Agenda for Children's Partnership Board on Wednesday, 24th June, 2015, 4.00 pm

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Ground Floor Committee Room - Loxley House, Station Street, Nottingham, NG2 3NG. View directions

Contact: Catherine Pryor  Email: catherine.pryor@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

1.

APPOINTMENT OF VICE CHAIR

Minutes:

Resolved to appoint Malcolm Cowgill as of Vice-Chair for the 2015/16 municipal year.

2.

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

Minutes:

John Yarham

Jill Robey,

Karen Slack,

Michael Nicholson.

3.

DECLARATIONS OF INTERESTS

Minutes:

None.

4.

MINUTES pdf icon PDF 243 KB

Of the last meeting held on 25 March 2015 (for confirmation)

Minutes:

The Board confirmed the minutes of 23 March 2015 as a true record and they were then signed by the Chair.

5.

CHILDREN'S PARTNERSHIP BOARD 2014/15 YEAR END PERFORMANCE REVIEW pdf icon PDF 71 KB

Report of Corporate Director for Children and Adults

Minutes:

Alison Michaska, Corporate Director for Children and Adults, delivered the presentation, informing the board that in future, the year-end performance review will be presented differently and will include more partner input.

 

The presentation provided the headlines of the following strategic objectives, and identified selected areas where performance indicators were both improving and declining:

 

·  Strategic Objective 1 : Safeguarding and Early Intervention;

·  Strategic Objective 2 : Strong Families;

·  Strategic Objective 3 : Healthy and Positive Children and Young People;

·  Strategic Objective 4 and 5 : Achievement and Economic Well-Being.

 

In addition, the challenges and areas for future progress were identified within each of the objectives.

 

The following points were highlighted:

 

(a)  Progress continued against all strategic objectives with the point of triage working more effectively and contributing to the improved achievement of 84.9% of children’s assessments authorised within 45 days;

 

(b)  safeguarding is considered to be robust;

 

(c)  ‘Small Steps Big Changes’ is working well;

 

(d)  breastfeeding remains a public health priority 70 children have been adopted within the past year while the number of children in care has decreased;

 

(e)  Nottingham City Council has received a ‘care leavers into apprenticeship award’ from the Municipal Journal;

 

(f)  the two schools which OFSTED had considered inadequate have now been reassessed to be good and OFSTED are confident that improvements continue to be made;

 

(g)  school attendance has improved significantly;

 

(h)  it is predicted that GCSE achievements will improve in the coming year.

 

Questions from board members were responded to as follows:

 

(i)  one contributing reason as to why 3% of children leave school without any qualifications is the classification of what qualifications can be considered so this figure should not be compared to previous years. However the figure is still too high;

 

(j)  it would be interesting to track the path of the young people who leave school without any qualifications, to identify what progress is made and which opportunities they have sought and/or chosen, five years on;

 

(k)  with regard to working with emerging communities, some cultural differences are significant in that sometimes children do not start school until they are seven or eight years old and also that some children are married at the age of 15, which can also impact on teenage pregnancy rates. Where patterns are identified of children in these circumstances, robust action is taken and every effort made to engage with the young people and the communities.

 

RESOLVED

 

(1)  to note the end of year performance review;

 

(2)  for Alison Michalska to discuss with John Yarham, the possibility of tracking the progress of young people who leave school without any qualifications, and if this is possible,  to report back to the board in six months’ time, identifying how the young people have progressed.

 

6.

EDUCATION WELFARE SERVICE - SCHOOL ATTENDANCE REPORT pdf icon PDF 231 KB

Report of Directors of Education, Presentation by Karen McAndrew, Education Welfare Service Manager

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Karen McAndrew, of the Education Welfare Service presented the report which updates members of the progress of improving school attendance within the City.

 

The following points were highlighted:

 

(a)  during 2013/14 declining absence rates meant that Nottingham City was the most improved Local Authority in the country and now ranks 109 out of 152 Local Authorities, having been bottom of the ratings for several years;

 

(b)  the number of penalty notices and prosecutions are as follows:

 

2011/12

2012/13

2013/14

2014/15

Number of Penalty Notices issued to parents

 

149

 

357

 

726

 

665 to date

Prosecutions for

Non-school attendance

 

161

 

194

 

257

 

163 to date

 

(c)  all money raised from penalty notices is spent on improving school  attendance;

 

(d)  Schools are asked to inform the Education Welfare Service when a child’s attendance reaches 10%, so that the Education Welfare Service can act to address attendance before it reaches 15% absence when penalty notices are issued;

 

(e)  when visiting homes regarding the non-attendance of children, officers look at the broader issues and concerns as there are sometimes serious underlying issues and safeguarding concerns;

 

(f)  the City Council has recently won a ‘Municipal Journal Award’ for improving school attendance.

 

Members of the Board welcomed the achievement of raising attendance and acknowledged the need to sustain the current movement to enable school attendance to further improve.

 

RESOLVED

 

(1)  to celebrate the success of Nottingham City pupil attendance improvement;

 

(2)  to recognise the functions and development of the Education Welfare Service;

 

(3)  to acknowledge the links between the Education Welfare Service and the Children’s Partnership.

 

7.

CAF AND EARLY HELP ANNUAL REPORT 2014/15 pdf icon PDF 303 KB

Report of Director for Vulnerable Children and Families (Children’s Social Care)

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Tajinder Madahar and Gemma Waygood presented the report which details the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) and Early Help work undertaken during 2014/15.

 

A PowerPoint presentation accompanied the report and was submitted to the online agenda following the meeting.

 

The following points were highlighted:

 

(a)  there has been more focus on a holistic understanding of the quality of early help with information gathered from several partners’  systems;

 

(b)  1489 Partnership and Local Authority CAF’s were initiated;

 

(c)  A 1% decrease for Partnership and 10% decrease for Local Authority could be attributed to Priority Family Assessments;

 

(d)  70.3% Local Authority and increase for Health Visiting Education settings;

 

(e)  There has been an increase in need being met from 64.1% to 77.9%;

 

(f)  decrease in escalation 18.9 to 12.6% of cases;

 

(g)  Decrease in cases closed due to non-engagement 7.7% compared to 11.7%.

 

(h)  It was noted that where families identified as in need of support did not engage, there are several routes which may be considered including escalating concerns to safeguarding and Social Care, however, every effort is made to willingly engage and understand families.

 

RESOLVED

 

(1)  for Partnership members to ensure CAFs are recorded on Central Records and closed appropriately;

(2)  for the evaluation of Early Help to incorporate both CareFirst and CAF Central Records with further consideration about incorporating Family Assessments (Priority Families);

 

(3)  to support the implementation of an electronic CAF with roll out of the new Local Authority case management system;

 

(4)  to support focusing on virtuous learning by developing and cascading a good CAF example;

(5)  to support the continuation of the NCSCB CAF training to increase partnership confidence, particularly focusing on:

 

(i)  Assessment analysis

(ii)  Engaging children and families

(iii)  Planning

(iv)  Good practice CAF

 

(6)  to support the continuation of the NCSCB and Vulnerable Children and Families audits to drive up the quality of CAFs;

(7)  to consider utilising the Vulnerable Children CAF QA to track improvement in quality and re-audit partnership CAFs.

 

8.

HEALTH AND WELLBEING OF CHILDREN AGED 0 TO 5 YEARS BY CHILDREN'S CENTRE AREAS pdf icon PDF 251 KB

Report of Interim Head of Public Health.

Report to be presented by Lynne McNiven, Consultant in Public Health

Minutes:

The report outlines the Area Profiles in Nottingham’s Children’s Centres geographic areas of children aged 0 to 5 years. Specific area profiles are available online at: http://www.nottinghaminsight.org.uk/f/123196/Library/Public-Health/0-5-Years-Area-Profiles-2014-15/

 

It is noted that all connected services had worked together to produce this valuable piece of work.

 

RESOLVED for Partnership members to:

 

(1)  examine the detail of the reports for individual Children Centre areas and utilise the content;

 

(2)  examine the detail of the reports for individual Children Centre areas and comment on the content;

 

(3)  to support the approach towards prevention and early intervention and the role it has to play in improving child health outcomes, breaking the cycle of health inequalities in Nottingham City and suggest ways of encouraging all agencies to utilise the evidence within the 0 to 5 years profiles and work together to offer children and young people in Nottingham City the best start in life and realise their full potential.

9.

PARTICIPATION IN GOVERNANCE PROGRAMME AND YOUTH COUNCIL UPDATE pdf icon PDF 264 KB

Report of Corporate Director of Children and Adults

Minutes:

Charlotte Croft, Chloe Mullins and Umar Hussain, Youth Cabinet members, presented the report and were accompanied by Jon Rea. The report informs the Board of the activities of the Youth Cabinet in the first quarter of 2015/16 and outlines forthcoming events, including opportunities for Board Partners to work with the group.

 

Member’s questions were responded to as follows;

 

(a)  during the ‘Young People’s Health and Wellbeing in the 21 Century’ health event (developed for the ENTER programme within the Creative Quarter festival), healthy relationships, mental health and talking to people were the main topic areas raised. Activities were designed to bring out the emotional intelligence of young people and show how they can become much more resilient. In addition there was a focus on healthy living and fitness which the Primary Parliament had recently considered. Time to reflect, good sleep and rest, and time without technology were also topics raised;

 

(b)  there were a record number of entries to the ‘Young Creative Awards’ which received good press coverage;

 

(c)  the visit to Karlsruhe, Germany was an experience outside of many people’s comfort zones with several cultural and language differences, including a lack of representation of young people with disabilities and from ethnic backgrounds. This helped to highlight the diversity of Nottingham;

 

(d)  the Youth Conference 2015 in Karlsruhe considered several topics, including those on the global agenda. A circus and BMX track were provided along with a games field and a house for formal work where young people could explore their creativity. The experience was very innovative, powerful and impressive.

 

It is noted that the City Council winning the Municipal Journal Award for ‘care leavers with apprenticeships’ has proved encouraging for some young people with regard to aspirations and future careers.

 

RESOLVED

 

(1)  to formally recognise the important contribution made by the Youth Cabinet and its related children and young people’s participation forums to decision making in the City;

 

(2)  for partner members of the Board to continue to use the findings of participation work to inform plans and strategies for service improvement for children and young people across the Children’s Partnership.

10.

KEY MESSAGES AND ITEMS FOR INFORMATION

Minutes:

The Director for Vulnerable Children and Families and Children’s Social Care, informed the Board of an exciting new project on Multi Systemic Therapy (MST) which is being considered to try to avoid young people being removed from their families while helping the families at the same time.

 

11.

FORWARD PLAN pdf icon PDF 94 KB

Please contact Dot Veitch if you have any suggestions for future items for the forward plan

dot.veitch@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

 

Minutes:

It is noted that any suggestions or requests for the Board to consider any specific issues or topics, should be forwarded to Dot Veitch, Children’s Partnership Support Officer at dot.veitch@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

 

RESOLVED to note the forward plan.

 

12.

FUTURE MEETING DATES

To approve the following meeting dates at Loxley House:

 

30 September 2015

16 December 2015

30 March 2016

Minutes:

RESOLVED to meet on the following dates:

 

30 September 2015

16 December 2015

30 March 2016