Agenda item

To consider the Corporate Parenting Committee Update Report.

Kerry Birtles, Director of Children’s Social Care, Children in Need & Child Protection presented the item to the Committee and Nick Crick the Interim Head of Service for Cared for Services and Care Leavers was available to answer any questions the Committee had.

Kerry advised that at the time of writing, Cheshire East was in Tier 2, High Alert restrictions but following that the country went into a third lockdown, the focus remained on the impact for children and young people.

The regulations for social workers had remained the same as April 2020, they were reviewed in September 2020 and would be in place until end of March 2021.  There had been a lot of positive feedback from frontline colleagues who had felt supported within the service.

There was an update to report following government announcement on what lockdown meant for vulnerable children going into education. 

Carers, parents and young people now had more knowledge around the pandemic and making informed decisions that related to the pandemic. 

Early in the pandemic there had been a scoping exercise of 534 young people that showed 150 Cared for Children were Not in Education.

Kerry gave some reassurance to the Committee that the service was clear about who these children were and there was risk assessments for each situation and the challenge was back to safeguarding children’s partnership.

The service wanted to maintain the same level of service delivery that enabled children to see birth parents.  Permanency was something that had increased.

Last year, 14 young people achieved permanency, there had been 12 to date due in part to good efforts by court for an even spread of prioritisation.  Courts deal with new and emerging cases but also had responsibility for permanency too.  This area of work was moving at pace now.

In terms of Children with adoption, there was more work to do because of drift and delay in achieving permanency.

There were six children no longer in care but around 50 needed to move through system and were no longer in care.  The service did not want children in care if they didn’t need to be.

In terms of the Care leaver cohort, these were vulnerable, some had the impact of living alone, some felt isolated, some were young adults who had transitioned earlier and now had layers of complexity because of pandemic.  The service would keep reaching out to them.  There had been a piece of work commissioned with CCG, that related to emotional well being and fitness.  Vulnerable young people now had free access to wellbeing courses. 

There had been one young person who was Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET)nwho wanted to become self employed and was given some funding to develop maternity bags and that generated employment for herself.

The Committee were given the opportunity to ask questions.

There was some discussion around the access vulnerable children and young people had to devices, Kerry gave reassurance to the Committee that Schools were open and welcoming, and where remote learning is in place, internet and devices had been put in place. 

The Committee noted there had been some publicity regarding buidnesses with spare devices that had been utilised for Cared for Children.

Nick advised the Committee that all Cared for Children had been written to, to ensure they knew they were supported within the care system.

It was noted the increase in NEET children related to Cared for Children and this cohort of children and young people was easier for the Council to influence as the Council was the corporate parent.  There were bigger numbers of NEET in Child Protection and Children in Need teams where the parents had the decision making 

The Committee noted that the target for Personal Education Plans was to get to 90% by Christmas, Kerry advised the landscape had changed and Children in transition groups and key stages taking SATS had been prioritised.  This could be an area for more detail at the next committee.

RESOLVED-

That the report be received and noted