A report providing an overview and update in respect of the Herefordshire Corporate Parenting Service.

 

The Service Director, Safeguarding and Family Support provided an overview of the report.

 

·       The service had reduced the number of children in its care from a high of 412 in 2022/23 to a current figure of 396. It was acknowledged that this figure was still high in relation to the West Midlands and statistical neighbours, but it was on the right trajectory.

·       Significant work had been done in relation to pre-proceedings, which were now at parity with statistical neighbours.

·       The service was adopting a more restorative approach with families and was reducing the number of proceedings taking place through the use of family group conferences. There had been 29 family group conferences in the last three months and these had allowed families to come up with their own solutions and to work on plans with the service.

·       The service was reunifying children and supporting families to be together and currently had 29 children who were placed with their parents.

·       It was noted that 17 children who were due to come into care in the last quarter had been able to stay at home with support from ECHO. It was explained that ECHO was the edge of care team, which supported families with children staying at home through the use of systemic therapy and intervention of drug and alcohol workers.

·       In Herefordshire the figures for vulnerable unaccompanied asylum seeking children had risen from 6 children in 2022 to 38 at the current time. The Home Office provided some contribution towards the care of those children, but this didn’t cover the costs and it did not cover those in the post 18 age group.

·       Of the children that were currently in placements, the service had 111 in external foster care and 92 in-house. An area of strength within the service was in the number of children that had been placed in the care of family and friends who they were familiar with, this provided stability, which typically continued through for those leaving care.

·       There were currently 44 children in residential placements, this number fluctuated and was reviewed regularly. The cost of residential placements was high and it was a national challenge to try and bring the costs down. The service continued to step young people down from residential placements where appropriate.

·       The service was continuing to recruit foster carers in-house and was working with its kinship carers – both groups were paid the same amount at the basic level, although foster carers could receive a higher payment once they moved through the scheme.

·       Placement sufficiency was a key priority and the sufficiency strategy had been refreshed.

·       Support from the Leeds partners and the restorative practice model was enabling the service to work alongside families, children and carers, and the expectation was that the number of children in care would continue to decrease.

 

 

The chair invited comments and questions from The Committee, the principle points of discussion are summarised below:

 

1.     The Committee enquired if and how the restorative practice approach was changing the Corporate Parenting Service in Herefordshire and whether it was making a significant  difference in terms of how children were experiencing the care system.

 

o   The Service Director, Safeguarding and Family Support pointed out that this was the first part of the journey. All staff at the first sector had been trained, but the training now needed to be cascaded to partners and the whole of Herefordshire Council. It was making a difference and had set up a clear framework to ensure that the service was working with and not to families. Systems and forms used within the service were being changed and updated to incorporate more restorative language and techniques. The new approach was having an impact, but there was still a lack of consistency across the board, which would require continued attention.

 

2.     The Committee enquired about the differences in support between people who were kinship fosterers and people who were not fostering, but were relatives who were looking after children.

 

o   The Service Director, Safeguarding and Family Support stated that there was no difference in support between the two groups in terms of training and support provided.

 

3.     The Committee suggested that people who voluntarily decide to become foster carers frequently had more time to prepare for the change than kinship carers who were often thrust into the situation at short notice. It was asked if more funding should be made available to kinship carers to help them modify their houses and lifestyle and encourage them to take on the role and responsibility.

 

o   The Corporate Director for Children and Young People recognised and acknowledged the contribution made by kinship carers and explained that all cases were looked at on the basis of individual circumstances. The service would be looking at the recently published government national strategy for kinship and aimed to ensure there was a fair package in place for all carers.  

 

4.     The Committee suggested that discussion in the Fostering Panel had identified a potential need for closer connections and links between housing and fostering/kinship caring. It was asked if priority could be given to carers in need of suitable housing, as this might reduce the need for costly residential placements.

 

o   The Corporate Director for Children and Young People explained that the service was working with colleagues in Community Wellbeing to see if they could share approaches relating to housing and carers going forward.

 

 

5.     In response to a question from The Committee, The Service Director, Safeguarding and Family Support gave an overview of the journey a child would go through in relation to kinship care and family group conferences. The service director highlighted the potential differences between kinship care and foster care and the manner in which family dynamics arising from complex relations between children, parents and grandparents could often necessitate additional support for kinship carers.

 

6.     The Committee requested more detail regarding the staffing, training, monitoring and impact of family group conferencing within the County.

 

o   The Service Director, Safeguarding and Family Support pointed out that the number of dedicated staff had risen from two to four. There had been heavy investment in the service, including family and systemic therapists, drug and alcohol workers and specialist workers who knew how to support young people in difficult times. The number of family group conferences had tripled over the last three months and recruitment was underway to cover the expansion.

o   Regarding monitoring and impact, it was explained that the manager for that part of the service produced a monthly report detailing comments from families about the conferencing - feedback was collected after every session. The report could be made available to the Committee if it wished to see them.

o   In terms of impact, 17 children who were on the edge of care had been able to stay at home, thoe cases would be reviewed after three and six months to ensure that the intervention had had the desired outcome.

 

Action: The Service Director for Safeguarding and Family Support to provide the Committee with the monthly family group conferencing report.

 

 

7.     The Committee asked about the support older children in the system were getting regarding career and education choices and enquired whether there were any examples of where the Council had assisted young people in obtaining meaningful work experience and roles.

 

o   The Corporate Director for Children and Young People explained that the Council was a corporate parent to 393 children and that it needed to network to find work experience for children to progress. Through personal contacts, the Chair of the Corporate Parenting Board had been able to assist young people in obtaining work experience and employment in the fields of sport and policing. The Council’s legal team had also been involved in creating shadowing opportunities for youngsters interested in the legal profession.

o   The Corporate Parenting Board was currently profiling its members in order to build up a database of skills, interests and areas of expertise that might be beneficial in assisting and supporting young people in transitioning into the wider world and engaging in the things they were interested in. This profiling exercise would aid the development of ambassador roles and would be spread out further to include other councillors and colleagues from across the Council’s workforce.

 

8.     The Committee heard that the timeframe for action between initial concerns about a child being raised and a kinship placement was, between 12 and 16 weeks - certain elements of the process such as DBS and police checks could not easily be sped up. During this period the child and family would receive support from social workers, family support workers and in some instances the ECHO team.

 

9.     The Committee heard that social workers and independent review officers would listen to and capture the voice of the child prior to a kinship/foster placement, the views of professionals such as teachers would also be collated and acted on where appropriate.

 

10.  In response to a question from The Committee about placing children in private schools, The Service Director for Safeguarding and Family Support explained the service was working with a trust that arranged specific care and had identified two children that may move to residential school placements.

 

11.  The Committee enquired about unaccompanied asylum seeking children, in relation to quotas, anticipated future numbers, experience of children and whether the County had the capacity to look after the children.

 

o   The Corporate Director for Children and Young People informed the Committee that numbers had risen whilst the hotel for asylum seeking children had been open in Herefordshire, but that the hotel had now closed. The quota was 0.1% of the child population in the county, and the child population in Herefordshire had dropped from 36,000 to 34,000 so the quota would be pegged at 34.

o   The Corporate Director for Children and Young People explained that Herefordshire didn’t have sufficient infrastructure in place to support unaccompanied asylum seeking children in terms of culturally appropriate placements and support services, it didn’t have a mosque for example and quite often children were moved on to more metropolitan culturally diverse areas. The Council was currently working with commissioners to increase services and the updated Improvement Plan would contain a strategy for looking after unaccompanied asylum seeking children.

 

12.  The Committee asked if there was an increased risk of exploitation/harm to children being sent outside of the County.

 

o   The Service Director for Safeguarding and Family Support acknowledged that statistical research showed that any child placed at a distance could be at increased risk. The service had worked to place unaccompanied young people in large groups, which enabled care workers to visit all of them together. Personal advisors and social workers were visiting them more frequently and if there was any sort of problem the group would be moved together rather than on an individual basis. However, one typical advantage of placing children at distance was the improved access to mosques/places of worship and support services.

 

13.  The Committee asked how much the service knew about the preferences of asylum seeking children.

 

o   The Corporate Director for Children and Young People explained it was a mixed picture. Many children had provided positive feedback about staying in Herefordshire, whilst others had expressed a preference for staying in larger more cosmopolitan environments, where they had greater access to services and groups of peers with a similar language and culture. It was anticipated that the mixed response would change over time as Herefordshire built up its services. The challenge would be not just finding appropriate accommodation locally, but improving wraparound services in terms of language, culture, education and religion.

 

14.  The Committee stressed the importance of striking a balance between providing asylum seekers with familiar cultural connections, but simultaneously integrating them into British culture.

 

15.  The Committee enquired about the ECHO service and feedback on the service from families.

 

o   The Service Director for Safeguarding and Family Support explained that ECHO worked with both young people on the edge of care and children who were already looked after. It provided support in returning children to their families, especially those who had not lived with their family for some time. The service helped by providing additional visits and some systemic therapy for the families to understand the changes in dynamic. It also provided support with initial family group conferencing. ECHO had been in place for about two to three years and had been expanded due to the successful outcomes it was producing. It was currently meeting needs and the Committee was offered the opportunity to view the monthly report on outcomes produced by the service.

 

16.  The Committee asked about details concerning the reunification process and whether a child would first of all be supported by the edge of care service before being considered for reunification.

 

o   The Service Director for Safeguarding and Family Support explained that reviews took place every 6 months and the service continually considered whether a child should go home and if it would be safe. An assessment of parents would take place before reunification and where positive changes had occurred, a process would commence that involved increased contact and family time, along with possible overnight stays. If that went well the service would continue to build on this, but each case was individual.

 

17.  The Committee enquired as to whether reunification had been successfully rolled out in Herefordshire and if it would have an impact on the number of children within Council care.

 

o   The Service Director for Safeguarding and Family Support responded that the service had had additional resource to support some of the families and that it was a better process for considering children and families being together. It was not about bringing down numbers, but making sure children who should be at home were at home. It was also about helping parents to understand the process they had been through and what they needed to do to for their children to be returned. It was improving, but there was still a way to go.

 

18.  The Committee asked how the service was improving from an outcomes point of view and what kind of measures/indicators were being used to provide assurance that the service was achieving improved outcomes. The Committee also enquired about the key danger indicators in place that would provide early information when things weren’t going in the right direction.

 

o   The Corporate Director for Children and Young People stated that the service was working with its partners to look at referrals, contacts and multi-agency response to risk across the board. In the last four months there had been a reduction in the numbers of child protection plans (of almost 60) and the service had seen a gradual reduction in the numbers of children coming into our care over the last 12 months. There was a need to step away from the historical culture of being risk averse, where everything had escalated up through the system. The service and partners were making an impact and had seen reductions in numbers within the child in need, child protection and looked after children cohorts. The service was much more stable, with much better practice management oversight.

o   In terms of outcomes for children in care, it was explained by the corporate director that a lot of work had been done with health partners to ensure that those children got health assessments and reviews throughout the year. Many of the Herefordshire schools were rated good or outstanding and together with the virtual school they did a good job of ensuring looked after children were not educationally disadvantaged.

o   Regarding danger indicators, the greatest risk factor was stability in recruitment and the workforce. There were many excellent agency staff, but too many families had experienced a change in social worker during the year.

o   The Corporate Director for Children and Young People suggested that the greatest indicator things weren’t going right, would be if the service started to see the numbers of children coming into its care increasing again. The numbers had come down steadily over the last 18 months and the service was now performing better than the England average. It was about ensuring that the service had got the right children in its care, rather than just being focused on the numbers. However, if that number did start to turn and go in the wrong direction, then that would be an indicator that something was not right.

o   An inability to increase the proportion of the workforce that was permanent over the next year would present a significant risk for the service in terms of sustainable and embedded improvement.

 

 

19.  The Committee noted the levels of re-referrals within 12 months at 30% and repeat child protection plans at 37%, and queried whether these were acceptable levels or were children ‘boomeranging back’ a sign that discharging them was not providing them with a robust environment.

 

o   The Corporate Director for Children and Young People pointed out that the re-referral rate was at 28% and was coming down from 38% last year, with the national average being about 20%. Some re-referral within a year would be expected, as the service only stayed involved for as long it needed to at the time and then circumstances might change.

o   There was significant work going on in the MASH regarding decisions being made around contacts and referrals.

o   The re-referral rate was moving in the right direction, it was higher than it should be and the director stated that he would be more comfortable with a figure of around 20-24%.

o   Regarding the repeat child protection plans, the corporate director stated that the figures for the last two years showed a healthy performance, but the longer term picture jumped about and was symptomatic of a risk averse culture and partnership.

 

20.  The Committee enquired about the difference in responsibilities between family group conference coordinator and social workers.

 

o   The Service Director for Safeguarding and Family Support explained that family group conference coordinators support a family to come together to find their own solutions. The role of the social worker was completely separate and they were allocated to the child. The Committee was invited to observe a conference for greater insight into how the process worked.

 

Action: For the Service Director, Safeguarding and Family Support to arrange an observation of a family group conference.

 

21.  The Committee asked for further details regarding pathway plans.

 

o   The Service Director, Safeguarding and Family Support explained that a pathway plan set out all clear expectations and informed the young person about what the service would do and also what they could expect as they moved into the wider world - it should be updated after every significant event or at six months.

o   The service had a group of young people supporting it in co-producing and redesigning pathway plans. The service was required to keep in touch and support young people up until the age of 25, but often individuals might want to step away from the service and make independent choices, however should they wish to, they can return for assistance having previously stepped out.

 

22.  The Committee noted that Leeds City Council had a team that worked with under 25s who had had a child removed and enquired if Herefordshire Council had an equivalent service.

 

o   The Service Director for Safeguarding and Family Support explained that the service was looking at schemes similar to the Mockingbird programme and was also working with those within the care leaver group who had had a child. When an adoption decision was made, the recommendation for support always included an offer of support for the future, as often a family/parent may not take up immediate support, but would decide they needed it further down the line.

 

 

23.  The Committee asked for details regarding the number and structure of data analysts within the children’s service of Herefordshire Council.

 

o   The Corporate Director for Children and Young People explained that the service had a Performance and Information team consisting of analysts who compiled, collected and produced data, this team used a software tool called Power BI to bring together and present its data.

o   It was noted that whilst the Herefordshire Safeguarding Children Partnership didn’t have a dedicated analyst, each of the partners within the partnership did have analysts and performance and management information teams.

 

24.  The Committee asked for it to be noted that it would like to add arranging a visit/observation of family group conferencing and a look into the virtual school to The Committee’s work programme.

 

 

25.  The Chair of the Herefordshire Corporate Parenting Board suggested that the Committee may wish to add ‘evaluating the effectiveness of the Ambassador role’ as part of its future work programme.

 

At the conclusion of the discussion, the Committee unanimously approved the following recommendations.

 

Resolved that:

 

a) The report in respect of the Corporate Parenting Service is considered; noting the progress made since 2018

b) The Committee determine any recommendations it wishes to make to secure further improvement in respect of the Corporate Parenting Service.