How practice leaders can expand capacity in practice

By now you will have a clearer sense of how you want to develop your ability to expand capacity.  See a range of practical strategies that will enable you to:

improve resource management
develop your team
encourage innovation
adapt to changing demands effectively

These are separated into suggestions that will benefit you, your team, and your work with wider stakeholders.

Which of the activities below do you think you, your supervisees and service would most benefit from doing?

Choose at least one activity from each section to experiment with in your leadership practice.

Thinking about yourself

Experiment and innovate

Make a commitment to exploring and testing new ideas for service delivery, allowing you to experiment with different approaches in a controlled environment. As you document the outcomes of your initiatives, reflect on your own decision-making processes.

From this you can adapt your strategies to enhance your effectiveness in expanding capacity within your organisation.

Create a personal advocacy action plan

Develop a structured plan that outlines your specific advocacy goals, including strategies for engaging with local stakeholders, community members, and policymakers. This plan should include timelines, important messages, and methods for measuring the effect of your advocacy efforts. This ensures you stay focused and accountable in representing the needs of children and families effectively.

Thinking about your teams

Create a change management toolkit

Develop a comprehensive change management toolkit that includes best practices, templates, and resources to support staff in effectively navigating organisational changes.

The toolkit could feature guides on effective communication strategies, stakeholder engagement techniques, and case studies of successful change initiatives. This can help staff to implement changes confidently and consistently across the organisation.

Discuss ways to expand capacity as a team

Discussions encourage creativity and collaboration among stakeholders to develop their own plans to improve capacity in children's social care. The process begins by defining specific challenges and assembling a diverse team.

Teams engage in brainstorming sessions to generate and prototype innovative ideas in a conducive environment equipped with necessary tools.

You can propose solutions to pilot test with a small group to assess effectiveness, followed by gathering feedback for refinement. You can then highlight successful innovations to the wider organisation and community, highlighting their potential effect on expanding capacity while integrating equity, diversity, and inclusion principles.

Thinking about the wider system

Inclusive stakeholder engagement sessions

Lead co-working sessions with a range of community stakeholders to create solutions which expand capacity. Gather input from families, young people, and underrepresented groups to identify specific barriers and opportunities for growth in service delivery.

Develop a change leadership council

Create a council that includes representatives from stakeholder groups like:

parents and families
community organisations
service providers

This will help to guide change initiatives and to ensure that diverse perspectives inform decision-making.

Over to you

After you’ve reviewed these activities, choose one from each section that you’d like to experiment with. You can use the 4C leadership capability framework action plan to detail when and where you’ll try these and consider their effect over time.

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The resources have been developed by Frontline in collaboration with DfE.
Published: 30 January 2025
Last updated: 30 January 2025

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