Celebrations rang out today – for the second time this month – at Bolton based Outcomes First Group (OFG) when it won the LaingBuisson Children’s Services Award for Excellence in the delivery of children’s services in fostering, residential and school settings. The LaingBuisson Awards recognise and celebrate industry excellence in the UK health and social care services within public, private and third sectors. This latest award follows swiftly in the footsteps of OFG’s Great Place to Work recognition earlier this month.
“Our vision is to build incredible futures by empowering vulnerable children to be happy and make their way in the world,” said David Leatherbarrow, CEO, OFG. “Our team is thrilled to have been recognised by LaingBuisson for its hard work and achievements.”
Criteria that set Outcomes First Group apart from its competitors was its ability to provide a range of children’s services nationally from childhood through to adulthood, tailored to meet individual needs with the support of specialised teams, whilst maintaining a unique consistent approach centred on making a difference.
In a bid to meet demand for special educational needs (SEN) provision – for the UK’s 1.37 million pupils with SEN – and despite an unprecedented year, OFG continued to invest and strengthen its service to create more new school capacity for children.
OFG also received recognition for its online school, Acorn Digital Learning (ADL) – which was rapidly scaled up in response to lockdown to support all of OFG’s schools – and delivered 34,500 lessons, trained 919 staff in 3 weeks, registered 1,800 pupils in 3 days and provided 85% of students with online teaching at least 3 days each week.
OFG’s commitment to its 5000+ employees and wider stakeholders was also recognised by LaingBuisson, who were impressed that it had been named one of the top super large employers in the national Great Place to Work Awards and in addition, this year ‘Best Workplace for Women’ – defined by the level of trust that colleagues place in line managers, the level of pride people have in their jobs and the level of collaboration, teamwork and camaraderie. 95% agreed people are treated fairly regardless of their race, 92% agreed people are treated fairly regardless of their gender and 88% said their work has special meaning and that working at OFG is not “just a job”.