Agenda and minutes

Jackie Morris (on leave)   - Councillor

Jon Rea   - Engagement & Participation Lead Officer 

Mary-Kate Gavin   - Member of Children in Care Council

Jeren Artykova    - Member of Children in Care Council

None.

Of the meeting held on 17 November 2014 (for confirmation).

The minutes of the meeting held on 17 November 2014 were confirmed and signed by the Chair.

Report of Director of Children’s Social Care

a)  Caroline Riley (Acting Service Manager, Children’s Safeguarding Quality Assurance)  presented a report to the Board on Safeguarding Children and Young People from Child Sexual Exploitation.

b)  The Board was updated on the work which has been undertaken so far. There are four strands to this, which are outlined fully in the report:

1)  Prevention and response

2)  Safeguarding and protection

3)  Public Confidence

4)  Bringing offenders to justice

c)  A risk assessment tool kit has been developed for staff to use to assist in risk management. This tool is also presented to bi-monthly Senior Management Profiling Meetings where young people at risk of child sexual exploitation are discussed and their safeguarding plan reviewed. Practises have been, and will continue to be shared with outside organisations.

d)  A peer review was undertaken in December 2014 with Nottingham City Council and Nottinghamshire Police. This event had a positive outcome and actions were outlined for both parties.

e)  There have been a number of training sessions for professionals and carers, and the theatre production LUVU2 has been rolled out to schools as well as young people in care.

f)  Where there are immediate and established concerns then social care work closely with the police to investigate and safeguard the child or young person concerned.

g)  The next steps forward include the following points:

1)  Continued training and raising awareness for staff, carers, and young people. This will include briefing events for GPs and other health professionals

2)  Working with the voluntary and community sector

3)  Embedding any recommendations made as a result of the College of Policing Peer review on CSE.

4)  Development of a CSE Co-ordinator post who will take the operational lead in driving practice and learning, as well as developing the operational responses to the work plan.

h)  Councillor questions were answered with the following information:

  The outcomes and actions from the events will be shared. Work has been  undertaken with Taxi Drivers and training provided. This will be repeated in April 2015. Training has also been developed for Hoteliers and will take place with Street Pastors and other Officers.

RESOLVED to note:

(i)  the performance in the current action plan for safeguarding children and young people from child sexual exploitation;

(ii)  the proposed future developments.

Report of Director of Children’s Social Care

a)  The report was presented by Natalie Pink ( Youth Offending Team Children in Care Lead), PC Sam Flint (Children in Care Police Officer) and Leanne Simpson PCSO. They looked at the reductions in offending behaviour in 2014 and outlined what the current plans are for 2015.

b)  A sustainable training framework was introduced in 2014, this looks into restorative approaches. Local Authority staff attended a 1 day awareness course in December 2014 and additional courses will be rolled out in 2015. Restorative justice training will be provided to private care providers and Officers are looking to include foster care.

c)  A multi-agency event was carried out in October 2014, which looked at opportunities to reduce the criminalisation of children in care. A future event will be undertaken in 2015.

d)  Performance results for 2014 (as at 31^st March 2014) indicate a reduction in offending, with 8.1% (20 children) of CiC who were aged 10 or over being convicted or subject to a final warning or reprimand during the year.

e)  Statistics show a positive rate of improvement over time.

f)  The CiC Police Officer and YOT Lead are working alongside the Crown Prosecution Service, Service Managers for Children in Care and Placements Service in City and County in order to develop a cross-authority protocol with a view to reducing the criminalisation of Children in Care

g)  Practice tools are being developed for professionals to use, in order to communicate the Protocol to young people, enable them to participate and reflect upon their own risk management and to demonstrate accountability to young people.

Further information was provided on this matter, following the questions which were raised.

(i)  A Youth Offending Team Analyst allows work to be undertaken between the Children in Care Team and the Youth Offending Team.

(ii)  Children are subject to conviction at the age of 10.

(iii)  Each child open to the YOT is assessed and interventions put in place to meet their individual need and prevent further offending. A Targeted Youth Support Team sits within the YOT and undertakes work with young people referred to them due to their identified risk of offending. Network Meetings are chaired by NP and SF with local authority and private providers to share information, best practice and identify opportunities for diversion where appropriate.

(iv)  Where children are identified for being at risk of offending or have previously offended, preventative work is undertaken. The promotion of resources between agencies allows children at risk to be identified.

(v)  A police officer may visit the child (where appropriate) to discuss issues and inform them of possible consequences.

RESOLVED to note:

(i)  the importance of the role of Children in Care Police Officer (CiCPO) and Youth Offending Team Lead;

(ii)  to acknowledge the work of the CiCPO working with Child Sexual Exploitation Cross Authority Group (CSECAG) and colleagues in reducing the risk of sexual exploitation;

(iii)  the drive for stronger analysis of offending within the CiC population to target resources and inform service development, and support the development of restorative approaches to reduce the risk of offending in child care settings which mirrors YOT Plan 2014-15;

(iv)  to support the planning and delivery of a 2015 multi-agency Safeguarding CiC event;

(v)  to support the sign off and launch of a cross-authority protocol to reduce the criminalisation of CiC in 2015, on which Residential Workers, Young People and Social Care managers have been consulted.

Report of Director of Safeguarding

a)  This report was presented to the Board by Sonia Cain (Service Manager – Fostering and Adoption). The Fostering and Adoption Service are modernising aspects of the service.

b)  The Panel’s primary responsibility is to safeguard children and young people placed in foster care and adoptive homes/families by Nottingham City.

c)  The merging of the Fostering and Adoption panels, which came into effect in September 2013, has gone well and has had the desired effect of providing availability and flexibility with regard to allocating time for cases to be heard in a timely way. A panel is held every Thursday with both fostering and adoption cases being heard.

d)  It was highlighted that the statistics on fostering have remained stable.

e)  A Fostering and Adoption Panel report is produced annually. The purpose of this report provides the members of the Board with information pertaining to the activity of the fostering and adoption panel.

f)  The Panel Chairs are required to provide six monthly performance reports.

g)  The Fostering and Adoption Panel rely on information which is contained in reports.

h)  The quality reports being presented to Fostering and Adoption panels has been strengthened along with the quality assurance role of the managers prior to the reports being submitted.

i)  Other areas of development have been identified and are outlined in the report. Progress in these areas is currently being worked on.

j)  Questions were raised regarding validating reports and the following information was provided:

1)  When an assessment has been completed and an adopter has been approved, a Social Worker is then allocated to further validate the assessment. This includes the use of check lists and tools in order for an individual to be assessed.

2)  The latest information shows that from April 2014-December 2014, only one person was deferred.

3)  There has been a slight decrease in applications being received and adoption matches within the city boundary are not always possible.

RESOLVED to note the activity of the fostering and adoption panels.

Report of Director of Safeguarding

a)  This report was presented to the Board by Sonia Cain (Service Manager,

  Fostering and Adoption). The number of children with Adoption plans has  remained stable.

b)  Some children have complex needs and individual plans are altered to cater for this. These plans follow the child and the plans can be viewed, to ensure that adopters can meet the child’s needs.

c)  The Adoption Scorecard (introduced in 2012) allows local authorities and other adoption agencies to monitor their own performance and compare it with that of others at critical points in the child’s journey towards adoption.

d)  Adoption plans may change due to positive or negative issues.

e)  If a child in fostering develops complex needs then depending on the circumstances, it may be necessary to place the child with another family. Officers are looking into improving training for carers, to enable them to deal with more complex issues.

f)  The government are incrementally reducing the timescale by which children should be adopted year on year. During the financial year 2013-14, Nottingham was in line with national performance but as this is a three rolling total, our position has declined with more adoptions of children who have waited longer.

g)  Successfully placing more complex children can negatively affect our timeliness as the complexity of these cases brings more days to our scorecard pro-rata.

h)  The average time scale awaiting placement with an adoptive family for the 37 children being rescinded is 1211 days.

i)  The Adoption Analysis Journal (AAJ) is produced at the end of each month to provide a detailed analysis of all children in the adoption process at the different stages. This also enables early detection of potential delays and promotes forward planning to prevent those delays.

j)  Work is being undertaken to try and improve what is on offer to adopters, once an adoption has taken place. If a child develops complex issues following adoption, then a Social Worker can be allocated to visit the family and discuss further needs.

k)  Since the service has been redesigned, a better service has been offered and performance information gives a sense on how stable a child is within care.

l)  Foster Carer (TM) shared her experiences with the board.

RESOLVED to note the performance to date in adoption and the activities being undertaken to minimise delays.

Verbal Update by members of the Children in Care Council

Apologies were received from the Officers due provide this update, as a result, this matter has been deferred to the meeting in March 2015.

To note the items currently scheduled for consideration at the next meeting on 16 March 2015 are as follows:

Children in Care Council (Verbal Update)

Regulation 33 Visits

Physical Health

Edge of Provision

Children in Care and Care Leavers Strategy Progress Update

RESOLVED to note the reporting schedule of items to be considered at future meetings.