Search for Learning and Development Services and Pathways

What is the STAR programme?


The STAR Programme has been designed to support South Gloucestershire's Children's Services to embed our Practice model. It brings together Signs of Safety, Trauma Informed practice and Systemic approaches.

This inspiring and engaging three day programme is for existing female managers who wish to progress in their careers and aspiring managers and leaders. We have created the content so women at all stages of their careers can benefit from it.

The programme seeks to address the under representation of women in management roles and is designed to build confidence, informal networks and develop our collective understanding of women as future leaders in their lives, team and workplace.

This three day programme will provide participants with an opportunity to focus on personal and professional goals and give ongoing support to achieve them. The workshops are designed to be engaging, fun and interactive, as well as impactful and thought provoking.

Participants will consider themes such as self-awareness, self – leadership, personal impact and influence, and how the actions the take can help them flourish in careers and gain greater job and life satisfaction. It will contain a mixture of discussions, self reflection and self-stud. There will be essential pre-course work, networking and homework tasks in between sessions.

Please note: This is a women only programme,

This course is free to South Gloucestershire Council staff. For all external delegates there is a charge of £368.

You will embark on 100 days of change and at the end of the programme create a 12 month plan.

Day 1: The FREEDOM Method – This day is about self-leadership and personal development. The stages are - find out about yourself, review where you are now, experience and learn, explore possibilities, decide, overcome obstacles and make it happen, you will also begin 100 days of change.

Day 2: Personal impact and influence – leadership, generating presence, influence and persuasion, assertiveness and negotiation, personal networks and goal review

Day 3: Inspirational women and leadership – review of progress and achievement – inspirational women – leadership styles - mentoring – career advancement - goal setting for 12 months.

The Purpose for the support groups

Jakie Dyer will be giving a presentation during this session on 'Chronic Sorrow'.

We realise that fostering can be really difficult at times. Perhaps the only people who really understand it are other foster carers and so therefore we want to give you a place to meet up.

There will be biscuits and/or cake, coffee, tea, and an opportunity for an informal chat at all of the meetings.

Although these will be informal meetings, each session will have a brief agenda, attendance list, and agreed group rules. This is to help those who don’t know anyone and feel awkward about coming along to a new meeting, to feel that they won’t be left alone on the side-lines.

These sessions should be recorded on your Personal Development Plan (PDP).

Do you have the technical knowledge to help manage young people’s phone’s, this includes app’s and practical know how on changing settings in phones etc? 

The premise is to help you keep young people safe while they use their phone.

Felix Lester of Avon and Sommerset Police will offer hints and tips on how to manage a young person phone

This is a 3 hr workshop to explore direct work skills that can be used when working with young people.

The focus of these sessions will be to give awareness of Therapeutic life story work as well as general life story work which can help children understand their life story and promote their identity and attachments.

The workshop will be facilitated by Rhian Phillips and Grace Beckett who will use principles from Richard Rose’s Therapeutic Life Story Work Diploma.

Richard Newall (Detective Sergeant, Child Protection Team, Avon and Somerset Police) will host this online workshop.

Please take some time in advance to have a think about any questions you might want to ask Richard on the day.

Click here to join the meeting

The multi-agency South Gloucestershire Safeguarding Adults Board oversees the Joint Policy and Procedures for Safeguarding Adults in this area. It is essential that a wide range of staff working in local authority, health and social care agencies are fully aware of the key issues in safeguarding vulnerable adults and of how the policy affects them in their front-line roles. The half-day Raising Safeguarding Concerns course is essential training for all front-line staff and managers who are involved in providing services to adults at risk and who work directly with service users. The course content is mapped to the learning outcomes in the local Safeguarding Adults Training Standards (published Dec 2017) as well as to relevant national occupational standards including the Care Certificate (Standard 10). Course attendance is monitored by the Safeguarding Adults Board. The standard charge for this course is £49. Please refer to our Course Charges on the Home page for information on discounts and exemptions.

We are restricting numbers from each organisation to 4 individuals per course.

If you organisation require a large number of individuals to complete this course, then it maybe possible for in house training to be organised.
Please contact HRlearninganddevelopment@southglos.gov.uk with your requirements.

Time to look at MCA and Best interest decisions together.

There will be case examples and activities to aid discussion and reflection.

Additional learning resources here: https://sway.office.com/Wym4d8ejOifsV4fY?ref=Link

The WAYPOINT (Working Alongside Young People & Others In Networks Therapeutically) Team is part of the Fostering Service. WAYPOINT provide therapeutically informed support to children, families, foster carers, and professional networks. This support is additional to the support provided by your supervising social worker and children’s social workers.

The monthly WAYPOINT Drop-in sessions are facilitated by Dan Charnock, WAYPOINT Senior Social Worker and are open to all mainstream foster carers. The aim of the WAYPOINT Drop in is to provide a reflective and open space for foster carers to come along and discuss issues or concerns you may be facing. While each session includes a space to reflect on challenges, there is also a significant focus on sharing strategies and thinking about therapeutic approaches to difficult situations and celebrating successes.

You don’t have to be going through a difficult time to attend – peer support, learning and reflection is always valuable, and there is no pressure for anyone to share within the sessions. Topics for each session tend to arise on the day, ensuring the focus is relevant to the content brought to the drop in. However, there is also the option to agree a topic for a future session to enable a more in-depth focus. Discussion often includes topics such as attachment, trauma, and use of therapeutic approaches such as PACE and NVR, and ideas come not only from Dan but from within the group.

Please note that you must be able to attend both sessions in order to complete this training.

This course is deemed Mandatory by the Adult and Childrens Senior Leadership Team. The Learning and Development will be contacting the line managers of South Gloucestershire Council staff to ensure that your work time will be protected (i.e. that you will be deemed ‘unavailable’ to work that day and free of all distractions).

If you are unable to complete both sessions within the course you will be asked to complete both sessions at a future date – it will not be possible to attend your second session on another cohort.

This new 1.5-day training programme is for staff who work with adults, children, young people and families based within statutory and voluntary/independent sector organisations across South Gloucestershire.

The aim of the programme is to promote effective multi-agency working between professionals and organisations aligned to national/local legislation, policy, guidance and best practice. A key focus will therefore be person/child-centred practice that promotes positive outcomes for those who lives are affected by domestic abuse.

The first half-day session will be delivered virtually via MS Teams. This will provide an opportunity to refresh and develop your knowledge base including in relation to the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and key learning from Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews, Safeguarding Adult Reviews and Domestic Homicide Reviews. The importance of trauma informed practice underpinned by professional curiosity will be explored.
Throughout the session delegates will be encouraged to generously share their practice experience with colleagues, learn from others and move beyond knowledge, understanding and theory to application in their practice.

Delegates must attend day 1 and undertake an individual research/reflective task before attending day 2 of this training.

The second session will be delivered in-person, with a primary focus on exploring, developing and embedding best practice within the landscape of effectively multi-agency/disciplinary working. A broad range of topics will be included, e.g. intersectionality, child-centred practice within a whole family approach, effective risk assessment/monitoring and safety planning, professional self-care.

Throughout the session delegates will be encouraged to generously share their practice experience with colleagues, learn from others and move beyond knowledge, understanding and theory to application in their practice.

The individual learning task, along with active participation in both sessions are integral to the completion of the programme.

If you are from an external organisation and fail to attend one of the sessions you will still be charged for both sessions.