Agenda item

The Council’s Cabinet Member for Social Care and Health Integration presented a report on the Council’s Corporate Parenting arrangements. The report was composed of two elements: an annual report and an update following a visit from Mark Riddell, the National Implementation Advisor for Care Leavers at the Department for Education, in November 2020. The Cabinet Member explained the Council’s responsibilities in relation to care leavers, the approach that it took to ensure that the best support could be provided to those in its care and its plans for the next 12 months.

Members thanked the Cabinet Member and the Operational Team for their work in supporting the Borough’s care leavers.

In response to a question, the Operational Director for Children’s Care and Support (ODCCS) stated that:

• Now more than ever, it was very important that children were supported by CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) in regards to their mental health.
• There was a dedicated LAC (Looked After Children) CAMHS worker. Her role partly involved troubleshooting when difficulties arose with children placed out of the Borough.
• The Designated Nurse for Safeguarding and LAC at Barking and Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge CCGs, was now also the Chair of the Health Sub-Group which sat below the Council’s Corporate Parenting Board and she had worked hard to ensure that children placed outside of the Borough were fully supported. Whilst this was not always straightforward, as other authorities were often highly challenged, there had been many instances where the Council had been very creative in terms of what they could do to support the children whilst they were awaiting local support.
• Mental health was an item that featured consistently on the agenda for the Health Sub-Group. The Council was thinking very carefully about mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic and the impact that this may have on its young people.

A Councillor praised the progress made as a result of the recommendations arising from KLOE 2 and from Elevate moving back into the Council. Calls from young people in care and care leavers now went directly to Children’s Care and Support, and additional training for supporting young people in care and care leavers had been provided to Contact Centre staff. The ODCCS highlighted the positive comments that had been received from the National Implementation Advisor for Care Leavers as to the Council’s approach that there was no expiry date in terms of supporting those in or who had been in its care. Young people over the age of 25 were still care leavers and the Council believed in being proactive in contacting them, even when it was assumed that they were okay, as any parent would. The Cabinet Member also cited the importance of matching young unaccompanied asylum seekers with the right foster carers, and the pivotal role of foster carers in supporting these young people. The ODCCS stated that the Council was equally as supportive of unaccompanied asylum seekers as other young people in its care, viewing them as its children from the day that they stepped through its door. Part of a new fostering campaign was to find more foster carers for unaccompanied asylum minors. A new cohort of foster carers had since been recruited and were supporting young people who were now arriving into the Borough.

In response to a question, the Cabinet Member stated that when undertaking scrutiny, Members could be better corporate parents by questioning whether the various issues they scrutinised took into account the impact on the Borough’s looked after children. This could include considering whether employment and apprenticeship schemes were offered to care leavers first and asking whether the 500 looked after children in the Borough were receiving the best access to services.

(Standing Orders were suspended at this juncture, in order to allow the meeting to continue until 9.30pm).