Bishopsgate has advised on the investment into a leading children’s social care provider, CF Social Work (“CFSW”).
With a head office in Ipswich, CFSW provides high quality social work intervention and education services to assist busy Local Authorities and help children and young families avoid a lifetime of care and state intervention. CFSW has a growing reputation for its preventative services and operates in a fragmented market with Local Authorities under increasing pressure.
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CFSW has become a one-stop shop for its local authority clients providing both social work support and education services to children with specific needs. Its services are innovative, highly regarded and desperately needed. Demand for CFSW’s services has increased as a result of the coronavirus and lockdown and the problems created by this pandemic are widespread and long term.
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CFSW is run by Ross Evans, a 36 year old former teacher. Ross is dynamic, entrepreneurial and has a deep understanding of the market’s needs and he heads up the fast growing education division which was launched in October 2018.
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Jen Elliott, CEO of Education Personnel Management, will chair the business. Jen has extensive experience in the education sector working with local authorities and she has led two previous private equity exits.
The Company splits its service provision into four divisions:
Independent Social Work and Psychological Service – provides local authorities and family courts with a range of specific assessments designed to assess the needs of a child. CFSW employs expert clinical psychologists and social workers with over 5 years’ experience to carry out these assessments which may be used as a preventative tool or as part of a plan to reintegrate and support families.
Reverse Residential Assessments – CFSW were the first to develop a Reverse Residential Assessment (“RRA”) programme where their independent social care workers provide assessments to local authorities or the courts whilst residing in the family setting. This can be over a 6 week period and is designed to support and coach whilst assessing to maximise the chances of helping the family stay together.
Bespoke Education Division – launched in Oct 2018, the bespoke education service is designed to support young people with challenging behaviours and complex needs who are often on the edge of care and out of mainstream education. CFSW provides a range of tuition and mentoring to reengage children with education. 6 of their children undertook and passed their GCSEs last year. Five have gone on to college and 1 has found an apprenticeship.
Family Support and Youth Work Service – having been approached by local authority commissioners during the coronavirus lockdown, CFSW has just set up this new division to provide support to families and young people struggling to cope with daily life. The demand for these types of services are so great that management believes this could become their largest division within the next 3 years.
