across the UK and giving confidence to the Local Authorities we work with that we are constantly pushing the boundaries to achieve excellence in social care and quality assurance.”

Emma Blakemore NNEB, DIPSW, PQSW,

CEO – Innovate Services

Meet the Team