Agenda item

Judy Chadwick, as the Strategic Lead for young people Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) explained that all Local Authorities have statutory obligations to ensure there were suitable education and training places for young people over compulsory school age but under 19 and for those up to 25 with a Learning Disability Assessment or Education, Health Care Plan.

Local Authorities must identify those covered by the duty, ensure there was a sufficiency of places and promote participation. Local Authorities also had to provide strategic leadership by ensuring services worked together with partners such as Local Enterprise Partnerships, Jobcentre Plus, employers, health services and police. Work was also done with neighbouring authorities.

Following significant work between 2013 and 2016, the number of NEETs in Worcestershire was at the low rate of 2.8% identified as true NEETs and 1.30% as unknown. This combined figure of 4.1% was low compared to 6.7% across England and 7.7% across the West Midlands. The number of Looked After Children who were presently NEET in Worcestershire Care Services was 23.

In the past year Babcock had been looking at barriers to inclusion and highlighted that the most vulnerable children could not access the services as they were not structured to support them. Since December 2017 Babcock post 16 services had been re-structured and in future one of the NEET case workers would focus on Looked After Children.

The County Council offered a number of programmes to support Looked After Children which included study programmes, careers advice, on-line information, work experience and apprenticeships. Business mentoring was planned to start in the autumn when 10 young people would be matched with mentors from business and a bid had been put into the European Social Fund to help NEETs in North Worcestershire. It was felt that great strides had been made in joined up working.

During the discussion the following points were made:

·       Board members were concerned that there had been a number of redundancies in the Post 16 team at Babcock but it was explained that the new structure meant that Babcock was not just offering a careers service which Looked After Children may find difficult to access. The new structure would be more accessible with a Seek and Reach programme and a mentoring service,

·       Although the figure for NEETs at less than 3% could be seen as good news it was still too high. The Careers Service was not good for some young people and the County Council as Corporate Parent needed to do more to find placements for Looked After Children within the 'family firm',

·       It was agreed that a target should be considered that so many apprenticeships should be filled by Looked After Children,

·       Members wondered why current vacancies could not be matched to Looked After Children. An example was given of someone looking for a Mechanics apprenticeship which may be difficult to find within the County Council. Members felt however that partner organisations such as the Fire or Ambulance Service should be able to help,

·       The Chairman suggested that Looked After Children could receive help with their CVs and they could then be presented to those recruiting to positions at the Council. This suggestion was amended to have the list of vacancies shown to the young people so they had more control over applying for the vacancies which they felt were suitable for them,

·       It was felt that all contractors within Districts should be asked to commit to supporting work placements for Looked After Children,

·       Health Services should also be involved to help prepare vulnerable young people for work. It was clarified that that was the role of the Health and Care Trust and would probably already be part of the package of mental health support and in the first instance GPs would need to refer young people for such programmes,

·       As the referral system to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) often took a long time it was felt that some additional recommendations were needed

·       It was clarified that some of the figures looked different because some were recorded when the September guarantee of places for young people had been in place, but then later on not all places were taken up,

·       Colleges had recognised that there was an issue with some youngsters not having the required qualifications in order to access college course and more bridging courses were now in place,

·       Take Over days were mentioned when young people were able to experience work placements but it was felt that more could be done to offer work experience.

ACTIONS:

a)     Judy Chadwick to consider if a target could be set for the numbers of apprenticeships given by the Council which were filled by Looked After Children,

b)    Selina Rawicz and Judy Chadwick to consider the procedure to enable the list of Council Vacancies to be shown to all Looked After Children Who were looking for work. For appropriate positions they would be interviewed first,

c)     The County Council, Districts and Partners of the Board to consider how they support our looked after children and care leavers to have access to the 'Family Firm' through work experience, apprenticeships and job opportunities,

d)    District Councils to consider how their own commissioning could ensure contracts include a 'social value added' measure to offer Looked After Children and Care Leavers work and training opportunities.