Agenda item

The Committee considered a report of the Corporate Director of Children and Young People’s Services which provided information on the purpose of the Sufficiency and Commissioning Strategy for Children Looked After and Care Leavers, the current delivery position, ongoing challenges and actions that were taking to improve the sufficiency of living arrangements for children and young people in the Council’s care.

The Practice Lead Children in Care was in attendance to present the report and deliver a presentation that provided local data and intelligence; key achievements; listening to children and young people; providing stability; out of area living arrangements; unregulated arrangements and key development priorities (for copy of report and presentation, see file of minutes).

Currently there were a large number of children and young people in care, and this was reflected both regionally and nationally. There was a need to increase the number of foster carers to meet the increasing demand.

The number of unaccompanied asylum seekers has increased too adding to the pressure of an already stretched resource and there were increases in the number of children and young people on the edge of care that require support.

The Practice Lead advised that the service was looking for small homes for children and young people and that large homes did not work as well meeting the needs of children. The service regularly meets with local providers at a forum who were motivated to work with the authority, the forum was well attended and there was a waiting list of providers to join the forum.

Members learned that there were a number of children and young people in out of area placements, but the vast majority of those placements were close to the County boundary. However, for some other children it was right for them to be placed far from the county boundary and some of County Durham’s children were in places such as Plymouth and Aberdeen. The Practice Lead highlighted that school was a significant factor in a child’s life and that education stability was very important and the service ensured that children and young people who live outside of County Durham boundary but where they remained within travelling distance to their school they would travel to their original school. A very small proportion live outside of these arrangements and reported that there were successes in returning children and young people to regional arrangements.

Members were advised that in relation to unregulated arrangements and since the report was written move on plans had now been developed for 4 of the children with further work ongoing for the remaining 3 children.

Councillor Sterling indicted that she liked the idea of small children’s homes and asked about staffing for these homes and if they were upskilling existing staff or looking for new specialist staff and if they were on track for the 35 new foster families by March 2023.

The Practice Lead Children in Care responded that they were not on track for new foster families, but they had gone back to foster carers as a group to ask why they were fostering children and what was special about Durham. They did know that foster carers were the best at recruiting other foster carers.

Members were also advised that they were going to re-launch another mockingbird hub which was successful and used this as a mechanism to recruit more foster carers.

The Practice Lead Children in Care indicated that the service had a range of ideas, but foster carers needed to tell them what works. She then referred to staffing in children’s homes and advised that it would be a mixture of experienced staff and recruitment of new staff, they were working on a training offer for staff in children’s homes so that staff have an enhanced level of awareness and are able to respond to trauma. Work had also taken place with Full Circle, to ensure that children and young people had a new plan when they go into a children’s home.

Councillor Walton asked how close they were on the recruitment of foster carers.

The Practice Lead Children in Care responded that it was a difficult position, they had recruited new foster carers but then some established foster carers had left. The age profile of foster carers was largely those people of middle age onwards and as the foster carers get older, they leave which leaves a net situation of no progress and the service would need to strike a balance, so they needed to constantly recruit.

Councillor Walton then asked for further information on an unregulated setting and how they were balancing keeping children in a stable setting as this was another move for a child.

The Practice Lead Children in Care responded that each decision was based on a child-by-child basis and was taken by the Director of Children’s Social Care. In some cases, a child would be placed in an unregulated setting overnight only. The children and young people are presented to other home providers, every child is presented differently and if a placement is not successful the child would bounce out which would be harmful to the child.

There were cases where it was an overnight stay and the child would go back to their substantive home, a child would only move if it was the right place for them.

In response to a further question from Councillor Walton, the Practice Lead Children in Care indicated that unregulated settings were as safe as they were able to make them, and they had a number of mechanisms for assuring safety for children in any such setting.

Mrs Gunn asked if ‘sufficiency strategy’ was the right term to be used.

The Practice Lead Children in Care indicated that they could ask young people their thoughts, but the term was part of the regulations and the Children Act 1989 that requires local authorities to take steps to secure sufficient accommodation to meet the needs of children looked after.

Mrs Gunn then referred to the capital spending and asked if consideration had been given to the impact on climate change. The Practice Lead Children in Care confirmed that climate change had been considered.

Mrs Gunn referred to universal short breaks mentioned in the report and asked if consideration had been given to private users outside of children’s social care been able to access the facilities such as children with disabilities. The Practice Lead Children in Care indicated that the project was at the early stages so there was no reason why this could not be considered.

In response to a further question from Mrs Gunn, the Practice Lead Children in Care indicated that they had appointed a psychologist so had not faced any problems in recruitment of psychologists they also had access to the Full Circle service. This field of psychology was niche and not the same as educational psychologists.

Mrs Evans thanked the Practice Lead for addressing climate change and giving real examples of how climate change is addressed and commented that she would like to see the details of the impact on climate change contained within more reports.

Councillor Deinali referred to the recruitment of foster carers who were unable to proceed due to lack of bedroom space and unable to move to a bigger property unless they had foster children and asked if there was the ability for foster carers to move to larger properties.

The Practice Lead Children in Care indicated that they worked with housing providers and foster carers to overcome this issue and would continue to do so.

Resolved: That the report and presentation be noted.