Www.hertsdirect.org Children’s Services Jenny Coles Director of Children’s Safeguarding &...

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Children’s ServicesJenny Coles

Director of Children’s Safeguarding & Specialist

Services


National & Local Themes• Early Intervention

• Managing Demand

• Continual improvement of quality of service and outcomes

• Integration and Partnership

Underpinned by legislation &

national guidance


The Golden Thread

OPPO

RTU

NIT

Y T

O THRIVEPROSPERBE HEALTHY & SAFE

Children’s Services Board

Education & Early Intervention Services

Board

Safeguarding & Specialist Services

Board

Health & Wellbeing Board

HSCB Strategic Board

Cabinet

Strategic Management

Board

County Council

Children’s Services Panel


Where are we now?

• Children’s Centres & Early Years

• Targeted Advice Service

• Targeted Youth Support

• Thriving Families

• Safeguarding

• Disabled Children

• Children Looked After


Children’s Centres: Core Purpose

• Early education, childcare and child development services

• Outreach and family support

• Parenting programmes

• Access to adult learning and employment support

• Child and family health services by supporting the Healthy Child Programme 0-5 yr olds

To improve outcomes for young children and their families, with a particular focus on those families in greatest need of support through:


Children’s Centres: LA’s statutory responsibility

• To ensure sufficient CCs to meet local need

• To ensure each CC has an Advisory Board

• To consult on any significant changes to the CC provision

• To ensure that the LA, commissioners of health services and JobCentre plus work together to provide integrated early childhood services

• To prepare and publish the post-Ofsted action plan for each CC


Hertfordshire Children’s Centres: facts & figures

82 Centres serving 74,000 under 5 yr olds

Each covers a geographical community with an average of 800 children under 5

Annual contract costs of £13.2M (remained constant since 2010)

CCs funded through a formula based on population, deprivation and rurality

73 buildings received DfE capital funding for extensions/ refurbishment

Fully commissioned with 50 lead agencies


Children’s Centres: Next steps

• Evidence that current service is valued and respected by parents, communities and professionals

• Contracts end March 2015, recommission from 2013/2014 – possibly aligning with health visitor commissioning

• Agreement that CCs could be grouped to widen catchment areas, reduce management costs and increase direct work

• New Ofsted framework emphasises need for a universal offer

• Members Scrutiny planned for May 2014 which will inform development of tender specification


Multiagency Targeted Advice Service

• Provides advice, guidance, signposting and a triage service for cases that do not meet the threshold for Safeguarding & Specialist Service on how best to meet the needs of children & families, including through a Common Assessment Framework (CAF), where appropriate

• Management of Domestic Violence (DV) notifications & referrals

• Safeguarding consultation to practitioners through the support line

Target – response and referral within two working days


• Care leaver service for 18 - 21 year olds (25 if in education)

• All care leavers have a named Personal Adviser and a Pathway Plan, reviewed every 6 months

- 432 care leavers - 31 in higher education last year.

18 applied for university this year to date

- 102 asylum seekers

Targeted Youth Support Service

• Intensive interventions to prevent family breakdown, address high risk behaviours

• Prevention of offending, case management and interventions to deliver Court Orders and reparation

• Sustained reduction in number of young people brought into care since April 2012

• Average length of time in care 16.5 weeks

• Of these 60% returned home to parents, 20% went into independent accommodation with support

Integrated Targeted Youth Support Service

Leaving Care Service


Targeted Youth Support – Youth Justice

Key Outcomes 2012 / 13 (12 months to March 2013)

• First time entrant to the criminal justice system – 313 (down 48%)

• Sentenced to custody – 4.5%• In education, employment or

training – 81.7%• Offenders who are looked

after children – 2.5%• In suitable accommodation –

96.4%

Case Study – Family H: Mother and four children (12, 15, 16, 17)

At start of engagement: Early Outcomes:

Agencies involved – reactively - included Social Care, Housing Association, Police, Education

Agencies involved - proactively - Housing Association, Education, CAMHS, Thriving Families Team

School attendance (core indicator) – children had all stopped attending school for three months.

Children all back in school

Worklessness (core indicator) – Parent had stopped working

Parent has gained employment, 17 year old actively seeking employment.

Anti social behaviour (core indicator) – 10 reports to housing and 12 reports to police in one month concerning family.

Housing issue resolved and family seeking to house swap to start afresh

Risk of homelessness (local indicator) – Housing provider planning to take legal action

Domestic abuse (local indicator) – History of domestic abuse from children’s father who no longer lives with the family

12 year old accessing mental health support from Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service

• 427 Year 1; scaling up to support 1122 families in Year 2• 5 x TF core teams leading intervention and monitoring family progress (Action & Impact)• Multi-agency resource e.g. housing, substance misuse, employment advice, police, schools• Access to dedicated Family Budgets – personalised and timely response to meeting needs• TF Board (Health and Well-Being) to re-shape services based on evidence of impact

THRIVING FAMILIES 427

families

Dedicated worker - what is really happening - practical support – assertive and challenging - agreed plan


Safeguarding Services: Purpose

To reduce the risk of harm/significant harm to

Hertfordshire’s vulnerable children and

young people, maintaining them within their family so long as this is compatible with

their welfare. Where this is not

possible, to take the necessary legal action to

provide children with alternative permanent

homes where they will be safe, loved and can

achieve to their maximum potential


Safeguarding Teams

• 11 assessment teams

• 15 locality safeguarding teams

• 3 family safeguarding and assessment teams

• 6 looked after children teams


Key Performance Data: Q4 2012/3

79.8% of

initial

assessment

s to timescale

79.8% of

initial

assessment

s to timescale

83.3% of core

assessments

to timescale

83.3% of core

assessments

to timescale

632 Children on Child

Protection plans

632 Children on Child

Protection plans

Every child on a CP plan or looked after had an

allocated Qualified Social Worker

Every child on a CP plan or looked after had an

allocated Qualified Social Worker

1038 Children Looked

After

1038 Children Looked

After

79.1% CLA with up to

date pathway plans

79.1% CLA with up to

date pathway plans


Disabled Children’s Service

• 1100 Children

• Safeguarding First

• Making it Personal

• Pioneering Partnerships

• Embracing New Ways


Children Looked After: Fostering and Adoption

• Support and achieve permanence for children

• Majority of CLA in foster care

• 67 Adoption orders; 84 adopters approved

• 64 fostering approvals (net gain 26)

• 54 special guardianship orders

• 55 Family and Friends


Children’s Residential Service

• 3 mainstream homes for adolescents • All evaluated by Ofsted as Good with Outstanding features• 1 long term home for disabled children ; 1 short breaks service

for disabled children

• Multi-agency service providing intensive support to young people aged 12-18 and their families/carers, where the needs are proving to be beyond the resources of existing services.

• In 2012, out of 71 cases, 24 have moved down the care continuum, of which 14 were returned home (5 from Foster Care, 2 from Residential, 6 following ARC 28 day Assessment and 1 from other family member.

• With ARC intervention and support 33 cases have remained in their placements, 14 in the family home, 18 maintained their placement in Foster Care and 1 in Residential.

• 1 Multi agency outreach and assessment service working with children up to 12 and their families/carers to prevent breakdown

• In 2012, out of 68 cases, 41 children were stabilised within their family/foster placement,16 children moved down the care continuum and 24 children achieved permanence.

• Ofsted evaluated as Outstanding in all areas

Residential Homes

AdolescentOutreachService (ARC)

The Datchworth

Project


Children Looked After

• Children in Care Council: strong voice for young people;

• Virtual School for CLA operational for 3 years;

• 39.4% of children looked after achieve five or more GCSE A* - C grades (but only 13.1% including English and mathematics);

• 81.3% children looked after with health & dental checks;

• 62% of 19 year old care leavers in education, employment or training.


Areas for focus 2013/14

• Implementing Post-Inspection action plan;

• Implementing Working Together 2013 changes;

• Ensuring needs of all children and young people are effectively considered within assessment and planning processes

• Improving implementation of quality assurance / audit learning and ensure performance management and quality assurance are fully embedded

• Recruitment and Retention of staff.


Areas for focus 2013/14

• Family Justice Review / Public Law Outline changes;

• Increasing placement choice linked to fostering strategy and Delivery of Special Provision Locally;

• Adoption reform and further improving

permanency timescales for CLA;

• Ensuring service planning is better

influenced by the views of children,

young people & carers;

• Strengthening our engagement with Health and

improve information sharing/joint working with commissioners, providers & adult service.


Opportunities: where are we going?


Strategic Drivers

• Opportunities for integration of commissioning & services

• Focus on delivering early intervention & evidence of what works

• High quality & timely specialist services

• Work force development

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Www.hertsdirect.org Children’s Services Jenny Coles Director of Children’s Safeguarding &...

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