Audience: Social workers, placement and commissioning teams. Anyone who is involved in writing referrals for children. Representatives from providers of children's social care placements. 

Content: The role of the commissioning team, sufficiency context for the North West, stability and placement endings, the impact of bad referrals, and provider and commissioning perspective. How to improve the quality of referrals through making a connection, focusing on outcomes, introducing flexibility, including the voice of the child. 

Delivered by: A local authority commissioning team member and a representative from an external provider of children's placements.

Location: Online via Teams

2024 Dates: 2pm 17 December

2025 Dates: 10am 20 March; 2pm 18 June; 10am 23 September; 2pm 10 December

Duration: 120 minutes

Booking: Please email placementsnorthwest@stockport.gov.uk and include; name, role, organisation and preferred date.

Audience: Providers, placement and commissioning teams. Anyone who is involved in working with children in external placements.

Content: Purpose of the Information Sharing Protocol, overview of how they are used, how to raise a notification and working with providers to resolve issues.

Delivered by: Placements North West

Location: Online via Teams

2025 Dates: 1pm 5 February, 11am 2 July, 11am 12 November

Duration: 60 minutes

Booking: Please email placementsnorthwest@stockport.gov.uk and include; name, role, organisation and preferred date.

Audience: Staff who are new to the purchasing systems, including those from new providers and new starters at current providers or placement and commissioning teams.

Content: The role of the Placements North West team, how the purchasing systems work, expectations of providers and local authorities and opportunities for engagement.  

Delivered by: Placements North West

Location: Online via Teams

2025 Dates: 10am 21 April, 1pm 1 July, 10am 23 October, 1pm 9 December

Duration: 60 minutes

Booking: Please email placementsnorthwest@stockport.gov.uk and include; name, role, organisation and preferred date

Audience: Local Authority commissioning/ placement finding teams; anyone involved in the commissioning of placements, provider due diligence and ongoing quality assurance activity.

Content: The session will guide officers through the provider portal hosted on the NWADCS website, including how to register and access the portal. The portal has been designed to reduce duplication in requests to providers for key documents such as Ofsted registration certificate, ISPs, statement of purpose, insurance etc. Hosting this information in one central location, aims to improve the time required for the due diligence processes. The success of the portal lies with local authorities uploading key documents and the portal has the function to download key documents, should they need to be stored locally.

Delivered by: Placements North West 

Location: Online via Teams

2024 Dates: 2pm 27 November

2025 Dates: 11am 15 January, 2pm 25 June, 11am 15 October

Duration: 60 minutes

Booking: Please email placementsnorthwest@stockport.gov.uk and include name, role, local authority and preferred date.

Audience: Providers working in the North West

Content: The sessions will consist of regional updates, Local authority issues and feedback, discussion around current topics and provider feedback. 

Delivered by: Placements North West 

Location: Online via Teams

2024 Dates: 

Residential: 10am 11 September,

Fostering: 10am 19 September, 

SEND: 10am 19 November,

Supported Accommodation: 1pm 20 November,

2025 Dates: 

Residential: 10am 4 February, 1pm 22 July, 10am 5 November

Fostering: 1pm 4 February, 10am 22 July, 1pm 5 November

SEND: 1pm 26 March, 10am 10 September

Supported Accommodation: 10am 26 March, 1pm 10 September

Duration: 60 minutes

Booking: Please email placementsnorthwest@stockport.gov.uk and include name, email and company name.