Impactful research by leader of children’s services with “fabulous” support from UON academic team

A University of Northampton (UON) PhD student is taking his unique insights to provide a mechanism for the best, joined-up approach to children’s services.

Colin Foster has been the Chief Executive of Northamptonshire Children’s Trust (NCT) since 2020. Thanks to his UON PhD research, he is taking his learnings to date, along with his organisational and strategic knowledge of children’s services, to create a maturity matrix to assess where children’s services are at.

The matrix is for local authorities to use when seeking to improve children’s services or ensure sustainable children’s services through the upcoming Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) across the country.

Children’s services in England are usually delivered by local authorities, although 11 local authorities deliver Children’s services through an ‘alternative delivery model’ (ADM) such as a children’s trust.  Most ADMs are in place due to intervention by the Department for Education.

Colin’s ‘maturity matrix’ – informed by his research with UON – details seven areas that should be assessed and graded when looking at how to improve, maintain and sustain the best possible services for children.

The matrix includes factors such as inspection outcomes, quality of children’s services practices and workforce stability to create a systemic, local approach based on the journey of each child.

Colin says: “Wanting the best for children and young people is what gets me, and my peers across the country, up in the morning. Sadly, even with the very best of intentions, sometimes the context they operate in, does not always facilitate this.  Northamptonshire is an example of this and the DfE issued a statutory direction in 2018 which led to the creation of Northamptonshire Children’s Trust in 2020.

“The maturity matrix can be part and parcel of ensuring local authorities deliver what children, young people and families need and want. It provides a clear framework and enabling honest and robust discussion feedback and reflection. This is particularly important in the upcoming LGR in many areas. I have experienced LGR twice in my career and wish I had something like this at the time!

“What I wanted with my research was the space to develop my ideas, informed every step of the way by leading childhood, youth and family academic experts. This is why I came to University of Northampton – quite frankly, the support has been fabulous. It is way better than I expected based on what I’ve experienced or heard about in terms of postgraduate support elsewhere.

“I knew my ideas were in the right hands by coming to UON for my PhD – which is set to be published in the first half of next year – I cannot thank the team here enough for helping shape the vision, that reflects the values of UON and children’s services professionals across England, become a reality.

Colin’s PhD supervisors are Professor Jane Murray and Dr Tanya Richardson and you can read his interim findings here.

Find out more about Children, Young People and Families and Education postgraduate programmes (PhD and Master’s courses) at University of Northampton.