The Director of Children Service’s will
provide a verbal update to the
Board.
Minutes:
The Director of Children’s
Social Care provided an update in relation to Covid
19. The Director advised that schools returned on 8 March 2021 and have now
returned from the Easter break and are learning and teaching.
The impact of bubbles
collapsing in schools due to covid-19 was currently low, however there were
plans in place in case a third wave of the virus. Testing in schools across Middlesbrough was also working well.
From a social care
perspective, the service had seen an increase in demand in terms of front door
contact and referrals since 8 March 2021. In March, there were almost 300 more
contacts than in February 2021. This was a similar trend to September 2020 when
restrictions were eased, so there is a continuation and this was being
monitored.
Sickness levels
within the service remain stable and relatively low. This information is
recorded to the Strategic Improvement Board and other parts of the Council
Children
Looked after and school attendance
The Director
handed over to the Virtual School Head who advised the Board that since schools
returned 90% of looked after children were in school and this percentage was in
line with Redcar and Cleveland.
As the Virtual
school was an improvement journey, they would like attendance to improve and
were working with families/ looked after children to address this. The Virtual
school was also working alongside the Head of Looked After
Children and Corporate Parenting to address this at a strategic level. The Head
advised that they have systems in place whereby they will receive daily
information from schools on attendance levels of looked after children. This
data will indicate whether an absence is authorised or
unauthorised. They have set up weekly meetings which
consists of the Virtual School Head, a manager from the looked after children
team and representatives from health and they use this as a triage system.
Within these meetings they will discuss all the barriers which prevent children
from attending school (from health needs etc) and we
complete this information into a decision making tool, which is sent forwarded
to the Team manager and social worker and from there, they will make a choice
as to whether action needs to be taken.
From these
meetings, the Head of Looked after children and Corporate Parenting Board
outlined that they have been able to identity a number of looked after children
who require targeted intervention to get them back into school.
In terms of
additional work, any actions agreed are included within the personal education
plan (PEP) , so that the young person and school are
aware of these steps.
The Chair asked
whether Welfare call could be explained further as she was aware Middlesbrough utlised this
system.
In response, the
Head of Virtual Schools outlined that Middlesbrough
contracted Welfare Call in 2016 and they will ring schools and ask whether Middlesbrough's looked after children are in attendance d
if not, the reasons behind this. This information is then uploaded onto an icloud ,
where the Head of Virtual schools has assess too. It was also discussed that welfare call may
also be rolled out to use for Middlesbrough's
children in need and child protection cohort.
The Chair
thanked the Director and officers for their update.
AGREED- That the
information be noted.