Agenda item

The Head of Strategic Services will provide an update to the Board.

 

The Board will also be introduced to the new Participation Officer.

The Head of Strategic services was welcomed to the meeting and started by providing a background to the importance of participation. The Board were made aware that the Improvement plan was currently being revised and there were 5 key priorities, participation being one of these. This was a key step in children services' roadmap for improvement for the next 6 months.

 

Within the next 6 months the service aimed to show Middlesbrough children that they matter. The service was doing this through engagement with young people and their families to try and shape services. Once the improvement plan had been signed off by the improvement Board there would be further updates to the Board.

 

Recruitment changes

 

The Board were advised that Marcus Myrie, was now in post as the Participation officer.

 

Marcus would be developing the social care participation element of the operational plan and children in care council. Both Marcus and Laurie Hunter had been working with colleagues within social care to develop the council's future running of the participation groups/ children in care council and have been looking at ways they views can be sought from young people who do not wish to attend these groups and how the service can use these in a meaningful way. The Participation officer was also working with social care and early help to ascertain views of those children elsewhere within social care, for example those children on child protection plans and ensuring their voice is heard within our participation work. The proposal will be presented to the Children's Care Management Team and Directors of Children's Care and once approved, the proposal and roadmap would be presented back to the Corporate Parenting Board.

 

Children in Care Council

 

In the meantime, the Participation officer has been keeping in touch with the groups virtually and via weekly telephone calls and encouraging them to get involved with these future proposals. The officer has also been talking to young people who may wish to join and they are looking to hold the first meeting face to face, which would work better for this age cohort.

 

Care leavers forum

 

This has continued virtually on a fortnightly service and the officers have been working with the care leavers service (Pathways) to develop this forum and seek views from a range of diverse young people. The service was doing this by improved communication, improving the way the personal assistants work with the care leavers service and looking at how they can set the agenda and work stream so that Middlesbrough young people feel valued and listened too and will help shape services for the future.

 

The service has also been working with social care collogues to develop voice and influence champions through the social work force, which was part of the Centre for practice excellence. The Service has been working with the Participation counterparts across the region and developing plans to move from Covid to recovery. The Head of service also advised that they were seeking advice nationally with regard to engaging with hard to reach groups, as predominantly they work with the same cohort of young people from the same background, so they are working at locality level and communities.

 

Middlesbrough Youth Council

 

The Middlesbrough Youth Council was developing and going from strength to strength. The Council was now working as team and looking at areas which would bring forward strategic priorities.

 

·         In the latest meeting, the Council focused on team building and had a fun session.

·         In the session the members took part in a quiz, played games, and had the opportunity to speak to other young people in breakout rooms, which went really well. These sessions will be done on a monthly basis.

·         Session times now last an hour as the young people felt that an hour and a half was too long.

·         The most recent feedback form showed that the young people really enjoyed this session, and the majority voted it as a 5/5.

·         In the next session, we are introducing Hot Topics suggested young people

·         Chair role  has changing slightly, with Muskaan (Middlesbrough’s Member of Youth Parliament) being a compere and other young people choosing topics they’d like to lead on. They will be called Topic Managers.

·         Chair role is changing to involve other less confident young people by them only leading a 10 minute topic rather than an hour meeting as this could be daunting for some.

 

 

Staffing of the participation team

 

In terms of changes within the Participation Team, there was currently a recruitment process taking place for the Participation Team Manager (previously held by Beth Bradshaw) and the advert would be sent out In the next week. The Strategic Manager and Director of Children Services' have also been speaking to professionals in the field to ensure Middlesbrough attracts the right candidate.

 

In terms of engagement, the Care Leavers' Forum has had a direct involvement in terms of writing the job description and identifying what they would like the candidates' qualities to be and this would be sent out with the advert.

 

The Participation Officer offered an introduction to the Board and advised that he was starting to understand his role and how it links to the improvement plan.  Following his introduction, a Board member asked how he intended to increase the attendance at groups such a mini Children in Care Council and Children in Care Council. In response, the officer outlined that they had put in place a plan and we have young people's contacts from the social work team. The officer advised that he was contacting them once a week to maintain contact prior to face to face contact.

 

The Chair thanked the officers for their update.

 

AGREED- That the update be noted.