Agenda item

The Head of Looked after Children and Corporate Parenting will present the action plan to the Board.

The Head of Looked after children and corporate parenting Board provided the Board with regard to progress made again the Permanence action plan.

 

The Head of service in a previous meeting had highlighted the findings by Ofsted in November 2019. This was included in the report for reference and the report was to highlight any changes/ updates since the Board were updated in October 2021.

 

The six priorities as previously discussed were as follows:

 

1.      Strengthening Permanency in Our Social Work Practice

2.      Growing Our Multi-Agency Partnerships for Permanency

3.      Reducing Drift and Delay for Achieving Permanency

4.      Improving the Way we capture and Use Our Data for Permanency

5.      Supporting Permanency in Education, Employment & Training

6.      Supporting Permanency in Education, Employment & Training

 

The Head of Service went through each of the priorities and identified what has been achieved since the permanency action plan had been to the Board in October 2021. Full details of these were outlined in the report which had been circulated to the Board prior to the meeting.

 

The Head of Service further went on to state some of the impact/ data and performance in the last 12 months:

 

·        Overall in the lasts 12 months, the looked after populations has reduced from 654 children in November 2020 to 526 in November 2021 (19.5% reduction).  There has been a 25% reduction in the overall numbers of looked after children since the height of 702 in September 2020.  In the last 12 months 205 children started to be looked after compared to 344 children ceased to be looked after.

·        The rate per 10,000 has reduced from 197.4 in November 2021 2020 to 158.8 in November 2021.  This is the lowest rate in the last 12 months and has continued to reduce consistently. 

·        Since 01 April 2021 19 Adoption Orders have been secured.  This includes:

4 children of BAME

4 sibling groups of 2

2 aged 4+

·        More children have been adopted in Middlesbrough than all other authorities in Teesside.

·        The number of days between a Placement Order being granted and a child being adopted has reduced from 558 in 209/20 to 342 in 2021/22.  

·        There are currently a further 38 children progressing to adoption with Placement Orders.  Of which only 2 children do not have confirmed links.

·        There has been a total of 76 children secure permanence through the granting of a Special Guardianship Orders in the last 12 months.  

·        Connected Carers – There are currently 124 children in connected carers placements.  This has reduced from a height of 212 in 2020.

·        Placement with Parents – There are currently 47 children placed with parents.  This has reduced from 52 children in October 2021 and from a height of 99 children in September 2020 to 58 in August 2021.  (52.5% reduction)

·        There has been a reduction in the number of children in external residential placements from 74 in June 2021 to 47 in December 2021

·        School attendance for looked after children was 91% in November 2021.

·        There have been no looked after children permanently excluded from school in the last 5 years. 

·        Only 3.1% of looked after children are receiving less than 25 hours education (11 children).  Of which there is an action plan and oversight from Virtual School of each. 

 

The Head of Service identified two risks:

·        The increase in demand across the service and across the tees valley region

·        Risks associated with the recruitment of staff in the looked after and care leaving service.

 

The Board finally heard the next steps in respect to the action plan:

 

·        Data Team to develop a Permanence Dashboard and Score Card – Performance and progress to be reported to Improvement Board and Corporate Parenting Board

·        Life Story Work compliance and quality to continue be driven

·        The ongoing reduction and tracking of the number of children residing in external residential placements

·        Progress the Permanence Action Plan and report to Improvement Board and Corporate Parenting Board

·        Practice leads deployed in to the service to improve the quality of care plans for looked after children

·        Participation People to develop attendance and provide Corporate Parenting Board with a proposed plan for the Children in Care Council.

·        The Audit to Excellence team will carry out a deep dive audit of the looked after and care leavers service in January 2022.  Audit findings to be reported back to Corporate Parenting Board.

·        Recruitment of permanent staff

 

After the presentation a number of Board members congratulated the members of staff for their work in this area.

 

A board member queried whether foster carers were involved in life story training and in response the Director of Children’s care advised that at present they had been concentrating on training a cohort of Middlesbrough Council staff to be able to support this work, however the Council were looking at purchasing a life story platform, where foster carers, parents/carers and young people could upload regular photos and updates. Foster carers have not yet been training on this, however they are critical to gaining lifestory work and the staff will support foster carers (train the trainers).

 

The slides would be made available to all members of the council to show the progress, further to this, the Director of Children’s care advised that although reducing the number of children in care was a key point, the work on the edge of care, and work on developing permanence was paramount. A briefing would also be provided. 

 

The Head of Service was thanked for her presentation.

 

AGREED- That the action plan be noted.