Agenda item

Report CEF21008

The report captured the activity of the Council and corporate partners in supporting children in care and care leavers.

The Committee noted that within the last 12-months there had been a complete change in the landscape which had required the Service to grow and expand.  The active involvement offer had been developed and grown.  Over the summer a full programme of events had been run for young people and the events were well attended.  The website had also been developed as part of the exploration of the different ways in which the service could reach out to its young people. 

Progress had been made in identifying and matching suitable placements leading to increased stability for young people.  Work continued with different providers to ensure that the right support was in place for young people when they experienced difficulties to ensure that they achieved a sense of permanence.

Education, Employment and Training (EET) remained a key issue for the service as work and training opportunities not only provided financial stability for young people but also delivered huge wellbeing benefits.  As a result of the pandemic, some of the first jobs to be lost had been in the retail and hospitality sectors and this had a disproportionate impact on young people, particularly those for whom the local authority had corporate parenting responsibility.  In response to this the EET Strategy had been re-written over the Summer 2020 and the EET Officer now sat within the Active Involvement Team so that wrap around services could be put in place.  NEET (Not in Education, Employment and Training) Data was closely monitored and all the young people in the NEET cohort were involved with the EET Officer.  Whilst recognising that it was a difficult landscape, Officers believed that the right strategy was in place and time was now needed for the strategy to bed in and for the opportunities available to young people to be developed.  There were lots of avenues to be explored to enable the Service to be as ambitious as possible for young people.

In relation to concerns around the support for young people leaving care, attempts had been made to increase the frequency of support.  Links had also been made with Adult Services in order to ensure sufficient support at the point of transition.  A Transitions Panel, which brought together a number of the agencies working with young people had been established to assist with the management of the transition process.  The Portfolio Holder explained that a lot of work was done to reach out to care leavers to ensure that they had the support they needed going forward.  Through this process a number of the concerns of care leavers could be identified and addressed.

In response to a question concerning the impact of the Covid pandemic on the number of children coming to the attention of children’s social care, Members noted that there had been more pressure and more complexity in families, particularly around adolescent mental health.  However, numbers of Looked After Children had not significantly increased although there had been a greater demand for Early Intervention services.

RESOLVED: That the report be noted.