At the previous meeting of the Committee, Members were briefed on matters raised in the Lord Laming report on Child Protection and advised how Safeguarding services would operate within Cheshire East. Members were informed of an Action Plan that had been developed to address the recommendations of both the Lord Laming report and the recommendations that had arisen following the Annual Performance Assessment that had been carried out of Cheshire County Council’s services in 2008.
The Committee agreed to give further consideration to Safeguarding issues and is now invited to discuss what further information is required and when this should be considered so as to facilitate the development of the Committee’s Work Programme.
Minutes:
At the previous meeting of the Committee, Members received a briefing on matters raised in the Lord Laming report on Child Protection and advised how safeguarding would operate within Cheshire East.
The Committee was circulated with a document showing Statutory Returns and Performance Indicators for Children’s Services in relation to Private Fostering, Looked After Children (now referred to as Cared for Children) and Referral/Assessment and Child Protection processes.
In relation to private fostering arrangements, the Committee was advised of current numbers of privately fostered children and the assessment regime. The Council was required to assess private fostering arrangements within 7 working days and visit every six weeks thereafter. Cheshire East fulfilled this requirement. Numbers of privately fostered children appeared to be low in the Borough but further work on promoting awareness of the issue was to be carried out to ascertain whether there were more private fostering arrangements in existence than authorities were aware of.
The Committee was advised that there were currently 368 Cared for Children in Cheshire East and the Borough was now in line with national trends rather than previously when Cheshire was below average. Of these children, 10% were in Children’s residential homes, 83% were with foster parents and the remaining 7% were either living independently or temporarily with their parents. There were enough adoptive parents available in the Borough and no age limit to adopters. A child who had to move placement would always try to be kept in the same school and would receive multi professional support. Each child would have a Personal Education Plan and there was specific support available for children sitting GCSEs. There was now a statutory requirement within each school that it had a Designated Teacher for Cared for Children. Members agreed that it was important to continue to monitor educational attainment of Cared for Children.
Foster parents would usually receive information in advance about the child they were about to foster although in an emergency situation this may not always be possible. A Placement Plan would be developed setting out as much information as possible and establishing the roles of all involved. Many fostered children would go on holiday with their foster carers but if a foster parent needed some respite from fostering this would not count as a breakdown in the placement.
A briefing was to be given to Town and Parish Councils on safeguarding which related to the emphasis in Lord Laming’s report that safeguarding was the responsibility of everyone. It was important to try to mobilise local knowledge to enable a proactive approach towards families causing concern before issues accelerated.
RESOLVED:That
(a) a regular report on the National Indicator Set be submitted to the Committee on areas shown as amber and red with an explanation behind the figures and examples of actual practice;
(b) figures relating to children in Cheshire broken down into numbers of children in need, those subject to a care order, numbers fostered etc based on the categories listed in the Lord Laming report be circulated to Members as soon as possible; and
(b) a small team of Members visit front line services that work in the area of safeguarding.