Achieving for Children (AfC)

Our children’s services, along with Richmond's, are delivered by Achieving for Children, a community interest company wholly owned by the two councils.

Achieving for Children launched on 1 April 2014 as a social enterprise. The innovative company model of AfC will provide better social, educational and community outcomes for children in Kingston and Richmond.

Achieving for Children has already been recognised by an award of £500,000 from the Government’s transformation fund, set up to reward local authorities at the cutting edge of transforming public services.

Based on the principles and values of social enterprise the Achieving for Children will:

• put children and families at the heart of all it does
• increase partnership working to provide a whole-person approach at reduced cost
• increase the capacity and resilience of public services
• provide a centre of excellence and innovation that will be available to other authorities and public service providers, including help to authorities responding to improvement notices

The transitional cost of delivering Achieving for Children has been £1.5 million with savings of £6 million over three years from the initial merging of services. It is likely that there will be wider efficiency benefits for the services as different opportunities and ways of working are fully developed by the new organisation.

The main service areas that will be delivered by Achieving for Children are:

• prevention and early help – organising targeted support to children and young people to ensure good school attendance, promote family wellbeing, and prevent crime and anti-social behaviour; also providing specialist support for children with special educational needs and disabilities
• child protection – a single point of access for referral and assessment, and the development of interventions and support for children requiring protection
• social care – high quality provision for children in care including fostering and adoption, and services for care leavers
• education – planning sufficient school places, managing school admissions, and providing challenge and support to schools, early years’ providers and governing bodies so that they are able to carry out their statutory duties
• health integration – working with general practitioners, public health and health care providers to ensure integrated services for all children and young people