To approve and endorse the Corporate Parenting Strategy and Care Leavers covenant.

The cabinet member children and families introduced the report. She noted that all councillors and officers were corporate parents and that everyone would want to ensure that the children and young people in the council’s care were happy, fulfilled and had the best possible opportunities for a good quality of life. The strategy outlined how the council would work with partners to achieve this. A 16-plus champion had recently been appointed who would support this work and look to develop opportunities for children and young people with experience of care.

The head of looked after children highlighted the key points of the strategy including:

·         An aim to ensure that children and young people in care had the opportunity to achieve the same or better than their peers;

·         The corporate parenting panel had worked to develop the new strategy including representation from foster carers and from the children in care council;

·         The key priorities broke down the main areas where the council wanted to see improvements in outcomes;

·         The care leavers covenant was a new approach for the council and fitted with a national initiative which looked to improve outcomes for care leavers specifically;

·         The council hoped to work with local businesses and the third sector to ask them to sign up to their own covenants saying what more they could do to improve outcomes from care leavers;

·         Amendments had been made following recommendations from the children and young people scrutiny committee.

In discussion of the report cabinet members noted that:

·         while it was sometimes necessary to reflect the terminology used in legislation, feedback from young people was that they did not like the term ‘LAC’ so there was an effort to use language they were more comfortable with;

·         alternatives to the term ‘corporate parenting’ were discussed and would be raised with the corporate parenting panel;

·         the coronavirus had forced young people in care to spend more time with their foster families, while some had found this period challenging others had found it beneficial in providing stability;

·         the epidemic had also seen a reduction in the availability of foster placements and this remained a concern through the autumn and winter;

·         Each of the leads for the priority areas would develop a detailed action plan which would be reported back to the corporate parenting panel.

The impact of instability in social worker assignments was discussed. It was felt that as this was something the council was struggling with it should be included more explicitly in the strategy. The cabinet member finance and corporate services proposed that recommendation (a) in the report be altered to reflect that the draft strategy would be amended to expand upon the priority to provide a safe and stable home, instead providing a safe and stable life.

Group leaders and representatives were invited to give the views and queries of their respective groups. The strategy was welcomed and key points were noted as:

·         it was suggested that creative sources should have more input to young people’s lives;

·         there had been good improvements in attainment and resolving accommodation issues;

·         in addition to mandatory corporate parenting training, all councillors were routinely invited to attend meetings of the corporate parenting panel as a means of understanding its work and an annual update on the strategy would be reported to cabinet;

·         other methods of providing training and raising awareness were being explored;

·         attainment and ambitions were captured as part of the personal education plan review meetings with each child and used to support children and young people for example through participation with particular projects or work experience;

·         it was queried whether the strategy should be more explicit about the aim to enable children to leave care as soon as possible but the head of looked after children explained that this was already captured in other documents such as the children and young people plan and that the corporate parenting strategy focussed on achievements for children while in care;

·         early intervention was key and the council worked closely with the police, the new domestic abuse hub was still in the early stages but was proving effective and investment had been made in early help services ;

·         the appointment of a champion for the 16 to 25 age group was welcomed;

·         it was suggested that the strategy could reference active support for alternatives to care and explain where to find more information in other policy and strategy documents.

The vice chair of the children and young people scrutiny committee welcomed the fact that young people had been involved in drawing up the strategy. She highlighted that the scrutiny committee had sought a number of points of clarification which had been addressed, supported the use of plain English as much as possible and shared the concerns about staff turnover and recruitment of foster carers.

It was agreed that:

(a)          the draft corporate parenting strategy 2020 – 2023 (appendix A) is approved as amended to expand upon the safe and stable life; 

(b)          Cabinet agrees to receive an annual report on Corporate Parenting to enable progress of the strategy to be monitored; and

(c)          Cabinet agrees the Care Leavers covenant (appendix B) is approved.