Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed all attendees to the meeting and explained the fire evacuation procedures.

To receive any declarations of interest.

There were no declarations of interest received at this point in the meeting.

The minutes of the You Matter to Us - Corporate Parenting Board meeting held on 30 January 2025 were submitted and approved as a correct record.

**SUSPENSION OF COUNCIL PROCEDURE RULE NO. 4.13.2 - ORDER OF BUSINESS**

In accordance with Council Procedure Rule No. 4.57, the Board agreed to vary the order of business to deal with the items in the following order: 6, 5, 7 and 8.

The Voice and Influence Manager and a Care Ambassador provided a Care Experienced Youth Voice update to the Board.

As a preliminary, the Board was advised that two of the Care Ambassadors had recently stepped down from the role after an 18-month period.  The Chair wished to express his gratitude to them both and requested that a note of thanks be recorded in the minutes.

The following matters were raised as part of the update:

·        The Care Ambassadors had met with Pathways and were developing an engagement and events plan for 2025.  They would all meet once a month to review progress.

·        The Care Ambassadors had met with the Head of Corporate Parenting and Fostering to discuss progress and would continue to meet every six weeks - to include other key decision makers.

·        The Care Ambassadors would be asked to support several events during Social Work Week.

·        The ‘We Matter’ group - Middlesbrough’s Children in Care Council (CiCC) - had received a visit from the Fostering Service Manager, who had sought views around the fostering feedback forms that cared for young people were given. This work currently continued.

·        Two members of the ‘We Matter’ group who would be attending the Regional CiCC residential in April, had attended a regional meeting hosted by Sunderland.  All the cared for and care experienced young people present were asked their views on what should be discussed at this year’s regional CiCC conference.  Views were sought on digital inclusion and they were provided with information pertaining to the residential.  The Care Ambassador would also be attending the residential.

·        The ‘We Matter’ group worked with the fostering service to host an event at Jump 360.  Two members attended and supported 16 young people to have a voice.  The fostering team asked those who fostered about their experiences, and the fostered young people were asked questions about who they approached for support, how they shared their views in their cared for meeting, and what they thought about using an app to share their views.

·        The Voice, Influence and Change Group met on the first Wednesday of every month.  Numbers were still low and Pathways were working hard to encourage attendance from their young adults.  Pathways would identify two champions in the team to promote participation and events; one member of Pathways would attend the group meetings.

·        The Voice, Influence and Change Group would be holding a social event on 26 March 2025 for the young adults to come together for food and fun.

·        Over the next few months, the Care Ambassadors hoped that a decision would be made regarding the opportunities and incentives that should be made available to care experienced young adults, including Apprenticeships and Volunteering.

·        The Change the Language initiative would go live mid-March 2025.

During discussion, the following points were raised:

·        The Mayor referred to proposals regarding the Middlesbrough Priorities Fund and corporate parenting.  It was hoped that the matter would be resolved within the next two months.

·        The Director of Children’s Care advised  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24/22

The Chair welcomed Kamini Shah, Consultant in Dental Public Health, NHS England for North East and Yorkshire, to the meeting, who delivered a presentation to the Board.

The presentation focused on the following topics:

·        Service Evaluation of a Tees Valley Dental Access Referral Pathway for Safeguarding Clinicians Assessing Children in Care; and

·        Dental Attendance for Children in Care: Facilitators and Barriers.

As part of the presentation, Members were appraised of several matters, including:

·        The requirement for every child in care to receive an annual dental check-up.  It was explained that having monitored this, Local Authorities had identified problems with provision.  Statistics in respect of 2021/22 were provided as follows:

·        The aims of the Tees Valley Safeguarding Referral Pilot.

·        The Tees Valley Dental Access Care Pathway for children having child protection medicals and ‘children in our care’ health assessments (Initial and Review Health Assessments).

·        Audit referral data for the period January - July 2023.

·        Quotations from various professionals, including Community and Consultant Paediatricians and Children in Care Nurses, on the importance and rationale for commissioning a dental access referral pathway, and the impact of it on general dental access, referrers and families.

·        Conclusions from the pilot, which included: the identification of significantly unmet dental needs; that the dental access referral pathway had addressed a gap in services for safeguarding clinicians to refer children requiring general dental care; that there was variability in referral rates and patterns, which could be optimised with further updates to clinical referral teams; and recognition of a need for mechanisms for post-referral follow-up to be more robustly implemented.

·        Facilitators and barriers around dental attendance for Children in Care in Stockton-on-Tees were highlighted, which included the positive impact that seeing the same dentist, and having matters explained to them, could have on attendance. Other carer-reported facilitators to improve access included: oral health passport; referral to a named dental practice; and convenient appointment times, i.e. after work or school.  Barriers included: school commitments; difficulties obtaining time off work; the child being refused; and child behaviour concerns.

·        In terms of Stockton-on-Tees, Children in Care had good access to and positive experiences of dental care, and the implementation of a dental access referral pathway may have contributed to increased attendance rates.

·        Recommendations arising from the pilot, for the attention of the North East North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (NENC ICB) and to Local Authorities, were highlighted.  Regarding the NENC ICB, these concerned:

o   The continued commissioning of dental practices to provide facilitated services, and to provide ongoing updated lists of these to clinical teams.

o   The consideration of extending the referral pathway to other NENC areas and safeguarding professionals.

o   Further work/evaluation to explore the views  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24/23

The Director of Children’s Care provided information to the Board in relation to service performance.  Members were referred to the ‘Children’s Services Analysis Tool (ChAT)’ document, which was based on Ofsted’s ILACS Annex A dataset / Inspection Report, and which had been circulated as part of the agenda pack.

The snapshot data for the last six months covered the following areas:

• Children Looked After (CLA) started and ceased in the last six months.
• CLA with an open episode of care.
• CLA Placements.
• CLA Health and Missing / Absent from Placement.
• Care Leavers Eligibility, PA Allocation and Pathway Plans.
• Care Leavers Demographics and UASC.
• Care Leavers Pathway Plan and Contact Timescales.
• Care Leavers PA Allocation and In Touch.
• Care Leavers Accommodation Suitability and Type.
• Care Leavers Activity (Education, Employment, or Training).

Members heard that there were 508 children currently in care which, statistically, was of a similar level to neighbouring local authorities.  It was indicated that preventative work was a key driver in reducing the number of children entering care.  Increased work in the gateway system; the implementation of family hubs; and work with SHiFT were some of the initiatives being undertaken.

In response to an enquiry from a Member regarding the number of CLA started and ceased in the last six months, the Board was advised that there had been a reduction in those numbers.  There were several potential reasons behind this - work was currently taking place to insert additional categories within the dataset to help identify these.

In terms of pathway plans, it was explained that the Pathways team had been undertaking work with colleagues in Islington to further develop service provision.  A short discussion ensued in relation to the model adopted by Islington and the barriers that faced Middlesbrough.  Consideration was given to staff training and turnover.  The importance of performance, quality and consistency in planning performance was highlighted.

Regarding missing incidents and return home interviews, it was indicated that all CLA with a missing incident (72 of 580 within the last 12 months) had been offered a return to home interview.  68% of these had been accepted.  A weekly report of the respective statistics was generated.

The Chair thanked the Director of Children’s Care for the report.

NOTED

None.