Agenda item

The Director for Social Care and Early Help submits a presentation to update Members of the Commission on the Children’s Social Care and Early Help Assuring Quality of Practice Quarterly Reports for quarters one and two.

The Director for Social Care and Early Help submitted a presentation to update Members of the Commission on the Children’s Social Care and Early Help Assuring Quality of Practice Quarterly Reports for quarters one and two.

·         The presentation detailed the impact of Covid-19 and the alterations put in place including all meetings being moved to virtual arrangements and any face to face visits saw social workers and EH practitioners always wearing PPE equipment.

·         The ‘Their door is shut. Ours is open’ campaign helped to see the referral rates go back up after an initial decrease at the start of the pandemic.

·         Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions in March 2020, a continued increase had been evident in children subject to repeat child protection plans. Following a look at 40 families, this showed good evidence of good quality effective relationships with social workers, Edge of Care practitioners and young people, parents/ carers. Measures had now been put in place where there were gaps in the assessments.

·         Figures of children in care and care leavers were provided and one of the areas for focus noted was to move planning for transitions to adulthood earlier to 14 years rather than 16 years as this would give the children more opportunity to prepare.

·         ‘Quaranteens’ – which was a social media campaign aimed at supporting living in lockdown created by young people, won Best Project 2020.

In response to Members comments, the following was noted:

·         Following this piece of work, a large discrepancy was noted between the foster carers training and the kinship carers’ training. Since then discussions had taken place and kinship carers would now have the opportunity to engage in carers training more effectively than previously. In addition, part of the support has been restructured, splitting the service so there was bespoke support for recruited foster carers and those kinship carers, some of the training and learning and development had also been split. The offer was now also more varied and included online training.

·         Out of approximately 28 parents who took the participation surveys and parental feedback, the vast majority reported that they found the conference easier to be part of, however, some felt that not being present in a room left them at a disadvantage. Looking forward at least the initial meeting, would be moving to a hybrid model and risk assessments would take place to determine which method would be more effective.

·         The importance of Q&A work was expressed, and the presenting officer explained the process after each Q&A report was made/ carried out. This included, that the reports were discussed at the monthly improvement board meetings and then all actions were distributed to the relevant service. These reports allowed for the service to have the resource to be able to look in more detail if required to see what could be improved. The importance of celebrating success was also noted.

AGREED:

1.    That the Commission note and welcome the many strengths which have been identified in the report.

2.    The Commission welcomes and is pleased that the Leicester City Council ‘Quaranteens’ project created by young people, was nominated for and won the‘Best Project 2020 by National Leaving Care Bench Marking Forum’. In addition, the Commission welcome that Leicester City Council have been recognised for good practice in the LGA for the LLR campaign ‘Their door is shut, ours is open’.

3.    The Commission would like to be updated on progress following the areas of focus on the transitions of adulthood, care plan safety planning at a future meeting.