Agenda item

Paula Jemson, Head of Looked after children and Corporate Parenting will provide the action plan regarding permanence 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 six priorities 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 Manager went through each of the priorities and identified what has been achieved since the action plan had been last updated. Full details of these were outlined in the report which had been circulated to the Board prior to the meeting.

 

The Manager outlined the impact/ data and performance; these being:

 

 

 

ü  Overall in the lasts 12 months, the looked after populations has reduced from 544 children in August 2021 to 535 in August 2022 (1.6% reduction).  There has been a 23.7% reduction in the overall numbers of looked after children since the height of 702 in September 2020. 

 

ü  The rate per 10,000 has reduced from 164.2 in August 2021 to 161.5 in August 2022. 

 

ü  In 21/22, 24 children secured Adoption Orders.  This was significantly higher than any of the neighboring authorities. 

 

ü  The average number of days our children wait between securing a Placement Order and being matched to an adoptive family has reduced for 301 days in 20/21 to 189 days 21/22

 

ü  There has been a total of 50 children secure permanence through the granting of a Special Guardianship Orders in the last 12 months.  

 

ü  Connected Carers – There are currently 141 children in connected carers placements.  This has reduced from a height of 212 in 2020. This is a reduction of 33.4%.  The trend is showing an increase in the number of children in Connected Carers placements.

 

ü  Placement with Parents – There are currently 51 children placed with parents.  This has reduced from a height of 99 children in September 2020 (48.4% reduction)

 

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

 

ü  There has been a 12.8% reduction in school suspension from 2019/20 to 2021/22

 

ü  Only 1.3% of looked after children are receiving less than 25 hours education (7 children).  Of which there is an action plan and oversight from Virtual School with regards to each child. 

 

 

In terms of 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.

Finally, the manager provided information on the next steps:

 

·        Life Story Work compliance and quality to continue be driven

·        Progress the commissioning of Arcbox to support the quality of Life Story Work

·        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.

·        Recruitment of permanent staff

·        Practice Week in October 2022 to support staff development