About the Children's Trust

What we do

Northamptonshire Children’s Trust works collaborativley with both North and West Northamptonshire Council's and other key partner organisations such as health, police and the voluntary sector to deliver the best outcomes for children, young people and families.

We provide a range of services for children and their families, including:

Early Help – early help services provide support to children, young people and families when they need it
Social Care – social care services provide support to children and young people in need of help and protection including fostering, adoption and the youth offending service

Find out more about the Trust

History before becoming a Trust

Northamptonshire Children’s Trust was established on the 1st November 2020 to deliver children’s social care, early help and youth offending services on behalf of the Council.

Established and owned by North and West Northamptonshire Councils, Northamptonshire Children's Trust was set-up to provide a long term, sustainable platform to deliver high quality and innovative services for children and famillies across the county.

Our vision is to put children, young people and families at the heart of all we do, in every decision we make and every action we take. We are ambitious for all children, young people and families.

The voice and experience of the child have been an integral element throughout the creation, set up and delivery of the Trust.

Who owns the Trust?

Northamptonshire Children’s Trust is owned by North Northamptonshire Council and West Northamptonshire Council, but managed by an independent board of Executive and Non-Executive Directors, to ensure operational independence.

We aim to create an environment that enables and supports staff to be innovative and creative. Our ambition is to become a centre of social work excellence where outcomes for improving the lives of vulnerable children and young people are achieved.

What it means to be a Trust

Being an operationally independent Children’s Trust brings an exciting opportunity to take children’s social care services on a journey into a new organisation which puts children and young people at the core of all we do, and which its staff are proud to work for.

The Trust aims at becoming a centre of social work excellence, where best-practice can flourish and outcomes for improving the lives of vulnerable children and young people are consistently achieved.

Our success will be measured by whether we are making a positive difference to the lives of our staff, children, young people and the community we serve, supporting them to feel optimistic and confident about their futures.

Our vision

The Trust will aim to develop and deliver high quality social care services to children and young people in the county of Northamptonshire within the resources made available to the Trust by the Council.

In conjunction with partner agencies, the Council and the Trust shall work together collaboratively to secure the following outcomes:

To promote the welfare and safeguard children in line with key children’s legislation and statutory guidance
To provide family support to vulnerable children and their families to enable them to cope with difficulties
To support children to live safely with their immediate and extended families wherever possible
To meet the needs of looked after children and those leaving care
To support disabled children and their families

Our board

Our Trust board is responsible for:

Setting the strategic aims of the Trust
Overseeing the management of the Trust
Holding the executive team to account

It is the responsible body for the performance of the Trust in terms of delivering its legal and contractual obligations and achieving outcomes for children and young people in Northamptonshire.

The Trust board contains a wide portfolio of expertise and knowledge in children’s services, commercial, financial and other disciplines.

The board comprises of: