Agenda item

 

Siobhan Davies, Principal Social Worker & Service Manager will present the IRO Annual report to the Board.

 

 

The Interim Principe Social Worker was in attendance to provide an overview of the Independent reviewing officers’ (IRO’s) annual report.

 

The report was a statutory requirement and provided information on the Independent Reviewing Officers (IROs) and their contribution to improving outcomes for children in care, care leavers. In Middlesbrough the IROs have a dual role and therefore the report included those children subject to a Protection Plan. The report focuses on the reporting year April 2020 to March 2021.

 

. The statutory duties of the IRO are set out in Section 25B (1) Children Act 1989;

 

·         Monitor the performance by the Local Authority of their functions in relation to the child’s case;

·         Participate in any review of the child’s case;

·         Ensure that any ascertained wishes and feelings of the child concerning the case are given due consideration by the appropriate authority; and

·         Perform any other function which is prescribed in Care Planning Regulations.

There are two clear and separate aspects of the function of an IRO:

 

1.    Chairing the child’s review; and

2.    Monitoring the child’s case on an ongoing basis.

In Middlesbrough there are 14 IROs overseen by 2 team managers. The service has increased in capacity.

 

Over the year period, there has been a significant demand on the service. As the IRO’s have a dual role, there was also a demand and there was a larger number of children requiring a child protection plan and therefore the caseloads for an IRO increased to just over 100 during the reporting period.

 

This has been addressed by introducing the team managers and there is additional agency staff to reduce the number of children per IRO.

 

The report was based on - If Middlesbrough was a village of 100 population, what would that mean for our children, in terms of number and performance and what does that performance mean for our children?

 

The Officer provided the Board with key messages about children in care and what the quality assurance tells us about children in care, all details were included within the report.

 

 

In terms of improvements for children in care, the service wishes to:

 

·         Ensure children to have plans of permanence as early as possible, and to be part of developing their own plan.

·         That all children (at least 95%) to be seen before their review by their IRO, as well as keeping in touch between reviews to make sure that children and young people benefit from having a relationship with their IRO. For children who are not living in their forever home, this should be more often so that the IRO knows that the plan for the child is progressing, and if it’s not, then this can be addressed as soon as possible.

·         That IROs to raise issues (using the Issues Resolution Process) when there are concerns about the timeliness and quality of all plans for children, this includes care plans for permanence, EHCPs, PEPs and Health plans.

·         IROs will be working on making sure everyone who cares for the children and works with children has high aspirations, which means have high hope, dreams and goals.

·         If IROs make recommendations about what should happen for you, they need to make sure they are SMART

Feedback regarding IROs has been reassuring, and comments have included for example:

My IRO is great I have had her for a while now and she always makes sure I’m heard and my wishes are pushed f My IRO is great I have had her for a while now and she always makes sure I’m heard and my wishes are pushed forward. I think the IRO system is very useful - CHILD

 

The Interim Principle Social Worker further discussed the key messages for children on a child protection plans.

In terms of improvements, the Board were made aware that the service wish to:

·         Ensure all children  have a child protection in conference in timescales, unless there is exceptional circumstances (so 95% of the time).

·         When the conference takes place, the service want everyone to feel properly prepared, particularly parents and the child. The service want children to feel able to attend and speak at their conference, but if this isn’t possible we want to make sure that children’s views are gathered by professionals or an advocate and meaningfully contribute to the conference.

·         The service want to make sure that between conferences, the conference chair continues to check on the progress of plans, and if there is any worries about the plan not achieving the agreed outcomes, then the IRO will swiftly raise an issue. It’s important this is done in a constructive way as a critical friend, working with the Social Worker and other professionals to address issues as early as possible for children. This will include making sure that Core Group Meetings happen regularly.

·         The service want children to have child protection plans that quickly make a positive difference, this means we will have less children with plans that last over 15-months. And want less children to have more than 1 child protection plan.

To achieve the goals for children with a protection plan the service  will hold regular challenge clinics to increase oversight from Managers and Senior Managers. These clinics help us to understand any patterns in practice that we might need to change. During 2020/21 there has been challenge clinics on;

 

·         Children with a protection plan over 15-months

·         Children who have had more than 1 protection plan.

 very useful - CHIL

In terms of priorities for 2021/22 the Interim Principle Social worker outlined that the IRO improvement journey will remain closely linked to the Children’s Services Improvement Plan and the priorities for 2021/22 will be;

 

·         Maintain compliance with KPI’s (ICPC, RCPC, CLA Review timeliness)

·         Increase child participation, including visits before reviews

·         Mid-way reviews for all children is a minimum standard, with increased continuous oversight for those without stability and permanence

·         Increased scrutiny and challenge when permanence is not achieved in a timely way

·         Strengthen the impact of IRO Challenge and demonstrate IROs have high aspirations for Middlesbrough children

·         Create specialisms within the IRO Service, to better support particular groups of children i.e. care leavers, unaccompanied asylum seeking children

·         Increase support and feedback mechanisms for parents

·         IROs contribute to overall practice priorities by monitoring quality of performance

Following the presentation, the foster carer outlined that we need to ensure children in care are addressed the way they wish. In response, the Chair agreed and advised that further work was progressing on this.

 

The officer was thanked for her excellent report.

 

AGREED

That the report be noted.