WARRINGTON is streets ahead as an authority in protecting the most vulnerable individuals, claims a charity director, following the outcome of a damning Ofsted report which revealed the council was failing young people.

Lucy Hindmarch, acting director of the Relationships Centre, praised the partnership between agencies and said the inspection highlighted good examples of services for children and how they work together.

She said: “There is best practice in the town but unfortunately the positive examples have not been highlighted following the publication of the report.”

The multi-agency arrangements to respond to missing children were said by the education watchdog to be ‘robust’.

The good processes in place to track truant children and the monitoring system of their whereabouts was also commended.

Lucy said the charity takes many referrals from Warrington Borough Council’s social workers for the Talk Don’t Walk initiative, which provides counselling and family meditation to children who run away.

She said: “We really couldn’t deliver the service without the support of the social workers, the police and many other agencies – it is multi-disciplinary.

“Warrington is streets ahead as an authority in that area.”

Lucy, who is also chairman of the children’s voluntary sector forum, said the group will continue working hard to support the council.

Alison McCausland, co-founder of the charity, which is the Warrington Guardian charity of the year, said she had worked with the council for the past 30 years.

She said: “Those who are doing a good job get tarnished with the same brush.”

Alison, a former police officer, said a lot of the young people who she has worked with have received a brilliant service from the workers at the council.

She said: “It is very easy to jump on the bandwagon when they do wrong but when they do right they don’t get praised.

“The world would be a lot poorer if we didn’t have social care. It is a job for dedicated people, they work into their own time.”

The Peacock Project, a multi-agency initiative to help care leavers learn new skills and seek employment, saw a young person who was leaving care secure employment and do exceptionally well, said Alison.