Agenda item

The Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Children and Families and the Assistant Director, Safeguarding Services (Children's Social Care) had been invited to the meeting to update the Board on the 18 October Cabinet decision in respect of Children at the Edge of Care and Children's Homes.

The Assistant Director, Safeguarding Services was invited to give an overview of the issues involved.  She made the following main points:

·       In recent years, both locally and nationally, there had been a rise in the number of children coming into the care system.

·       Locally, in particular there had been a rise in the number of 11 to 16 year olds coming into care.  It was known that this age group was more likely to have negative outcomes, whether in a care home or a foster home.  Often, when young people leave care they move back to their family where they have local connections.

·       The proposal was to do something different, as removing children from their families did nothing to address the risk of challenging behaviour or repair fractured relationships.  There was a need for a whole service cultural change.

·       Research from Ofsted and other authorities indicated that there was a need for an edge of care service to have key staff with a range of skills, and capacity to respond and build relationships with parents and young people.  The principle was to keep children safely in the care of parents and provide support for relationships to be repaired.

·       From a safeguarding perspective, there will always be some children who needed be brought into care.

·       There was a need to target the resources where they could make most impact.  Closing children homes would release funds to build an edge of care service.

Members were given an opportunity to ask questions and the following main points were raised:

·       Although the principle of taking fewer children into care was supported, concern was expressed about the timing of changes.  Even with an edge of care service in place, there would be occasions when a family might need a break in order to deal with a short term crisis.  Further concern was expressed about how the service would move forward with children who were currently living in care homes but were not yet 16 or 17 and able to receive support around leaving care.  To manage the transition the service would need a pool of highly skilled foster carers and a question was asked about whether this was available.  A further question was asked about whether a suitable facility was available locally to support the most damaged young people in the local authority's care.

·       In response, the Assistant Director informed Members that Children's Services had been challenged on the use of residential care as a short break for families having difficulties.  Often, this had been experienced as a step into care.  Instead there was a need for outreach work to repair fractured relationships, something which had not been done previously.  There would still be an opportunity for 'time out' but this might be via an activity rather than an overnight stay.  Instead of providing new placements as an emergency to cover placement breakdown, the focus should be on what could be done to prevent the placement breaking down.  The quality of care staff in children's homes was good and this was not a driver for the changes.

·       In terms of timing, it was confirmed that the homes would not close immediately.  The majority of children currently living in residential homes had care plans which meant they would leave anyway in the next 6 to 12 months.  The proposals would stop new children coming into care.  The move from residential care would be care plan-led for individual children.  However, there was a need to recognise that it was not reasonable to keep a home open for six months to accommodate one child.  This would not be the best use of resources when considering the majority of children.  It was acknowledged that some children may experience a temporary placement.

·       The Council already had a group of experienced foster carers.  Further work was underway to target professionals (such as health workers or police staff) who may have worked with children in their professional life, to see if they would be interested in becoming foster carers.  Also, there was a growing number of family carers coming forward.

·       It was acknowledged that, although social workers would always seek to place a child as close as possible to their home area, there would be occasions when some may need to be placed in out of county residential care.

·       Specialist provision commissioned from the private sector should be as good as the best offered in-house.  Concern was expressed that some private providers who were offering 'residential therapeutic care' were not offering the necessary degree of intensive therapy for the most damaged young people.  In response, the Assistant Director informed Members that there would be a case-by-case review of all children currently placed in 'bought-in' care.  Social workers would always seek to place children in homes that were rated 'good' by Ofsted.

·       A question was asked about the implications for staff of the proposed changes and whether the cultural change needed would require a different type of staff.  It was confirmed that this was an issue and work was already underway to change the culture moving away from a culture of 'just be safe'.  Members were informed that 45% of children in care were taken into care before 2015.  There was now a much greater focus on arranging permanency for children taken into care.  The skillset of staff would be key.  The Panel was reminded that the outcome of the latest Ofsted monitoring visit would be published today and officers were very pleased with the progress made.  Some staff may transfer to the edge of care service and some may remain working in children's homes.

·       It was confirmed that once a child had been in care for 4 or 5 years it was difficult to move them out of care.  By this point their life would be well established and it was likely that they would stay in care up to adulthood.

·       The development of a risk-averse culture was understandable given the high profile cases that had been in the media.  However, the work being undertaken was very encouraging.  The local authority seemed to have a high number of looked after children and a question was asked about how this would be reduced.  In response, Members were reminded that data showed that in 2014/15 the Council had well below the national average number of children in care and the Ofsted inspection in 2016 had criticised the Council for its failure to protect children.  Now, when children were taken into care, there was a focus on achieving permanency in a timely manner.  Last year, the number of children coming into care had reduced and it was expected that this would reduce again this year.

·       Concern was expressed that in the past there had been little financial support for family carers and it was suggested that the authority had been 'aggressively' against family care.  It was also suggested that the move to centralise social work staff in Worcester had not been a success.  The proposal to develop an edge of care service was welcomed.

·       In response, the Assistant Director confirmed that family care was very important as, in general, children had better outcomes when they remained with their family, recognising that parents may need support and challenge.  The service was committed to supporting families and it was confirmed that it would not always be necessary to undertake assessments and take a child into care in order to allow families to look after children.  The social care service needed good quality leadership at every level.  As well as reduced caseloads, social workers needed good quality managerial support.

·       The Cabinet Member for Children and Families reminded the Panel that the aim was to move from cure to prevention.  The proposals were based on professional evidence from County Council officers, Dame Eileen Munroe's report, Ofsted, and Essex and North Yorkshire Councils which in turn was based on empirical evidence.  There were currently too many children in care for a county like Worcestershire.  With reference to timing, the Cabinet Member said that he had 'rolled the dice' and a detailed project plan would now be developed.  In answer to the key question of 'will it work?', the Cabinet Member confirmed that it can work (as evidenced in Essex and North Yorkshire) but there was a need to get people on the front line fighting for the cause.

·       The Cabinet Member went on to remind Members about the Troubled Families programme which aimed to work with families including those experiencing the 'toxic trio' of domestic abuse, mental ill-health and substance abuse.  Funding for this work would run out in two years and it was not yet clear what would replace it.

·       The Assistant Director agreed that the development of a centralised service with touch points in localities had been hard for social workers.  The service was now moving to a model of a social work hub in Worcester with proper locality-based care throughout the County including social workers and early help staff.

·       In response to a question about what would happen to the buildings once the children's homes had been closed, the Panel was reminded that two children's homes would remain open, although it was not yet decided which two this would be.  Previously Cabinet had agreed the purchase of homes to provide supported board and lodgings for care leavers.  This support to permanent housing for care leavers remained important and the service continued to need the capital provision agreed by Cabinet.

·       It was suggested that, although the proposals sounded good in principle, the right skillset of social workers would be key.  Social workers had been trying to do similar things for years and it was not clear what would make the difference this time.  In response the Assistant Director pointed out that in the past there had not been a single co-ordinated approach to managing risk in the community.  No one single thing had changed.  This was all part of the overall improvement journey.  There was a need for a whole service approach to sustainable improvement.  As with any change, there was a need to understand the impact on other parts of the service.

·       In response to a question about future use of the buildings, it was confirmed that none were suitable for re-use as supported board and lodgings for care leavers.  A future decision would be made about whether to sell the buildings or re-use them within the Council.  The Cabinet Member pointed out that not all of the buildings concerned were owned by the County Council.

·       Once the principle was established, further work would be done to develop a project plan including timings.  It was clear that funds would be needed to invest in the edge of care service and this would be the priority before any contribution could be made to savings.

·       The Chairman of the Board supported the theory behind the development and asked about other authorities that had undertaken similar work and whether it had been successful.  He also asked about the risks involved and suggested that these should have been included in the report to Cabinet.  It was suggested that a phased approach to any closures would allay fears about the impact.

·       It was further suggested that it might be possible to develop the edge of care service but at the same time keep the children's homes open to provide facilities for other authorities to purchase.  Again, this would reduce the risk involved if the edge of care service did not work as planned.  It was clear that the driver behind the proposals was to improve outcomes for children but there also appeared to be an opportunity for financial savings.

·       The Cabinet Member reminded the Board that Children's Services had required an additional £10.5 million last year most of which had gone into this area.  He suggested that further additional money would be needed to create a good service.  The proposals were about the children, not the money.  The Chairman informed the Board that the service would have his support if it was necessary to ask for more money.

·       The Assistant Director reminded Members that reducing the number of children coming into care was about the confidence and ability of staff to manage risk.  With reference to the suggestion that homes were kept open to develop a traded service for other authorities, she suggested that while beds in children's homes were available, it would be very difficult to make cultural change.  If the beds were there, social workers would continue to use them.  The current focus was on Worcestershire's children and there was not sufficient free management capacity to also develop a traded service.

·       The Chairman re-iterated his suggestion that keeping homes open in order to sell placements to other authorities was worth exploring as it would allay any fears about the pace of change and at the same time produce a revenue benefit.  The CMR confirmed that he would make the Worcestershire Children First Programme Board aware that this had been raised.

In conclusion, it was agreed that the following comments would be forwarded to the Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Children and Families:

The Board agreed that in principle it supported the direction of travel with a focus on achieving better outcomes for children and young people.  The Board requested:

·       further clarification on proposals for the future use of the buildings concerned to ensure the opportunity this presents is maximised; and

·       further information on how support for those at the edge of care will be organised in localities.