DCSF letter to Charles Sharpe

This was first posted on the goodenoughcaring website at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com on April 20th, 2010

DCSF
20th April, 2010

Dear Mr Sharpe

Thank you for your email dated 31 March about residential children's homes and an organisation called Tribal. On this occasion I have been asked to reply.

Tribal was awarded the support and challenge for children’s homes project after successfully completing a full formal tender process and has significant experience and expertise in delivering a support and challenge role to public service commissioners and providers.
Tribal’s team includes a strong blend of consultants, analysts and researchers with experience as trusted advisors to the children’s services sector, local authorities and central government. For example, Janet Rich Director of Simplicitas, has 17 years of professional experience in the field including in therapeutic residential care, leaving care and the mental health of looked after children. Janet will be acting as expert advisor to the programme and will chair the Project’s Advisory Group, bringing together key stakeholders in residential care and others. The Tribal team also includes Professor Peter Marsh of Chair in Child and Family Welfare at the University of Sheffield to provide academic expertise and develop a strong evidence base for the work.

Tribal will initially be focusing on engaging key stakeholders in residential care, to provide a seamless transition of support. They will work on developing face-to-face presence alongside a web presence and publication of newsletters aimed at providers and managers to encourage wider sector participation and engagement.

This project will offer an opportunity to support the dissemination and embedding of evidence based practice, play an active role in rolling out lessons from recent pathfinder and pilot activity to raise the quality of care in Children’s homes and act as a catalyst for a the development of evidence based practice within the sector as a whole.

I hope this information is useful.

Yours sincerely

Emma Hutchinson
Public Communications Unit
www.dcsf.gov.uk

Calum Strathie writes I received an identical response to the one Charles Sharpe did from DCSF when I asked it about Tribal and NCERCC except that Pamela Kearns of the Public Communications Unit replied to me and not Emma Hutchinson. I'm not sure if it's a standard response, but it's interesting how they make Tribal out to sound like a jar of Nescafe - "A Strong Blend"! Do any of the names in the blend mean anything to you? The question is "do we want the instant processed variety of Tribal?" or "do we want the fresh roast aroma of the Real McCoy from NCERCC?" There's no contest really.