Recruitment of two permanent Assistant Directors to the Children's Services leadership team

I am really pleased to tell you that we have recruited two permanent Assistant Directors to the Children's Services leadership team.

Congratulations first to Sarah Jones, who takes up the permanent post of Assistant Director of Early Help and Prevention, having successfully worked in the role on an interim basis for nearly a year.

Sarah joined Norfolk County Council back in 2015, as Head of Services and Partnerships (Early Help), having previously worked as Deputy Chief Executive for The Benjamin Foundation. Prior to that she worked at Broadland Council, as a Social Impact Manager.

Sarah's enthusiasm and energy, coupled with her experience at both the council and within the voluntary sector means she is really well placed to continue to lead this vital area of our work.

We also welcome Andy Goff back to Children's Services, as Assistant Director of Performance, Planning and Quality Assurance. Andy has been leading Children, Young People and Families Services for Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust over the last year and led on setting up the outstanding Dragonfly Unit.

Andy has been working in senior leadership roles within children's mental health services since he left Norfolk County Council in 2009. Whilst at the council he was Area Service Manager for Children's Services in the East of the county and Area Director for the same part of Norfolk.

Andy has played a key part in developing some of our successful partnership projects with NSFT, such as the perinatal infant mental health service and the Compass service, both of which provide therapeutic support to help keep children at home with their families.

I am thrilled to be able to recruit such talented colleagues to my team.

You may well already know Sarah and Andy and the fact that they already know Norfolk so well and have strong and established contacts with our partner agencies, stands us in really good stead as we look to the future.

I will be looking to change both job titles shortly, so that they better reflect the roles and our priorities for the future.

We are also advertising the Assistant Director for Children's Social Work post again, to ensure that we get a really strong pool of candidates. We had shortlisted two good candidates but one of those people withdrew before we got to the interview process and I wanted to ensure that we had a competitive process so that we could get the very best person to lead this crucial work for us. The publication of our Ofsted report can only help create more interest in the role and I am confident that we'll find someone with the experience and talent we seek. Phil Watson is now here on an interim basis in this role, having joined us earlier this month. Phil most recently worked with Hammersmith and Fulham and has significant experience in leadership roles in children's social care.

Kind regards

Sara

Sara Tough Executive Director of Children's Services
Norfolk County Council Children's Services

Sarah Jones	Andy Goff