Agenda item

Councillor David Mellen, Portfolio Holder for Early Intervention and Early Years introduced the report on support for care leavers. Along with Helen Blackman, Director of Integrated Children’s Services, he gave a presentation outlining how the Council is implementing the requirements of the Children and Social Work Act 2017 relating to care leavers to ensure that care leavers are appropriately supported. They highlighted the following points:

(a)  Nottingham City Council (NCC) currently cares for around 620 young people. Until recently the Council had a duty to offer support to care leavers until they reached 21 years old or 25 years old if they were studying. This has now extended to 25 years old for all care leavers;

(b)  there are approximately 281 care leavers currently, all of whom have a personal advisor who signposts care leavers to services and coordinates support offers;

(c)  the duty to provide support until the age of 25 years is retrospective and NCC has written to 166 people aged 21-25 to inform them that they now have access to this support. These are the care leavers who have turned 21 and whose up to date contact details the Council holds;

(d)  all care leavers who make contact with their personal advisor will be involved in drawing up a Pathway Plan which aims to identify the areas of support they need or wish to access;

(e)  all local authorities are required to publish a Local Offer, detailing services and support available to care leavers. This offer is broken down into 5 separate areas:

·  Health and Wellbeing

·  Relationships

·  Education and training

·  Employment

·  Accommodation; and

·  Participation in society

(f)  partner organisations are already engaging with the process and are contributing to the Local Offer and care leavers and young people are being engaged in co-production of the Offer. 

Following questions and comments from the Committee the following information was given:

(g)  Nottingham City Council is ambitious for all of the young people who are, or have been, within its care. For example, with this new legislation if a care leaver decides at the age of 22 that they wish to return into education then they will be supported to do so;

(h)  Ofsted challenged the City Council to be more determined to make contact with those care leavers who had fallen out of touch with the Council. It is a fine balance between being determined to stay in touch and respecting the wishes of the care leavers who may not wish to be in touch with services;

(i)  the 166 care leavers who have been written to are those people whose address is held by the Council. There will be other people whose contact details the Council no longer holds because they were previously not required to do so;

(j)  21 care leavers within the 22-25 year old category have so far made contact with the Council after receiving their letter explaining the Council’s extended duties to them.

RESOLVED to:

(1)  request that information is provided to the Committee on the number of care leavers aged between 21 and 25 years that the Council does not have up to date contact details for and therefore is unable to contact regarding the extended provision of support;

(2)  request that the draft Local Offer for Care Leavers is circulated to Committee members prior to publication so that they have opportunity to make comments and suggestions; and

(3)  thank David Mellen and Helen Blackman for their attendance and to note the content of their report.