Children Looked After Placement Sufficiency Statement 2021 1 | P a g e Child-Friendly Summary Who has written Libby Butler this report? Job title/Team Strategic Commissioning Manager (CLA and Permanence) Name of report Children Looked After Sufficiency Statement 2021-2022 What is this report about? Why has it been written/why is it important? At Swindon Borough Council, we believe that all children and young people deserve the best start in life. We want children and young people to enjoy life, establish healthy relationships, do well at school, stay safe from harm, be healthy and grow up to reach their full potential in adulthood. For children looked after and care leavers, this also means ensuring that you have a good place to live, where you are well cared for and supported to achieve your goals. Ideally we want to be able to offer you a safe and loving home either within Swindon or as close to Swindon as possible. We are required (by central government and Ofsted) to do everything we can to make sure we have enough accommodation and carers available within our local area to be able to meet your needs. This is referred to as our “Sufficiency Duty”. This Children Looked After Sufficiency Statement talks about what we know about our children looked after and care leavers and what we as a local authority are doing over the coming year to make sure that we can offer the right accommodation (e.g. foster carer, a children’s home or supported accommodation) and provide high quality services (e.g. mental health services, advocacy, education and leisure based activities) to help you live well, stay healthy and achieve your goals. What does the report say? What we know about our CLA and Care Leavers: Over the last couple of years, there have been less children coming into care; at the end of March 2020 there were 301 CLA. In 2019/20, the primary reason children came into care was because they had been abused or neglected at home More than half our CLA who are of school age need extra help with their education (they have a “special educational need” or SEN) and nearly half of those have a detailed Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) Many CLA (73%) are living with foster carers, while a small number (12%) live in children’s homes and a few young people (5%) live in supported or semi-independent accommodation In 2019/20 Swindon’s Positive Futures Leaving Care Team supported 290 young people aged 16-25. In September 2020 the team reported that they were in contact with 98% of those young people on a regular basis 84% of care leavers aged 17-18 and 81% of care leavers aged 19-21 were living in “suitable accommodation”. No care leavers were known to be homeless at the end of March 2020. 2 | P a g e Things that are going well: 98% of our children looked after are living in places that are rated by Ofsted as being “good” or “outstanding”. Most children are happy with where they live and who they live with. We know that most of our children and young people are receiving the healthcare they deserve – 93% had up-to-date immunisations, 86% have been to the dentist recently, and 94% have had an annual health assessment. Social workers, foster carers, special guardians and other key support workers in Swindon are being trained in trauma-informed practice and understand how to help children and young people recover from difficult childhood experiences and improve their mental health and wellbeing. The number of care leavers participating in education, employment or training in Swindon is higher than the national average. We are supporting more children and young people to stay at home with their families (where it is safe to do so) through a much better Early Help and Edge of Care Service, meaning that less children are coming into care in the first place, or they are able to return home quicker if they do come into care. Things that need to improve: Too many children (28.8% as at March 2020) are still living outside of Swindon and more than 20 miles away. However things are improving and in the six months between April and October 2020, only 20 children (14%) who were new into care were placed more than 20 miles away, and only 6 of these were placed out of borough because there was no suitable placement available in Swindon at that time. The other 14 children moved away for good reasons (for example, they were safer outside Swindon, or they moved to stay with other family or friends who lived outside of Swindon). There are only two small children’s homes currently in Swindon, which means children who cannot or do not want to live in foster care normally have to move away. Unfortunately, placement stability is still a challenge. What this means is that some children have moved from one placement to another, several times during their time in care which can be very stressful. In 2019/20 14% of our children looked after had moved three times or more in the last 12 months. What we are doing over the next 12 months to make things better: We are recruiting more foster carers and setting up more children’s homes in Swindon, so more of you can continue to go to school in Swindon and live close to your friends and family We have recently recruited a Contracts Manager who will make sure that the services you access are really high quality and people working with you treat you well We have more social workers working in schools so that children who are not in care can get the support they need, without coming into care We are making sure that local Councillors understand how to be good “corporate parents”, listen to you and get the best outcomes for you. 3 | P a g e Table of Contents 1. Introduction Page 5 2. Swindon Vision & Corporate Parenting “Care Pledge” Page 5 3. CLA and Care Leavers Population – an overview Page 6 3.1 Population of children looked after Page 6 3.2 Needs of children looked after Page 8 3.3 Care leavers Page 10 4. Supply of Placements Page 12 4.1 Provision of placements Page 12 4.2 Location of placements Page 12 4.3 Cost of placements Page 14 4.4 Projections on demand for placements Page 14 4.5 Challenges in providing placements and related services Page 15 5. Stability and Permanence Page 16 5.1 Stability of placements Page 16 5.2 Achieving permanency for children Page 16 5.3 Long term matching with foster carers Page 17 5.4 SGOs and Adoption Page 17 5.5 Reunification and revocation of care orders Page 18 5.6 Staying Put Page18 5.7 Staying Close Page 18 5.8 Swindon Transition to Adulthood Strategy Page 18 6. Commissioning Arrangements Page 19 6.1 Working collaboratively Page 19 6.2 Market engagement Page 20 6.3 Quality assurance and contract monitoring Page 21 6.4 Young people’s involvement in commissioning and quality Page 21 assurance 7. Swindon’s Early Help & ‘Edge of Care’ Offer Page 21 7.1 What is Early Help? Page 21 7.2 The Edge of Care Service Page 22 7.3 Social Workers in Schools Programme Page 23 7.4 Family Intervention and Support Service (FISS) & The Early Page 24 Help 7.5 Family Group Conferences Page 24 7.6 Hub Early Help: Where we want to be in 2022 Page 25 8. Perspective of Children, Young People and their Families Page 25 8.1 Desired Outcomes Page 25 8.2 Children’s Feedback on this Sufficiency Statement Page 25 9. Conclusion Page 26 Attachment 1: Placement Sufficiency Action Plan 2021 - 2022 Page 28 4 | P a g e 1. Introduction Section 22G of the Children Act 1989 (‘the 1989 Act’) requires local authorities to take strategic actions “…that secure, so far as reasonably practicable, sufficient accommodation within the authority’s local area which meets the needs of children that the local authority are looking after…” where it is safe and appropriate for the child. This is known as “The Sufficiency Duty”. As described in the Statutory Guidance1, “securing sufficient accommodation that meet the needs of looked after children is a vital step in delivering improved outcomes for this vulnerable group. Having the right placement in the right place, at the right time, is a vital factor in improving placement stability, which in turn is a critical success factor in relation to better outcomes for looked after children”. In addition to this, it is recognised that taking earlier, preventative action to support children and families so that fewer children become looked after, through a robust Early Help Offer, is also an important mechanism in improving outcomes and ensuring sufficiency. This Sufficiency Strategy outlines what we know about Swindon’s children looked after and care leavers, and how we as a local authority (along with our community partners and other local authorities within the region) plan to provide high quality, local, care and accommodation now and into the future. This document also shares progress made in establishing and embedding our Early Help Service, which includes a new Edge of Care Team; providing support to children in need who are at risk of care or custody, and where appropriate, supporting children and young people to return home to their families after a period in care. 2.