By james art 
It comes after Ayrshire Children’s Services (ACS) received a poor rating following a visit by the Care Inspectorate.
The evaluators called the office earlier this month after notifying the organization that they would be coming on short notice.
The service provides individual and group support to children and young people with additional support needs.
ACS operates across three regions, including North and South Ayrshire, where it offers support in the community on an individual basis as well as group care in specialist centers called Ko-nekt. Centers are located in Ayr and Ardrossan.
Officers from the Care Inspectorate spoke to people using the service as well as staff and management during their visit.
They also observed practice and reviewed documents before providing a rating for two areas of service provided by ACS.
This returned a rating of adequate for supporting people’s well-being and a poor rating for the organization’s staff.
An Adequate rating is given when the strengths barely outweigh the weaknesses, with Weak meaning that while strengths were identified, they were compromised by significant weaknesses.
Although evaluators said staff were strong in their efforts to support service users, concerns were raised about the lack of continuing education opportunities as well as overall staffing levels.
The Care Inspectorate’s report, published this month, said: “People had opportunities to build on their confidence and independence as staff worked hard to promote and support this.
“The staff knew people well and fostered an environment where people felt comfortable and could have fun.
“The service had to ensure staffing was maintained at appropriate levels to ensure people’s safety.
“Improvements were needed so that staff could feel fully confident in their approach to protection
concerns. Systems around training needed improvement to ensure staff were confident and competent in their roles.
“Improvements were needed to ensure that personal plans are used consistently to improve care and support.”
As a result of the findings, one area of improvement was identified for ACS – as well as three requirements to be met by a later date.
The service’s chief executive, Marian Greenway, says work is already underway to address this.
She said: “We appreciate the feedback on our recent report and are particularly pleased that the positive environment we provide to our service users has been recognised.
“Our priority remains creating a safe, supportive and nurturing space for children and young people with additional support needs.
“We take the comments about staff seriously and have already started actively recruiting additional management and frontline team members to ensure we continue to deliver the highest standard of care.
“This is in collaboration with the North Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership and the Care Inspectorate, whose support has been invaluable.
“We are incredibly proud of our dedicated team and deeply appreciate their unwavering commitment.
“As always, we remain focused on strengthening both our services and our team to continually improve, as recognized, the support we provide.”