About

Who we are

What does it mean to be a Trust?

There aren’t many more important things in life than looking after young people. When we get it right, we unlock some amazing potential.

We believe that working as an independent Children’s Trust is the best way to do this.

The way we’re structured brings the whole of our city together. Our staff, young people, families, the wider council and partners all work closely. Everyone’s on the same side.

We’re building on the progress we’ve already made and we know there are still challenges ahead. But with a single focus on making Birmingham’s children healthy, happy and confident, we’ll make a bigger and better difference for the future of our city.

Who is leading us forward?

Since the establishment of the Trust it has been led by Andrew Christie as Chair and Andy Couldrick as Chief Executive. However, Andrew is now retiring and Andy Couldrick will step into the Chair role going forward. We are now recruiting a new Chief Executive to replace Andy and manage the Trust going forward.

Seven non-executive directors and a city council-appointed non-executive director work alongside them:

Brian Carr, Professor Jon Glasby, Ruth Harker, Colin Horwath, and Liz Stafford. We have two non-executive director vacancies to which we are currently actively recruiting, and a new city council-appointed non-executive director will take up post in June.

For more information, please click the link here

Pen portrait of our children and our service (31 March 2023)

Our vision is to build a Trust that provides excellent social work and family support for, and with, the city's most vulnerable children, young people and families. We give our best so young people can achieve their best.

Gross budget - £272m

  • Child breakdown by age
    • Under 1 - 403 children
    • 1-4 - 1,529 children
    • 5-9 - 1,780 children
    • 10-15 - 2,683 children
    • 16-25 -2,070 children/young people
  • 959 care leavers
  • 8,465 open children
  • Number of children with a child protection plan - 1,364
  • Number of disabled children - 644
  • Children in need with plan - 1,843

Number of employees - 1,910

  • 158 unaccompanied asylum seekers
  • 578 Trust foster carers - 763 placements 13% of children left care through adoption 73 children adopted
  • 5 disabled children's homes
  • 24.5% youth reoffending rate (31.2% Eng & Wales)
  • Number of children in care - 2,197
  • Families supported during the year - Over 6,700