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