Agenda and minutes

To remember our Council colleague, Helen Blackman, Director of Children’s Integrated Services, who died from Covid 19 complications on 3 March 2021.

A minute’s silence was held to remember Helen Blackman, Director of Children’s Integrated Services, who died from Covid 19 complications on 3 March 2021.

Apologies were received fromCouncillor Salma Mumtaz (medical appointment) and Councillor Shuguftah Quddoos (unwell).

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 28 January 2021

The minutes of the meeting held on 28 January 2021 were approved as an accurate record and signed by the Chair.

None.

Councillor Cheryl Barnard, Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People, Helen Watson, Interim Director of Children’s Integrated Services and Catherine Underwood, Corporate Director for People attended the meeting to provide the Committee with an update on progress to address the priority actions arising from the Ofsted Focused Visit, carried out in February 2020.  She highlighted the following information:

a)  Following consideration of the Council’s arrangements for, and evidence in relation to, children in need and those subject to a child protection plan (focusing on children at risk of neglect) in February 2020, Ofsted issued two priority actions:

·  Address the systemic failures in social work practice to ensure that planning and intervention for children improve their experiences, and that new and emerging risks are identified and responded to; and

·  Stabilise the workforce and address the significant shortfall in capacity to enable social workers and first line managers to respond effectively to children in need of help and protection.

b)  The Children at the Heart Improvement Board (a partnership board) is well established and is meeting regularly.  The Board provides a mechanism for holding partners to account in their work to achieve positive outcomes for children and has invited front line colleagues to present information on their work, to enable a true understanding of the challenges facing the workforce.

c)  Helen Watson has been supporting the work to deliver the Improvement Plan and will continue to work with Children’s Integrated Services as Interim Director.

d)  In response to the first priority to improve social work practice, progress has been made in the following key areas, in addition to the work of the Children at Heart Improvement Board:

·  the Council’s Partner in Practice (PiP), Essex County Council, has undertaken work to support the Council (funded by the Department of Education), including diagnostics (eg fieldwork and duty services), a programme of improvement and a review of improvement progress using its PiP review framework, identifying some positive changes since work began on improvements;

·  a Director of Practice Improvement has provided additional leadership capacity for 9 months and a Principal Social Worker was recruited in November 2020;

·  a Practice Forum was established in June and has met fortnightly since then to look in depth at practice and improvement;

·  a Communications Plan has been developed in consultation with the Practice Forum and other feedback has been gathered from the Forum to facilitate change;

·  the Practice Model has been redeveloped and training has been provided for staff, including retraining and master classes;

·  practice tools were launched as part of the Neglect Practice Guidance, with training provided for staff, and distributed via the Practice Forum to improve engagement with children and young people;

·  a partnership Neglect Strategy has been drafted and neglect practice guidance has been launched with a high number of staff attending events to learn more;

·  a Workforce Strategy has been developed and is almost ready to sign off;

·  the Service has re-joined Research in Practice, which provides a range of materials to provide bespoke training (eg  ...  view the full minutes text for item 32.

Councillor Cheryl Barnard, Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People, Kathryn Bouchlaghem, Early Years Manager, Katherine Crossley, Early Years Project Officer and Nicholas Lee, Director of Education Services attended the meeting to outline the Council’s response and progress to address the recommendation arising from a Local Government Association Peer Challenge carried out with Nottingham City Council in 2019 to develop a collaboratively produced citywide Early Years Strategy, with a particular focus on speech, language and communication.  They highlighted the following information:

a)  The Council is working with partners to develop a workable Speech, Language and Communication (SLC) Strategy for the city. This has involved establishing and understanding what interventions are being used across the city.

b)  It has been clearly identified (pre pandemic) that some of Nottingham’s children are not developing their speech and language skills to the best of their ability.  This can impact on all of a child’s life skills, including attachment, attainment, offending, good mental health, wellbeing, employment opportunities etc. The pandemic has impacted on the ability to engage with some young children, but the Early Year’s Foundation sector has been open throughout and available for parents to use.

c)  Partnership working with other cities (Derby and Leicester) has enabled Nottingham to learn from others, for example the Council aspires to extend its age range for SLC work from 0-5 to 25, as Leicester has done. 

d)  It is hoped to replicate across the city, at low cost or no cost, the work with Small Steps Big Changes (National Lottery funded programme of activities designed to give children the best start in life) in Aspley, Bulwell, Hyson Green, Arboretum and St Ann’s.

e)  The Peer Reviewers are due to return in the summer this year, by which time the SLC strategy will at least be in draft form if not further progressed.  The Health and Wellbeing Board is responsible for overseeing the work to develop the strategy.

f)  There are lots of really positive programmes of work across the city in schools, community settings etc, which support SLC.  Going back to basics, eg using the first 100 words, is considered key in how to move forward to a workable citywide partnership strategy.

g)  Early Years colleagues are working with Derby and Leicester to centralise SLC resources for the city and to support parents, carers and professionals to navigate what is available, so that they can help children to develop their SLC skills.  Information has been centralised in one place, called the Balanced System pathway, providing clear guidance and support.  The Committee was shown a short video which introduces the Balanced System pathway and the range of resources on offer. This tool is being widely shared.

h)  Work is ongoing with partners from birth onwards to encourage parents and provide them with the confidence to take up a free childcare early education place to enable SLC work to begin as early as possible.

In response to questions from the Committee and in the subsequent discussion the following points  ...  view the full minutes text for item 33.

To follow

a)  The Chair presented her report which summarised the work of the Committee in 2020/21. The report proposed a number of recommendations for consideration by members in relation to that work, which were discussed and agreed.

b)  The proposed work programme identified a list of items for potential scheduling in 2021/22, suggested by members of the Committee and proposed in the Chair’s report.  The Committee agreed the list of items as its priorities for 2021/22, to be timetabled following the meeting.

c)  The Committee agreed that it would review progress in implementing outstanding actions from the action plan arising from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse at its May meeting.

RESOLVED to recommend that

1)  the Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People considers establishing Youth Networks for each area of the city to enable partners to share intelligence and tackle challenging issues;

2)  the Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People explores ways of routinely collecting data on the number of young people that Play and Youth Services work with who have been excluded from school, to help managers ensure that the service is focusing on, and reaching, the young people likely to be most in need of intervention and support;

3)  the Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People ensures that Play and Youth Services introduces mechanisms and tools to robustly assess what is and isn’t working well and to evaluate the effectiveness of services, with regular review of this evaluation by senior managers;

4)  when allocating the Area Based Grant (ABG) the Portfolio Holder for Communities, Highways and Strategic Transport ensures that systems and processes are in place so that the Council is satisfied that organisations deliver what is needed, avoiding duplication and gaps in provision, to the standard required, for example through a quality mark and clear agreements about expectations; 

5)  the Portfolio Holder for Regeneration, Schools and Communications writes to the relevant Minister to express the importance of continued support for pupils entitled to free school meals during school holidays for as long as the Covid 19 furlough scheme is applied; and

6)  the Health Scrutiny Committee considers including in its work programme an item on how children and young people with mental health and wellbeing issues will be supported as the city recovers from the pandemic, with particular reference to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and including the impact on transition of children and young people to adult services.