Care Matters: Time for Change

1
Care Matters Time for Change

• Louise Davies
• Corporate Parenting Officer
• 28th June 2007

2
Context Why a White Paper?

• The gap in outcomes between looked after after
  children young people their peers is still
  widening
• October 2006 - Care Matters Transforming the
  lives of looked after children young people
• Extensive consultation with young people, carers
  and professionals, and 4 national working groups
• The white paper sets out proposals for various
  changes to all elements of the care system

3
Corporate Parenting Getting it right

• Need to support local authorities their
  partners in their corporate
• parenting role.
• Pledge for children in care and a children in
  care council
• Dissemination of corporate parenting training
  materials
• Identifying sharing good practice in corporate
  parenting through the next round of the Beacon
  Council Scheme
• Revised National Minimum Standards for fostering
  services childrens homes in 2009
• Ofsted leading a programme of inspection of
  services for children in care

4
Family Parenting Support

• Ensuring that where it is in the childs best
  interests, children young
• people are enabled supported to live at home.
• Encourage local authorities to analyse manage
  their care populations more proactively
• Improved parenting support
• Pilots of new family based interventions for
  older children young people beginning Spring
  2008
• New framework for friends family care
• Improvements to the arrangements for short break
  care

5
Care Placements A better experience for everyone

• Providing a better choice of quality placements
  for children young
• People
• Ensuring a strong focus on stability
• Enabling local authorities to improve their
  commissioning of placements
• Improving foster care support training
• Better enforcing the National Minimum Standards
  for residential care
• Piloting a social pedagogy approach in
  residential care
• Improve practice in responding to children who go
  missing from care
• Guidance about not placing children outside of
  the authority except where it is in their best
  interests when visits are as regular as within
  authority

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Delivering a first class education

• Making sure that children in care have access to
  a first class
• Education
• Expectation in care planning arrangements for
  under 5s particularly 3 4 year olds that
  the social worker will work with the carer and
  the LA to arrange high quality early years
  education as part of the care plan
• Schools Commissioner will report in January 2009
  on the admission arrangements for children in
  care including the use of local authority
  powers
• DfES is working with 10 LAs and 60 state
  maintained and independent boarding schools to
  test the effectiveness of boarding for vulnerable
  children
• LA must ensure that educational placements are
  not disrupted as part of care planning processes
  that children in years 10 11 must not be
  moved except in exceptional circumstances

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Delivering a first class education cont..

• Role of designated teacher will become statutory,
  supported by training guidance setting out the
  role its responsibilities
• The role should be carried out by a teacher
  preferably in a senior management capacity
• Supply cover will be provided for all school with
  looked after children for the LALTs to attend 2
  days training a year
• Revised Children Act guidance in 2009 setting out
  the roles adults children young people should
  take in designing and delivering the PEP
• PEPs should be forming part of the official
  school record for children in care (since 2005)
• Focus on looked after children young people in
  schools delivery of personalised learning
• From 2008, LAs will be provided with 500 a year
  for looked after children at risk of not reaching
  the expected standards

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Delivering a first class education cont..

• Making good progress pilot will focus on those
  children falling behind national expected
  standards those in care, covers
• Assessment for progression
• One to one tuition
• Progression targets
• Progression premium
• HSBC are funding pilots in 4 LAs to support
  individual tutoring for looked after children
  young people
• Strengthened guidance to carers about supporting
  looked after children with SEN their right to
  appeal
• 2hrs a week of free extended activities during
  term time two weeks free holiday provision for
  looked after children as part of the Aiming
  higher for children initiative

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Delivering a first class education cont..

• Ofsted to conduct a review in 2008/09 of schools
  practice in relation to exclusions of looked
  after children
• Research will be commissioned into how to reduce
  the high levels of absence exclusions for this
  group
• National Strategies behaviour attendance field
  forces to work with target schools LAs with
  high rates of absence amongst looked after
  children
• Revised statutory guidance to schools on the
  exclusions of children in care
• Expectation that provision should be arranged
  from the FIRST day of an exclusion for children
  in care
• Virtual school head role likely to become
  statutory after pilots end in 2008

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Promoting health wellbeing

• Securing the health wider wellbeing of children
  in care
• A range of mechanisms through which health
  delivery partners can better promote the health
  of looked after children
• Making Promoting the health of looked after
  children a statutory responsibility for the NHS
  as well as LAs
• Focus on children in care in the new Joint
  Strategic Needs Assessments, which will align
  with the CYPP
• Measures to transform the potential of children
  young peoples leisure time including free LA
  provision free music lessons in school
• Clear roles responsibilities for promoting the
  health wellbeing of children in care

11
Transition to adulthood

• Better prepared for the transition to adulthood
• Greater involvement of young people on deciding
  when to move on to independence
• Provide young people with the opportunity to stay
  with carers or in residential units to 21
• Provide PA support to young people to the age of
  21 or 25 if they request it
• Place 100 per year into the Child Trust Fund
  account of every eligible child who spends a year
  in care
• Introduce a national bursary requiring LAs to
  provide a minimum of 2000 for all young people
  who go on to University

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The role of the practitioner

• Ensure that children in care experience a
  seamless service which is
• consistent, responsive to need, receptive to
  their wishes and
• feelings
• Workforce remodelling, to enable social workers
  to spend more time with the child
• Reforms to social work training to ensure they
  are knowledgeable in relevant theoretical
  frameworks
• Tailored recruitment campaigns to emphasise the
  benefits of working in a childrens services
  environment
• Newly Qualified Social Worker status that would
  guarantee support, training induction

13
The role of the practitioner cont..

• Piloting social work practices to test whether
  partnership with external agencies can enhance
  the childs experience of care
• Reforms to the independent reviewing system so
  that Independent Reviewing Officers (IROs)
  provide more effective care planning on behalf of
  the child
• Ensure that all those children who need it have
  access to independent visitors advocates