Corporate Parenting Board

Thursday 10th March 2022

Advocacy and Independent Visitors Report

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Portfolio Holder:	Cllr A Parry, Children, Education, Skills and Early Help

Local Councillor(s):	Cllr

Executive Director:	T Leavy, Executive Director of People - Children

Report Author: Kate Saunders

Title:	NYAS Corporate Parenting Board Report – February 2022

Tel:	0151 649 8700

Email:	kate.saunders@nyas.net

Report Status: Public

Recommendation:

Update report for information.

Reason for Recommendation:

Change in Provider from August 2021, update on progress within first 6 months.

Executive Summary

The advocacy service is coming into an improved period of settled and progressing work. This follows from initial extremely large volumes of referrals that had an impact on capacity to provide advocacy in a timely way. As a result children and young people were being provided with this support retrospectively so their views were not heard in a timely way. In response, the referral process has been amended and capacity has improved with allocations taking place in a timely way. There is scope for improvement with rate of referrals and there is a programme in place to raise the profile of advocacy.

The Independent Visitor (IV) service has successfully transferred existing matches and recruited new volunteers. There are further matching meetings to address the inherited waiting list and new referrals since contract start.

Financial Implications

Service operating within agreed contract and budget.

Well-being and Health Implications

Concerns around timeliness of advocacy support, which could have impact on emotional well being for children and young people – now moving into an improved picture.

Climate implications

NYAS are a national organisation, so able to use advocates local to any children and young people staying outside Dorset, reducing travel.

Other Implications

NYAS actively seeking to raise the profile of advocacy and this feeds into Corporate Parenting.

Risk Assessment

Having considered the risks associated with this decision, the level of risk has been identified as:

Current Risk: Risk that rate of referral for advocacy indicates that the reach is not broad enough, being addressed through work raising the profile of advocacy.

Equalities Impact Assessment

Not applicable.

Appendices

Please see appended report.

Background Papers

None.

Footnote:

Issues relating to financial, legal, environmental, economic and equalities implications have been considered and any information relevant to the decision is included within the report.

Corporate Parenting Board report – February 2022.

This report is designed to update young people in Dorset, the Corporate Parenting Board, Portfolio Holders, Commissioners and other interested parties, on progress for the provision of advocacy to care experienced young people in the first 6 months of the new commissioned service.

NYAS became the commissioned provider of Advocacy for Dorset young people on the 1st of August 2021.

An advocate is allocated to young people in Dorset to ensure their views and concerns are heard, especially when they are involved in statutory processes which they may not understand, to help them to explore their options without prejudice or influence, to ensure they know their right’s and to ensure they have the information to help them to make informed choices, and decisions. We will ensure they are in contact with the relevant people or contact them on their behalf and accompany young people to meetings or appointments if they require it. NYAS also works with young people to develop their self – advocacy skills and the confidence to advocate for themselves, which will grow into a life - long skill.

Referrals or service requests, into the service in the first 6 months totalled 562, of these, 345 were for issue-based advocacy (IBA) where the young person is care experienced or is a care leaver, and 217 referrals were for young people needing advocacy support due to their involvement in the child protection services (CPA).

Advocacy Referrals	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan
IBA	76	100	74	83	9	14
CPA	39	27	41	33	17	10
Totals	115	127	115	116	23	24

Table 1 referrals by month and by services in contract; this includes some IBA referrals listed as CIN and CIN/CP not reflected in overall CIC IBA referrals so totals will differ.

Advocacy Service

Of the 345 care experienced young people:

258 full care orders in place

61 with voluntary orders

20 interim care orders

2 care leavers

4 unrecorded

Of these 345 cases, 255 were allocated to an advocate.

Of the 255 allocated cases, 124 of these started working with an advocate, and 85 of them completed work on their identified work plan, 28 are still working with their advocate, and 11 disengaged.

Of the remaining 131 cases, 78 young people declined to use the service after the advocate explained the service and their rights; there were 24 occasions where advocates were unable to clarify information with the SW. This included essential referral information and H&S risks, this has improved significantly since the SW resumed making the referrals rather than administrators who are reliant on other systems being up to date. In 27 occasions the contact information was incorrect which precluded contact being made, and 2 where the reason for non-engagement was unrecorded.

Independent Visitors for Children in Care Services

13 matched young people transferred from Action 4 Children in August 2021, alongside a waiting list of 10 young people. We did not have any unmatched IV’s transferred to us from A4C. The initial period has been to ensure all the Visitors have been supported through their transfer to NYAS. We have received 12 new referrals to NYAS (see table 1 above for monthly spread).

We currently have 9 matches which are working well. These are cases where the match was made in the A4C contract, and they are stable. 13 were originally transferred but 4 closed at the request of the young person. One of these IV’s has requested to be rematched.

All of the 9 matched IV’s and young people have completed their onboarding processes, with paperwork updated to NYAS standards. Training and support on a group, and an individual basis, has been offered and completed, to ensure clear lines of communication, an understanding of the NYAS recording and reporting systems, all NYAS compliance training has been completed, and an initial best practice meeting has been undertaken with all current IV’s.

We have 9 new matching meetings in the planning stages currently (including 1 in Cornwall).

We have 7 volunteers in recruitment and onboarding currently, not all of these will progress through the entire process but drop-out rates are low.

We have received 12 new referrals since August, see table 1 above for referral frequencies, and 12 additional young people waiting for an IV.

Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan
IV referrals	23 (contract transfer)	2	3	2	3	2

Table 2 : IV data for 6 months

CYP waiting	IV’s in recruitment	IV’s onboarding	IV’s ready to match YP identified	IV’s at matching stage no YP identified	Matches current	Closed and why
4 matching 5 at matching stage 6 awaiting paperwork 1 query re age (17)	3	4	4	5 (1 out of area)	9	7 (3 changed minds+4 chose to end)

Table 3 : IV data as at 31.01.2022

Summary.

It is fair to say there have been some challenges during the transition period. The opt out referral process meant it soon became apparent that we were receiving significantly more referrals than the service was designed for, with an estimated 4 times as many referrals being made as the service specification had outlined with the previous provider. The demand placed the team under enormous pressure at a time when they were transitioning into a new provider, having to undertake induction, compliance training, and learn the new systems and processes. In these 6 months, 90 cases remained unallocated. All of these young people have been offered retrospective advocacy to ensure their views or wishes and feelings are still shared with their Social Worker and network. We also offer this option to all young people who choose not to engage with us at the time of their referral, to ensure they know that they can come back to us for support whenever they decide they would like to.

Identifying unmet need led to NYAS adding additional resources into the contract, to increase capacity within the services whilst the management teams worked hard to develop a suitable plan to address the challenges, and although these took longer than anticipated to implement, the improvements in the referral processes are currently reflecting a far more manageable referral rate, which will also allow us to introduce a manageable growth strategy.

From mid-December, every case, which has been referred, has been allocated for advocacy support and only 3 cases have closed because young people declined the service. We are also making arrangements to attend area team meetings, offering surgeries at Dorset Council sites where Social Workers and the Senior Advocate will meet to discuss caseloads and identify young people who will benefit from advocacy services. NYAS will also offer a Thinking Thursday session, and develop some advocacy workshops for Dorset staff.

NYAS are currently recruiting to the Senior Advocate and IV Co-ordinator and have attracted a number of strong applicants for both roles. We also have a plan in hand to ensure growth levels are well managed and supported through engagement and partnership working, with both virtual and face to face meeting with NYAS staff and front-line teams.

Feedback

Here are some feedback comments from our young people who have experienced advocacy support in the first 6 months.

HO asked his SW to request ML to advocate for him at the FGC as he wanted someone he knew and trusted to talk to him. It has been very helpful having an advocate

Advocacy is good, nice to have someone to talk to

Nice, it helped, cause I am way too young to speak and he helped with what I wanted to say.

Having an advocate is nice, I had a voice- like an adult and people listened to me.

Advocacy was quite useful. I wont need it next time as I am now OK talking for myself. I have found my voice.

My advocate helps me explain stuff and I want to have one for my CIC review.

I know what a great advocate you are, we’ve worked together before. It is good having an advocate because they are there to help me when I am making difficult decisions or not sure what to do.