Issue - meetings

To receive a report from Matthew Chislett, Service Manager Corporate Parenting and Care Leavers.

The Corporate Parenting Board considered the Permanence Strategy Report. The board was informed of the different ways to achieve permanence and the importance of keeping those family lifelong links when safe to do so. They were also informed that permanence could be with extended families. Where children and young people come into care, we are working hard to ensuring that they had stable placements, especially within Dorset as it was the best place for children to live and thrive in their local communities. Members discussed the report and highlighted the following areas:

·       The Board welcomed the report and noted that there were several areas doing well.

·       Referred to how it would be measured and if there were other ways to measure the quality. It was questioned whether the data set was sufficient and detailed enough. It was suggested that for future meetings, it should be higher up on the agenda due to the importance of it.

·       The Report stated that the recommendation for review would be every 3 years. This was thought to be a long time, especially within a rapidly changing world. It was recommended that this be changed to annually to ensure that these targets were being met.

·       How were special guardianship orders followed? They created a robust support plan with ASPIRE which set out the support that would be received and what they could expect. It was important to let families be families but if they needed support again then ASPIRE would step in and they can always contact the council if needed.