To receive a verbal update from officers on the Corporate Parenting Board Data Set.
Minutes:
The Interim Executive Director of People – Children introduced the item and explained the blue lines, in the data set that had been circulated to the Board, showed the current rate for January 2020. The greyed area on the first page of graphs on the data set showed where Dorset’s good and outstanding statistical neighbours who were Wiltshire, East Sussex and Suffolk were.
More children were becoming looked after than leaving with the largest cohort of children coming into care being aged 0-4 years. During the coming months the focus was to ensure the Authority was faster and better at rehabilitating young people into homes. Historically the age range was 12-15 years, this change had taken place over the last 4 or 5 months due to social workers being able to check on children earlier. During the coming months the focus was to ensure the Authority was faster and better at rehabilitating young people into homes.
Members asked if children were coming into care from birth and if the Board could be assured other age ranges were not being ignored. The Interim Executive Director of People – Children confirmed that officers were working with people in baby units although there was still a very active age range and officers would continue to make the right decision for young people.
Regarding where children were living it was noted that the Authority would want children to be living much nearer to home too many were placed 20 miles or more outside of the authority boundary. The Authority was still taking too long in achieving permanency for young people.
Attention was drawn to the number of children who had moved schools as a result of becoming a looked after child and that Fixed Term Exclusions were reducing in number. Dorset reported on missing and absent episodes whereas some authorities reported solely on missing and not absent episodes – further exploration was required on this.
The Chairman felt it was important that children were placed where they could maintain local connections, if those connections were broken and support was taken away from the child further risks and problems would occur, she asked what the strategy was to ensure children were brought closer to their families.
The Interim Executive Director of People – Children confirmed this was one of the biggest concerns, children were having to move schools, get medical appointments and it took staff longer in travelling time to visit the children. We would like to get to the point where children were placed within the Dorset boundary. Unfortunately, there was not enough provision to have all children placed in Dorset.
One member commented that 20 miles from the Dorset boundary was a long way for a child to be placed, but presumably there were some children the Authority would like to get away from the border. The Interim Executive Director of People – Children felt the biggest solution was to support children to live at home with their family by supporting families to care for their children and where a child became a looked after child to support them within a Dorset foster carer setting. Officers had been working on Life-long links, staff had been trained on mapping important links for children even if they were placed outside of Dorset.
One member wanted to know the reasons for children leaving home as it was understood return to home interviews were carried out. The Interim Executive Director of People – Children confirmed that a return to home interview was always offered although they were not always delivered. Quite often it would relate to a feeling of constraint regarding the arrangements around them. If the interviews were about the care they were receiving, officers would look into this.
One member commented that although we know the figures for children in care why are they concentrated in certain areas. The Interim Executive Director of People – Children confirmed they were looking at where the Authority’s adopters were living, at present there were none from the Weymouth and Chesil area and officers proposed to activate those communities.
The Children’s Services Manager for Dorset Advocacy and Independent Visitors Service (DAIVS) confirmed they were seeing several children who were placed 20 miles or more from the Dorset boundary, the majority were happy where they had been placed as they had been there for quite a long time. The Interim Executive Director of People – Children mentioned they would not be looking at returning those children to Dorset, the Police would look at where they were and if it was right for them to stay where they were then they would. Permanency Plans had been checked to ensure they were secure.
One member asked what the aspirational target would be between now and where it was hoped Dorset would be in about one to three years’ time. The Interim Executive Director of People – Children referred to the Data Set and would take the grey banding as the target as officers could assess (‘time’ removed) when they thought they would be at that grey target. The grey banding denoting best practice nationally. Some of the Education and Health looked after children were not where the Authority would want them to be. The Virtual School were working to support looked after children in local schools. There had been robust conversations with health colleagues to ensure health checks were completed in a timely manner. This was all costly and significant amounts were being spent at the present time.
The Chairman mentioned that as we move forward with the data, the direction of travel would see a difference between the red and blue lines and the direction of travel in future reports would be useful. The Interim Executive Director of People – Children felt it would be useful to bring audit reports to future meetings of the Board.
Noted