Find out more about Children's upcoming events.
Chief executives
Wednesday 15 July, 1.00-2.00pm (virtual)
The LGA is hosting a 1-hour webinar for Council Chief Executives with topics covering Ofsted and the new ILACS framework, as well as a Q&A session.
We will be joined by Sir Martyn Oliver, HM Chief Inspector of Education, Children's Services and Skills and Yvette Stanley, National Director for Social Care.
The session will be chaired by Ade Adetosoye, Chief Executive of the London Borough of Bromley as well as Philip Simpkins, LGA Chief Executive adviser for children's services.
Please do join us for this 1 hour virtual session on Wednesday 15 July 2026, 1.00pm by registering your place on Eventbrite.
Councillors
This webinar is for newly elected Lead Members for Children. The session will provide a practical introduction to children’s services and the role of the Lead Member, helping you build your understanding of the key responsibilities, challenges and opportunities within the portfolio. You’ll hear from a former Director of Children’s Services about the children’s services landscape and from experienced a Lead Member who will share practical advice, lessons learned and tips for making the greatest impact in your role.
The session will be chaired by Cllr Victoria Cusworth, Cabinet Member for Children and Young People at Rotherham Council, and will feature Beate Wagner, LGA’s Children’s Improvement Adviser for the West Midlands and former Director of Children’s Services at Solihull Council.
The session will take place on MS Teams and joining details will be sent ahead of the webinar.
The cost of attending this event is fully subsidised.
Following this, we offer our main Leadership Essentials programme, which provides a more in-depth exploration of the political leadership of children’s services.
If you have any questions about the booking process, please contact [email protected]
In collaboration with Data to Insight, we are hosting three upcoming data webinars. Each will explore a different area of children’s services including: Children’s social care, SEND and Best Start in Life. You will learn about how to make use of benchmarking, forecasting, and other analysis outputs.
Find out more and book your place here:
- Children's social care – Tuesday 14 July 2026, 12.00pm-1.00pm
- SEND – Tuesday 21 July 2026, 12.00pm-1.00pm
- Best Start For Life – Tuesday 28 July 2026, 12.00pm-1.00pm
Lead members for children’s services are responsible for providing leadership to children's services in their area and hold a statutory role. This development event is funded as part of the sector led improvement programme and aims to support lead members with the key challenges they face in the changing policy landscape and to develop leadership capacity, share learning and provide a valuable networking opportunity. This programme is also for chairs of children’s services scrutiny committee.
The programme runs over two days and is delivered by member peers and LGA staff supported by guest speakers from local government and partner agencies.
For more information and to book please contact [email protected] or telephone 020 7664 3054.
Fee: The fee for attending this programme is fully subsidised.
- Programme 49: Wednesday, 9 September – Thursday, 10 September 2026
- Programme 50: Tuesday 24 November - Wednesday 25 November 2026
- Programme 51: Tuesday 1 December - Wednesday 2 December 2026
An opportunity for those in political roles that lead, influence, and shape the agenda of Children’s Services to come together and support you to drive and embed improvements in your Local Authorities.
At this in-person event means you will have the chance to hear from and have reflective discussions and workshops with, expert speakers and peers from different local authorities.
It is also an opportunity to learn about a breadth of topics relevant to our current context.
This learning event is aimed at experienced members with the children’s portfolio, education portfolio and chairs of scrutiny, ideally having done the Essentials course more than a year ago and/or been in role at least 12 months.
Fee: The fee for attending this programme is fully subsidised.
If you'd like to book a place: please contact [email protected]
- Programme 11: Saturday 24 October - Sunday 25 October 2026
Family Hubs events
See all the latest events at the National Centre for Family Hubs: Events | Local Government Association