It’s an exciting time to join Bedford Borough Council’s Children's Services.
We want every child in Bedford Borough to be safe and to achieve their potential. We support families in this aim and where necessary act as a Corporate Parent to promote good outcomes for the more vulnerable children and young people from birth through to their 25th birthday.
We believe that every Bedford Borough family can be supported through evidenced-based approaches to build on their own strengths so they can support themselves. We aim to achieve this by providing access to high-quality, evidenced-based interventions which ensure all children, young people and their families get the right support and right action at the right time.
We also believe that every child should have the best start in life and we aim to achieve this by providing high quality Family Hubs and supporting Early Years providers to deliver high-quality early learning experiences for children.
Children’s Services has a range of teams and services that work hard to support the Council in meeting its statutory and regulatory duties, and are committed to improving outcomes for children, young people and families in Bedford Borough.
How we work
In Children's Services we are committed to our model of systemic practice and ensuring that relationships are at the centre of our interventions.
We will support you to work effectively with families using creative and exceptional practice. We welcome different skillsets and embrace individuality.
We are a sector-led improvement partner in Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), commissioned by the Department for Education to share our best practice and support other local authorities on their SEND improvement journey.
Our teams
Our work is based upon our ability to engage children and families in making the changes necessary to improve their outcomes. The range of teams span from initial guidance and support, safeguarding, youth offending and corporate parenting including adoption, to support for carers as well as working with older young people through to early adulthood.
Hear from our teams
Kirsten Webber is a social worker, find out more from her and others on our staff stories page.
Job roles in Children's Services
Early Help
- Early Help Professional
- Early Help Practitioner
- Family Hubs Co-ordinator
- Early Years SEND Support Officer
- Wraparound Childcare Officer
Education, SEND and School Infrastructure
- SEND Officer
- Education Psychologist
- School Admission’s Officer
- Pupil Place Planning officers
- Strategic improvement advisors and project managers
Social Care
- Social workers
- Foster carers
- Advanced Practitioners
- Personal Advisors
Find out more about a career in Children's Social Care
Children's social care careers website
Our recent achievements
- During 2023/2024, 83.1% of families supported by Early Help and Intervention showed an improvement in outcomes at the end of the piece of work or involvement. This shows an ongoing improvement compared to 81.5% in 2022/23.
- We have continued to support families effectively claiming all available Supporting Families Grant payment by results.
- Our School Improvement Team has supported over 94% of our primary schools to be good or outstanding in their Ofsted report.
- The SEND team is significantly above the national average in meeting its 20-week timescales for processing education, health and care plans, supported by a fully staffed Education Psychology service.
- Bedford Borough Children’s Services has been rated Good by Ofsted following inspection in November 2021.
Our current performance across a range of indicators compares favourably with national and regional comparators.