Agenda item

The Board will consider a report giving key highlights from the latest performance monitoring data for the Children’s Service.

Contacts:

Ophelia Rix, Head of Service for Children in Care, Care Leavers and Looked After Children

Louise Hallas, Virtual School Headteacher

Gill Addy, Designated Nurse for Looked After Children

Ian Mottershaw, Head of Service –Contextual Safeguarding and Y.E.S, Family Support and Child Protection

The Board considered the latest Children’s Performance Highlights Report in respect of the performance monitoring data for Children’s Services.

Ophelia Rix, Head of Service for Children Looked After and Care Leavers highlighted the following points in relation to Looked After Children and Care leavers:

·         The care planning and decision-making processes for children and young people continued to maintain Senior Manager oversight through the Legal Gateway, Permanence and Children Accessing Service Panel.

·         The Panels provided assurance that management oversight and clear actions and timescales were in place to address practice of concern and highlight evidence of good practice.

·         Weekly Performance meetings were being held and the feedback received showed that young people were satisfied and had a strong relationship with social workers.

·         The work of the Panel helped to increase understanding of young people and their experiences.

·         There had been an increase in number of unaccompanied young people which placed increased workload but there had been timely responses in terms of the allocation of social workers and educational provision. 

·         The ambition was to undertake more work in relation to understanding unaccompanied young people and their experiences to meet their current and future needs.

·         In relation to Care Leavers, there had been an increase in relation to the number of Care Leavers who were in touch.

·         The team continued to work innovatively to keep in touch with all young people and were confident that all post 18 young people were aware of the support offer.

·         There had been an increase in the numbers of young people who had up-to-date pathway plans.

·         Work continued with Social Workers and Personal Advisors to ensure pathway plans were completed in a timely manner to meet targets with a focus going forward on the improvement of the quality of plans.

·         In relation to the number of young people in suitable accommodation, there had been a significant impact on the increasing demands for tenancies.

·         Work continued with housing colleagues who agreed to prioritise properties for young people, and this had helped to improve performance.

·         This work was to continue to ensure that suitable accommodation was available, and strong links with private housing providers were being maintained.

·         Performance in relation to Employment, Education and Training (EET) indicator was a focus for improvement supporting the priority to ensure that young people were afforded the best of opportunities in relation to EET.

·         There was a C&K Careers Advisor in the Leaving Care Service, and there was a pro-active multi-agency group to improve opportunities in partnership working.

·         There had been an increase in the number of young people accessing No11 and No12 and weekly drop-in sessions were held at these hubs.

The Board noted the update in respect of Children Looked After and Care leavers and welcomed the information in relation to Children Looked After Review meetings highlighting that they were well attended by a range of committed partner agencies.  During the discussion to follow the Board raised a question in relation to suitable accommodation noting that the target support was positive, but funding was due to cease March 2024.

In response Ophelia Rix advised that the role was to be maintained within the service to ensure that young people were supported into suitable accommodation.

Gill Addy, the Designated Nurse for Looked After Children and Care Leavers and Stewart Horn, Head of Children’s Integrated Commissioning updated the Board in relation to the health data, which provided both twelve- month rolling and monthly figures. It was advised that:

Initial Health Assessments (IHA’s):

·         A rolling 12-month data shows that 60.4% of IHA’s were completed in the statutory timescale but the actual percentage had dropped to 0% in real terms in August.

·         This was being replicated across regional neighbours and had been highlighted on the WY risk register.

·         This was due to a number of factors including a continued increase of; numbers coming into care (including large sibling groups) unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC), the number of children placed with connected carers not being brought requiring re-scheduling, complexities, requests from other local authorities to complete on their behalf.

·         Work was being undertaken with Kirklees College who were supporting health promotion work with UASC.

·         Locala monthly data for July showed that 31% were completed in the 20-day timescale.

·         Meetings of a working group (made up of the Designated Nurse, Locala the CHFT, and the ICB) were taking place regularly to make improvements.

·         The Business Case to consider additional nurse/doctor resource/alternative CLA Health model, which would support the whole team remained under commissioner consideration, with a resubmission presented in September to the ICB.

·         This had since been escalated to a West Yorkshire Director for Children services and NHS senior leaders meeting, where region wide issues were discussed.

Review health assessments (RHA):

·         Kirklees rolling 12-month data shows that 82.5% & 90.5% of the ‘Developmental’ assessments (under 5yrs old) and ‘Annual’ assessments (over 5 yrs. old) respectively, were completed in statutory timescales.

·         These positive results include months when the previous model of delivery by Thriving Kirklees (TK) was in place.

·         Since April, TK had put a temporary process in place to complete most allocated RHA’s on additional hours, or incorporate with their own statutory assessments, until the commissioning arrangements completed.

·          Locala monthly data for August showed that 63% and 68% for under and over 5 years olds respectively, were completed in timescales under the temporary regime.

·         Almost all assessments were completed in the month they were due, or soon after to fit around carer arrangements.

Dental Checks:

·         Kirklees rolling 12-month data shows that 65.2% of children aged 1+, had attended the dentist.

·         Several factors were negatively affecting the recording of data and a working group had been established to look at aligning the data with Locala.

·         This included using SW practitioners to update when a child had attended as part of their statutory visits, avoiding reliance on recording at the RHA

·         Locala monthly data for showed that 100% of children age 18months to under 5 yrs., and 94% 5 years+, had attended the dentist at the point of their RHA.

Registered at dentist:

·         Locala data shows 100% of children aged 18m to 5 years and 86% 5 years+ at the point of their RHA, were registered with a dentist.

·         The use of the ‘Flexible Commissioning Project’ has supported CLA and care leavers to register.

Substance misuse:

·         1 young person (0.24%) had admitted or are known to use substances that have a significant impact on their daily life when asked at their last RHA.

·         If a young person declines their RHA, a check was made with the social worker to ascertain if substance use is an issue.

·          The working group will also look at alternative methods of collection of this data as the RHA was not a reliable source.

Immunisations:

·         93% and 83% of under and over 5-year-olds respectively, were up to date with their immunisations.

·         Reasons for a lower uptake in older children can be related to; the shortened schedule offered to Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children, some young people may decline, and placement moves or moves to semi-independent living can negatively impact take up.

The Board noted the update and recognised that there were some unprecedented challenges in this area of work, but welcomed the work of Kirklees College in helping to support UASC and highlighted that this should be recognised, and that the college be thanked. 

Gill Addy agreed and added how group interactions in classrooms with peers was a positive format for working with young children.

The Board noted challenges around adoption, and the average time between a child coming into adoption and being placed. Concerns regarding the delays had been raised with OAWY as the data was below statistical neighbourhoods.

RESOLVED: The Board noted the Children's Performance Highlight Report, and it was agreed that Kirklees college be thanked and congratulated for the support provided to UASC.