Agenda and draft minutes
PDF 222 KBVenue: Virtual Meeting
Contact: Susie Blood 01642729645
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Apologies for Absence Apologies for Absence Minutes: Apologies were received from Councillor McTigue and Councillor Garvey. |
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Declarations of Interest To receive
any declarations of interest. Minutes: There were
no declarations of interest received at this point in the meeting. |
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Minutes- Corporate Parenting Board - 17 September 2020 The minutes of the xxxx held on xxxx were submitted and approved as a correct record. Minutes: The minutes of the Corporate Parenting Board held on 17 September 2020 were read and accepted as a true record. |
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Actions - 17 September 2020 The Democratic Services Officer will present the actions taken from the meeting on 17 September 2020. Minutes: The Democratic
Services officer provided an update on the actions taken at the meeting on 17
September 2020 and outstanding actions from previous meetings. AGREED-
That the actions be noted |
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Feedback from Ofsted Monitoring Visit The Director of Children's Services will provide feedback from the recent Ofsted monitoring visit. Minutes: The Director of Children's services provided feedback to the
Board following the recent Ofsted monitoring visit. The Director first outlined that Children's Services now had a
new logo- Middlesbrough Children Matter, which was a positive step and would
provide focus. The Board were made aware that this was the first virtual
inspection , which had been carefully planned and carried out of 2 days.
Prior to the inspection, the Council had provided documents and evidence
for the Inspectors. During the visit, the inspectors reviewed the progress made at
the 'front door' of the service, with a focus on: ·
the quality and screening of referrals, ·
the identification of and response to risk, ·
the understanding by partner agencies of threshold
decisions for social work support, ·
and the quality of initial assessment and planning A range of evidence was considered, including electronic
case records, case discussions with social workers, the elected member for
children’s services and senior leaders, and management and performance reports
provided by the local authority. Overall findings Ofsted outlined that the local authority has made some
progress in improving certain areas. The word some is used by Ofsted as a mean
of evidence progress. The areas of improvement were as follow: ·
the social work practice in their ‘front door’ service ·
the immediate response to 16-17-year-old homeless young
people ·
performance monitoring including a new quality assurance
framework ·
their strategic oversight of services for children and
young people. The Board were made aware that in terms of the multi-agency
Children's Hub (MACH), Middlesbrough had a joint MACH with Redcar and
Cleveland, however from the first inspection, it was evident that Middlesbrough
did not have sufficient oversight of the service and therefore it was decided
to disaggregate, which has been great progress. Despite the progress the Director outlined that it was
pointed out that leaders know that there is significant work to do
in improving the quality of practice for children and young people in other
areas of the service which remains not good enough. The Director outlined some of the strengths of findings: Leadership ·
The Director of Children's Services has demonstrated
a determination and vision for improving the quality of interventions that will
make a difference for children and their families. ·
There is a continuing commitment from the Chief Executive
and lead member both of whom are fully engaged in the improvement work. ·
Senior leaders have a realistic understanding of the
endemic weakness in social work practice informing an appropriately focused
improvement plan. ·
There has been an exponential increase in demand due to a
necessary change in the application of thresholds for service, and a lack of
throughput of children’s cases. ·
Manager oversight has also improved some areas of social
work practice, but this is not consistent. The supervision of social workers is
not always regular or effective. · Caseloads are too high and are affecting social workers’ ability to provide a timely service for children and their families. The Director outlined that the service was embarking on a significant piece of work ... view the full minutes text for item 20/34 |
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Voice of the Child /Participation update The Voice of the Child Participation Co-Ordinator will provide an update to the Board in relation to the work to expand the voice of the child. The Support officer for the Member of Youth Parliament for Middlesbrough (MYP) will provide a verbal update from the representatives. Minutes: The
Chair welcomed the Voice of the Child Coordinator to provide an update to the
Board on work surrounding participation and work of our member of Youth
Parliament for Middlesbrough. The Coordinator firstly thanked the Board for
making Participation a standard item The
Panel were pleased to hear of their progress and looked forward to future
updates.
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Multi- Agency Looked After Children Partnership (MALAP) - Relaunch The Chair of Corporate Parenting Board will present a proposal to the Board in respect to relaunching the MALAP. Minutes: The Chair of Corporate Parenting Board provided the Board
with a presentation in relation to rethinking the Multi agency looked after
partnership (MALAP) and how the Corporate Parenting Board could work more
effectively with the MALAP. The Chair advised that she had been working with the Vice
Chair, Director and Children's Services and the Director of Children's Care to
highlight some of the issues with the MALAP, including for example, how it
feedbacks to the Corporate Parenting Board, ways of engagement, the need for
clear strategies to raise awareness and developments and the need to address
concerns raised from the Ofsted report. In order to do this, the Board were made aware of the need
to rethink priorities and aims of the MALAP, to include: 1. covering topic areas related to MALAP activity and
deliver against Corporate Parenting Board strategies 2. connect with priorities of Children Looked After 3. devise a workable strategy whose outcomes may be easily
reported back to CPB 4. engage members of CPB 5. be readily accountable for the delivery of outcomes and
able to consider ways forward. By doing this, the Chair outlined that we were linking to
the guiding principles of care leavers (e.g. your home, your friends and family
and your needs and wishes) as well linking to the priorities of care leavers
(e.g. prevention on the edge of care, permanency planning and voice,
participation and influence). The Chair therefore outlined that it was hoped that in order
for the Corporate Parenting Board to challenge and contribute to the MALAP,
this could be done through a series of spotlight reports, which would: 1. decide upon relevant topic 2. organise a group of members of CPB to investigate 3. investigations to be completed between each CPB meeting 4. results reported back to meeting(agenda item) 5. evaluation of findings 6. actions determined 7. make decisions to implement changes/improvements 8. review methodology after some SPOTLIGHT reports 9. Support offered to all members conducting investigations 10. verification that reports are accountable and validated
through Performance Management and Quality Assurance processes. Suggested topics could look at: • the role of members in Corporate Parenting • young people delivering training to corporate parents • life story work • meeting children’s health needs and improving performance
in health assessments • children placed at a distance from town • The offer to care leavers (to link with Care Leavers Week) From discussions and from
agreement from Board members, it was agreed that the first spot light report
would conduct a review into how other Corporate Parenting Boards in other
Councils Local Authorities as work effectively together. The objectives of the
review would be to : 1. to investigate practice elsewhere 2. to compare practice 3. to tease out aspects of excellent practice 4. to ascertain to what extend we can adapt our practice to
make it excellent 5. To implement improvements 6. 4 members will work on the spotlight report- Councillors
Garvey, Higgins, Walker and Wright 7. Each member will be ... view the full minutes text for item 20/36 |
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The Police and their support towards Children Looked After Detective Chief Inspector 754 Deb Fenny from Cleveland Police will provide a presentation to the Board. Minutes: The
Chair welcomed Chief Inspector Deb Fenny from Cleveland Police to the meeting.
Although The Chief Inspector had been present at previous meetings of the Board,
the Chair had sent some questions prior to the meeting to gather further
insight to her role within the Force and with children looked after. The
Chief Inspector answered the following questions: Please could you provide an overview of your work and your
contact areas’. The
Chief Inspector outlined that she was Lead in the Force for child abuse and
vulnerable adults across the 4 local authority areas. She also lead a special
detective team that dealt with child abuse and lead management of the MACH on
the south side. The
Chief Inspectors role also engaged services within the centre of Middlesbrough
that support victims of domestic abuse, vulnerable adults and sex offender
management unit. Further
to this, the Chief Inspector sits on the Quality and assurance group and Chairs
the development and working group for the South side whilst sitting on the
equivalent on the North. The
Chief Inspector further added she was the lead in the force for the Encompass
project which worked with schools. How can you support us in our role as corporate parents? The
Chair Inspector had a place on Middlesbrough's Corporate Parenting Board and
also sits on other local authorities Boards, Stockton being the main. The
Inspector would act as the main conduit for the Police and outlined she would
be happy to share learning and initiatives from other local authorities with
the Board. How
do you see your role fitting into the wider improvement plan within children’s
services? E.g. Partnership working generally, the multi-agency safeguarding
arrangements, police powers of protection, development of the MACH, strategy
discussion meetings. In
terms of the wider improvement plan, the Chief Inspector outlined that she had
oversight of all of the MACH and overseeing the restructuring of the teams
resources. This was a large piece of work for the Chief Inspector and the
Improvement team, and they had employed an outside agency to look at their
capacity and demand on resources to ensure their work was succinct and ensure
that the Police work more coherently with partners. How is your service supporting the Future for Families HUB and
wider children looked after work within Middlesbrough? The
Board were made aware that the Police have a present within the HUB, however
this was not within the Chief Inspectors remit. Are you aware of the wider Middlesbrough Children’s matters
work? Lastly,
the Chief Inspector advised that she was aware of the work and had been part of
strategic and operational meetings. However if there were specific themes and
issues which needed to be discussed, she would need further details prior to
contributing from a police perspective. The
Chair thanked the Chief Inspector for her contribution and outlined that having
a police presence on the Board was essential to ensuring everyone was on the
same page for our vulnerable children in Middlesbrough. There was a ... view the full minutes text for item 20/37 |
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Virtual Schools update The Head of Virtual schools will provide a verbal update to the Board. Minutes: The Head of Virtual schools was in attendance
following a request from the Corporate Parenting Board in relation to
transition of Children Looked after from
year 11 to 12 and year 5 to 6. The Corporate Parenting Board
has also requested the data in relation to Key stage 4 results, however the
Head of Virtual schools advised that these results were not yet validated,
however the Board had a right to query and therefore she would provide an
overview of results. In terms of transitions,
the Board were advised of the following: Year 11 to year 12 ·
There
were 40 children in year 11 who transited to year 12 whilst in the care of
Middlesbrough Local authority. All children are Rated RAG on complexity of the
transition need. ·
7 (17%)
RAGed red in June meaning we thought these young people were at the greatest
risk of becoming Not in Education, employment or training (NEET). ·
9 (22%)
Young People where RAGed yellow indicating there were some barriers to overcome
but the local authority were confident in securing placement for those young
people. ·
5 (12%)
young people are currently NEET with very complex backgrounds. The Local
authority predicted 7 as they were able
to secure placement for two complex young people. ·
34 (85%)
of Young people went onto education placements, 11 went to different placements
from where they had planned to go in July (e.g. had enrolled on a hair and
beauty course but changed courses) but none the less entered Further education. ·
The Local
authority now have 54 Young people in Year 12 which is a 14 Young person increase since July ·
With a
total of 15 NEET (meaning 10 new to care
are NEET) ·
There are
47 young people in Year 13 ·
17 being NEET. ·
23 are in
Education ·
4 Are in
Employment or training ·
In total
there are 101 post 16 students. ·
69% of
Care Leavers are in Education Employment or Training ·
31% are
NEET In term
of support for those young people who are NEET, the Head of Virtual schools
outlined that there has been significant work undertaken to address this.
Councillor M Smiles, Executive Member for Communities and Education had
attended the Virtual school governing body and a discussion had taken place to
how we can ink children looked after into Council apprenticeships.
The Virtual schools had been working with the Interim Head of Looked after
children and Corporate parenting to assign every young person with key worker from the pathways team and there
had been some discussion surrounding establishing a virtual college. Year 6 Transition ·
There are 27 Students in Year 6 ·
All
students have a school place ·
81% are
educated in the borough (which is approx. 22 students ) ·
70 % have
been in care for over 12 months (approx. 19) ·
Male/
Female split around 50/50 ·
24 in
mainstream schools ·
2 in
Special Schools ·
1 in an
Alternative Provision End of key stage 4 The Head of Virtual Schools advised that Board that the ... view the full minutes text for item 20/38 |
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Mental Health Assessments for Children looked After Head of Virtual
Schools will provide a verbal update to the Board. The Manager of Headstart will also provide some information into the work
undertaken within the Headstart service.. Minutes: Meeting deferred |
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Corporate Parenting Board Strategy- Consultation The Director of Children's Care and the Children’s Services Programme Manager will provide a presentation to the Board in respect to the consultation on the Corporate Parenting Strategy. Minutes: The Project support officer for the Corporate Parenting
Programme was in attendance to provide an overview of the Corporate Parenting
Strategy. The Board were made aware that the Programme Manager for the project
was Rachel Farnham and the Project support officer had been involved in project
work, part of this has been in the improvement board, in which the Corporate Parenting
Strategy has been developed with Directors and key officers. AGREED- ·
That the information be noted ·
That a further session to discuss the Corporate Parenting
Strategy be arranged. |
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Any other urgent items which in the opinion of the Chair, may be considered. |