About CSDG
The Children’s Services Development Group (CSDG) is a coalition of leading independent providers of care and specialist education services for children and young people with complex needs. Under the independent chairmanship of Andrew Isaac, we champion child-centred, meaningful and outcomes-focused support for vulnerable children and young people that ensures their stable and successful transition into adulthood.
Our members have worked and campaigned together since 2006, providing a range of settings and services for special educational needs, residential care, and fostering, working across all local authorities in England. Our current members are: Aurora Group; Aspris Children’s Services; Compass Community; Outcomes First Group; Polaris Community; SENAD Group; Targeted Provision; and Witherslack Group.
Quality is at heart of our provision. As a group, 95% of our fostering provision, 87% of our education provision and 90% of our children’s residential homes are rated Good or Outstanding by Ofsted (as of March 2023). Collectively we look after more than 14,500 children and young people in placements across all services.
Our aim is to provide stable, secure, high-quality settings where the young people in our care can flourish. We take a holistic approach, working closely with policymakers, regulators and local authorities to develop policy solutions that will ensure the best possible outcomes for these children. In recent years we have responded to both the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care and the SEND Review, setting out our recommendations for how the sector can work together to provide the best possible environments to enable vulnerable young people to flourish.
Operating as a collective voice for the independent sector since 2006, CSDG champions child-centred, meaningful, and outcomes focused support for vulnerable children and young people that ensures their stable and successful transition into adulthood. - CSDG
As a whole, CSDG is focused on:
- Shaping a policy environment that reflects positive outcomes for vulnerable young people in care or with special educational needs and disabilities
- Promoting a model of children’s services commissioning and delivery focused on meeting the individual needs of each child
- Encouraging greater collaborative working in the children’s services sector, particularly between commissioners and providers, to ensure the best outcomes are delivered cost efficiently
- Campaigning for services for children with complex needs to be viewed in the context of ‘whole life’ outcomes – with a view to enabling a successful transition to independent, fulfilling adult lives
Our membership consists of like-minded children’s services providers who aim to:
- Prioritise children’s wellbeing and individual needs in the delivery of services
- Maintain consistently high-quality services, as reflected in our strong Ofsted ratings
- Deliver outcomes-focused children’s services
- Invest in high-quality services and innovate to improve outcomes for children
- Engage constructively in policy debates
