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Inspection of services for children in need of help and protection, children looked after and care leavers – self evaluation

FINAL June 2017

Table of ContentsForeword3Comparison of performance information - March 2015 to March 2017:4Key Judgement 1 – The experiences and progress of children who need help and protection6Key judgement 2 – the experiences and progress of children looked after and achieving permanence17Key judgement 2.1 – Adoption Performance28Key judgement 2.2 – The experience and progress of care leavers34Key Judgement 3 – Leadership Management and Governance40Glossary54

Foreword

Cumbria County Council Children and Families Services have been subject to continuous scrutiny and challenge since 2012 when the local authority was first judged to be inadequate in the delivery of services to children and young people in Cumbria.

The inspection in March 2015 identified that in several key areas progress had been made since the previous inspections. Areas that had improved related to the help and protection of children, the adoption service and the experience and progress of our care leavers which were all judged as ‘requires improvement’. The inspection also recognised improvements made regarding our partnership arrangements with a judgement of ‘requires improvement’ for our LSCB.

Our children in care service were judged to be inadequate and as a result of this limiting judgement our leadership, management and governance were also judged inadequate.

Since March 2015 we have continued to work with Ofsted to ensure direction and pace in our improvement journey. Monthly Ofsted monitoring visits started in July 2015, in addition to which Cumbria has benefited from the support of a DfE Advisor three days per month. The feedback offered to the local authority from both of these relationships affirms Cumbria’s own view that we are progressing at sufficient pace, addressing key challenges and that services to children young people and families in Cumbria have improved further.

Our commitment and determination to improve services for the children, young people and families we serve across Cumbria’s communities can be seen and measured within this self-evaluation, which offers a transparent and honest overview of the steps taken to develop services, the level to which this has been achieved and the ongoing challenges in securing the consistency needed to provide the right service to the right child at the right time, for all children.

Although the overall judgement of this self-evaluation is that we ‘require improvement’ our clearly stated aim is to be judged as good, as only good is good enough for Cumbria’s children and young people.

John Macilwraith

Corporate Director – Children and Families Services

Together we can achieve the very best for every child, young person and their family in Cumbria

Comparison of performance information - March 2015 to March 2017: The below performance information evidences Cumbria’s improvement journey following the 2015 Ofsted inspection.

Audit indicators

Year ending

Indicator

March 2015

March 2016

March 2017

Voice of the child is evidenced

74.2%

85.0%

86.9%

% change from previous year

N/a

15%

2%

Referrals promptly and appropriately allocated

85.6%

85.1%

91.6%


N/a

-1%

8%

Assessments meeting minimum standards

74.0%

81.8%

91.2%


N/a

11%

11%

Children’s plans meeting minimum standards

59.3%

67.7%

85.9%


N/a

14%

27%

Case management meets required standards

61.8%

64.4%

85.7%


N/a

4%

33%

Cases which evidence appropriate management oversight

71.0%

80.9%

88.3%


N/a

14%

9%

Performance indicators

Year ending

Indicator

March 2015

March 2016

March 2017

Referrals within 12 months of a previous referral

33.4%

24.7%

22.1%


N/a

26%

11%

Assessments completed within 45 working days

84.9%

94.2%

90.9%


N/a

11%

-4%

Initial Child Protection Conferences within 15 working days

74.4%

85.2%

78.4%


N/a

15%

-8%

Social work reports for ICPC shared with family

50.5%

74.3%

76.0%


N/a

47%

2%

CP Statutory visits

99.1%

92.3%

98.3%


N/a

-7%

7%

Children subject of repeat CP plan within 2 years

6.7%

11.4%

10.7%


N/a

-70%

6%

CP plans lasting over 2 years

5.9%

4.0%

2.8%


N/a

32%

30%

CLA Statutory Visits

97.3%

93.7%

98.7%


N/a

-4%

5%

CLA with 3 or more placements in the year

6.8%

7.1%

8.6%


N/a

-4%

-21%

CLA living in the same placement for 2+ years

67.4%

66.5%

68.9%


N/a

-1%

4%

CLA in purchased placements

38.3%

36.8%

43.1%


N/a

4%

-17%

CLA placed outside Cumbria

25.8%

26.4%

28.8%


N/a

-2%

-9%

CLA with up to date PEP

94.3%

97.5%

97.6%


N/a

3%

0.1%

Initial health assessments for children entering care

54.7%

79.5%

83.5%


N/a

45%

5%

Health assessments for children looked after for 12 months or more

89.2%

92.0%

95.4%


N/a

3%

4%

Dental checks for children looked after for 12 months or more

80.7%

89.0%

94.9%


N/a

10%

7%

Immunisations for children looked after for 12 months or more

86.4%

94.4%

96.9%


N/a

9%

3%

Children placed for adoption within 12 months of the decision

68.0%

54.2%

60.2%


N/a

-20%

11%

Average time between entering care and placement with adoptive family

520

610.1

653


N/a

-17%

-7%

Average time between court authority and match with adoptive family

245.6

349

369.3


N/a

-42%

-6%

Care leavers aged 19, 20 and 21 in suitable accommodation

91.5%

87.6%

91.6%


N/a

-4%

5%

Care leavers aged 19, 20 and 21 in education, employment and training

51.8%

51.6%

49.7%


N/a

-0.4%

-4%

Eligible CLA with up to date pathways plan*

62.2%

77.1%

91.4%


N/a

24%

19%

Care leavers with up to date pathways review*

78.5%

79.6%

89.3%


N/a

1%

12%

Care leaver visits*

7.7%

64.6%

76.7%


N/a

739%

19%

Percentage of social work vacancies covered by agency staff

9.5%

10.4%

12.2%


N/a

-9%

-17%

Young people in police custody

51

38

11


N/a

25%

71%

CP Reviews - all reviews in last year held in timescale

95.5%

87.4%

93.7%


N/a

-8%

7%

CP Reviews - latest review up to date

99.2%

98.8%

99.4%


N/a

-0.4%

1%

CLA Reviews - all reviews in last year held in timescale

67.2%

85.3%

88.7%


N/a

27%

4%

CLA Reviews - latest review up to date

90.8%

96.8%

99.5%


N/a

7%

3%

CLA review participation for all reviews in year

80.4%

88.3%

92.9%


N/a

10%

5%

Participation in latest CLA review

89.6%

95.5%

97.3%


N/a

7%

2%

Key Judgement 1 – The experiences and progress of children who need help and protection

2015 Ofsted judgement: requires improvement

2016 self-evaluation judgement: requires improvement

Our strengths

Our priorities for improvement

S1. Our approach to 16/17 year old homelessness

S2. Improved multi-agency safeguarding hub model

S3. The early help offer has been further developed to improve step down from social care

S4 Implemented improved response to Neglect

P1.Ensuring consistent partnership understanding and application of thresholds for accessing services at all levels including stepping up and down between levels of intervention.

P2.Further strengthening the role of the IRO service

P3.Further strengthening our approach to CSE and missing from home

Following the inspection of 2015 where we secured a judgement of requires improvement against this key area, we have maintained a focus on sustaining and further strengthening our position.

Our Strengths

S1. Our approach to 16/17 year old homelessness

· Cumbria hosted a 2 day visit from Anna Whalen, Youth Homelessness Advisor, St Basil’s in February 2017. The feedback received recognises the significant changes to the service and the impact they are having. In her initial feedback elected members were commended for their shared understanding and interest, she was impressed by the “cross Party determination to support young people in the County (looked after children, care leavers and those at risk of homelessness)” Feedback received also highlights that Cumbria is one of the few authorities providing help and advice to young people and their families on how to leave home, advising on housing options and where they can access help, because of this feedback it was stated “we will continue to mention Cumbria County Council and the Districts to other authorities as an exemplar on 16/17 year olds, not only for other two tier authorities but also for unitary authorities to learn from.”

· We have successfully developed and rolled out district homelessness protocols for 16/17year olds (Homelessness Storyboard) alongside the successful introduction of our Nightstop scheme, which has resulted in a sustained cessation of young people being accommodated in bed and breakfast accommodation. In June 2016 bed and breakfast accommodation was not used at all, compared to 10 occasions with an average stay of 4.5 nights in June 2015. Bed and breakfast accommodation has not been used for 16/17 year olds since September 2015. A further evidence of impact of the focus on Early Help and prevention of homelessness can be demonstrated to an extent, by the reductions in the presentations to the Safeguarding Hub where homelessness is a feature. These have reduced from 85 (July- December 2014) to 26 in the same period 2015. In the first 9 months of 2016 19 young people aged 16-17 years, were referred to the Hub with issues around homelessness. (Homelessness Performance Indicators (Oct 2016) )

· There is now an established homelessness officer in each area; they work with young people at an early stage using Early Help Assessments (EHAs), to prevent homelessness and/or build a team around the young person tailored to their individual needs to support them living independently in appropriate accommodation.

S2. Improved multi-agency safeguarding hub model

· Following the 2015 inspection we introduced a new operating model (Operating model of Hub) for the multi-agency safeguarding hub so that the integration of police, health, education, social care and early help inform decision making and provide consistency in use of thresholds across the county.

· The February 2017 Ofsted monitoring visit identified that the safeguarding hub “continues to work well within its defined role” that “staff and managers are vigilant in ensuring that matters are progressed within timescale that are appropriate and specific”

· Work sampled in the February monitoring visit evidenced that

· all analysis and written activities were appropriate,

· that there was timely referral to districts and

· good communication, through the letters to referrers regarding outcomes and closure letters to parents and other professionals, was present on all tracked cases.

· The safeguarding hub and associated emergency duty team (EDT) ensure there is a proportional response to levels of need including early help, child in need or child protection as required.

· External and internal scrutiny has provided assurance of consistent application of thresholds within the hub, informed by multi agency assessments. (Cumbria published Inspections and reviews)

· There is a CSE and missing from home pod located in the hub. We have also strengthened our response to domestic abuse by the introduction of a dedicated multi agency pod which includes an IDVA. (Operating model of Hub)

· We have an established MARAC and MAPPA process that ensures victims of domestic violence and those who pose a high risk to others are managed through multi agency plans. In 2015/16 438 cases went to MARAC. This was a reduction compared to the previous year (466 in 2014/15) due to agencies beginning to take more of an early identification and intervention approach. More practitioners are beginning to use appropriate risk assessment tools and are working with the family sooner. This has seen an increase in DA referrals but reassuringly there is an upward trend of referrals coming to the Hub from agencies other than the Police

Referral to the Hub from other agencies

Q2

21% (160/768)

Q3

23% (211/908)

Q4

22% (248/1120)

· We are expecting figures to increase again this year, due to the provision of more training to practitioners; raising awareness of MARAC’s purpose and actively encouraging agencies to make referrals to MARAC where appropriate.

· We are reviewing our MARAC processes to develop a more outcome focussed approach and ensure that every case at MARAC has a positive impact on the client and their children and significantly reduces the risk of repeat incidents.

· We have a Domestic Abuse policy in place developed by the multi-agency LSCB Domestic Abuse Group. (LSCB Tri-x Domestic violence and abuse) A domestic abuse training package has been developed and is currently being delivered (Domestic Abuse on LSCB website). We were party to the development of the violence against women and girls strategy developed as part of Safer Cumbria.

· Funding has been confirmed to enable roll out and training for the Barnardo’s domestic abuse risk assessment tool for use by social work teams. Strategic governance is now established through an agreed joint approach across the LSCB and Safer Cumbria, with a Children and Young Peoples DA group established from late 2016.

· New initiatives such as the DA clinic and the pilot of Operation Encompass (West Cumbria) recently commenced in the SG Hub which will enable improved multi agency support and information sharing.

· The Safeguarding Hub Programme Board have agreed to hold a review of the Hub’s systems and processes which will identify any actions required for continuous improvement of systems and processes.

S3. Early Help Offer further developed to improve step down from social care

· Early help is now accepted across our partnership as part of the wider support for children in need of help and protection.

· Ofsted reported in the October 2016 monitoring visit that the foundations of good quality early help work are in place. This has been a sustained area of focus following the 2015 inspection (Cumbria published Inspections and reviews)

· From February 2016 we introduced early help and family support panels (LSCB Early Help and Family Support Panel presentation and Early Help and Family Support Panel Terms of Reference) to support growing confidence in managing levels of need appropriately and proportionately and as a positive interface between early help and child protection. Ofsted found that as a result of the introduction of these panels management oversight of cases stepping up to and down from thresholds for intervention had improved. (Cumbria published Inspections and reviews). This change is very recent, as identified by the February 2017 Ofsted monitoring visit and moving forward it will be key to evidence impact.

· Between March 2016 and March 2017 225 families had been discussed at panel, with 24 stepping up and the remainder receiving support at early help level.

· Across the districts the involvement by partners has been positive (membership of panels include social care, and emotional wellbeing/CAMHS) and an early help and family support panel review day in November, 9 months after the first panel met had in total 84 partners in attendance from the range of agencies represented on the LSCB. (LSCB Early Help and Family Support Panels Workshop 1st Nov2016)

· The development of the panels is continuously monitored to further develop a Cumbria model that responds to the diverse needs of our communities and to areas in need of more targeted response, for example, encouraging the use of the panels for complex step downs from strategic intervention.

· We have also provided regular multi agency training in relation to early help and practitioner roadshows which have been attended by thousands of practitioners, which have contributed to raised awareness of, and engagement with, early help as evidenced by a sustained increase in the numbers of EHA being completed (an average of 160 early help assessments were initiated per month from September 2015 – September 2016, compared to an average of 118 per month between September 2014 and September 2015). We are focusing increasingly on the quality of these to ensure they are fit for purpose, through a regular auditing programme. Recently a matrix auditing programme has been implemented; the frequency and scope of audits has been increased, for example to include children’s centres to ensure that the local authority has a mechanism by which we can assure ourselves of the quality. (Performance reports)

· Our DFE advisor held a workshop (November 2016) with the early help family support panel chairs and other key stakeholders, looking at progress so far in terms of partnership and systems, informal feedback has been positive and the chairs will meet regularly to address any issues including review the terms of reference for the panels to provide clearer guidance regarding the format of the panels, roles and responsibilities and timescales.

· Actions initiated as a result of the workshop include:

· new guidance relating to the use of the panels alongside a revised Referral to Panel form was introduced in February 2017. The guidance has tightened the remit of the panel to ensure greater focus on the team around the family (TAF) and the journey of the early help episode so far to improve the quality of the discussion taking place;

· identification of a clear and structured step-up pathway from panel to district team to; enhance the discussion and decision making process, speed up the transition and reduce unnecessary form filling, supported by improvements in the information received by panel;

· a review of early help training to include issues relating to SMART planning and the quality of TAF discussion at reviews. Audits will now include an observation of a TAF to identify areas for improvement;

· developing a leaflet for families to ensure that families are aware of the membership of the Early Help Panels and the possible outcomes from the discussion.

· We have revised the remit of the Targeted Youth Support (TYS) Team to ensure that there is a greater focus on holistic family needs. This has seen the development of the stepping down pathway between the Social Care and TYS teams. A pilot commenced in March which includes Social Work team managers reviewing cases to identify those families who would be suitable for step-down. Work takes place between the Social Worker and the TYS officer for a minimum of a month to ensure consistency and rapport with the family. The TYS officer then continues to co-ordinate work with the family at an Early Help level with a view to offering a strengths based plan and intervention based on resilience. This approach has led to an increase in the number of cases stepping-down and receiving on-going support from Early Help. 75 cases have been stepped down since the pilot began in March.

· We have a high (and increasing) take up of the two year old childcare offer – rising from 79% take up in Spring 2015 to 87% in Spring 2016 (compared to a national take up of 72%) our latest performance available indicates 92% take up in Autumn 2016. Our good performance has been recognised by the DFE and is a result of our proactive approach which involves partnership working, targeting families who have not applied on multiple occasions throughout the year, promotion and outreach through Children’s Centres and on-line applications.

· While positive steps have been made, we know there is more to do to fully embed early help consistently across the county and this is a focus of future activity. We are working to realign our early help strategy to ensure that it complements the priorities set out in the CLA strategy.

S4 Implemented improved response to Neglect

· We have implemented an improved response to Neglect across the partnership led by a multi-agency LSCB sub group that developed a Neglect Strategy, which sets out the strategic aims and objectives of Cumbria’s approach to tackling neglect, there is policy guidance also for staff using the Graded Care Profile and training is planned for June onwards. Neglect Strategy

· The Young Perspective Board held a forum to consult with young people on neglect and get their views on what they thought should be in the strategy. Young People Advisory Forum 2016

· Using the ‘touchstones’ and some members of the LSCB volunteer training pool we undertook an informal engagement event to ask a series of questions to determine what professionals experiences of neglect in Cumbria are. This information alongside other evidence was used to inform the design and delivery of the Neglect Strategy. We have a collaborative approach to deliver training on ‘universal’ language across the partnership and through training we are developing skills in the use of the evidence based tool the Graded Care Profile to identify and assess neglect at the earliest point. In January 17 we held a Neglect conference with 150 attendees which included both national and local expert speakers.

· We anticipate that our implementation of Signs of Safety will further strengthen our professional response to Neglect alongside other risk factors for children.

Our priority areas for improvement

P1. Ensuring consistent partnership understanding and application of thresholds for accessing services at all levels including stepping up and down between levels of intervention

· We know that there is more to do to ensure thresholds are consistently understood and applied and our monitoring visit in February confirmed this as it was identified that “practice is too variable”. This is applicable to both partnership working and within social work intervention at different levels of need. To address this we have agreed social work manager presence at all early help panels, we regularly hold sessions on thresholds with all social work managers and are ensuring closer working between children and families staff and staff in early help.

· The LSCB Business Group are taking the lead in relation to thresholds across the partnership. The Business Group is owning the delivery of an action plan which was developed through Safeguarding Hub Programme Board

· In Barrow we have responded to weaker performance in relation to early help by establishing a closer working arrangement with the early help officer ensuring they have full knowledge of any families and are involved in supporting lead co-ordinators with a SMART early help plan.

· We have also established the Barrow Governance Board to oversee working relationships and thresholds in response to increasing concern regarding social work practice. This demonstrates how we are a self-righting organisation, able to respond promptly to matters requiring leadership. (Barrow Governance Board Terms of Reference (Nov 2016))

· West Cumbria has established a multiagency partnership strategic board. This board was established to ensure that excellent services and support is provided to vulnerable children, young people and their families in West Cumbria. The approach is in 3 stages, strategically, tactically and operationally. Strategically the board’s responsibilities are to understand the priority needs of vulnerable children, young people and their families in West Cumbria. Understand, scrutinise and challenge performance across the partnership. Make effective use of data to inform planning and approaches. Integrate service delivery in a timely way, to ensure we work collaboratively to ensure the best outcomes for children, young people and their families. Deploy resources as appropriate to respond to changing and emerging needs. Ensure effective use of and relationships with already established groups./meetings. Tactically by establishing a forum for middle managers to develop strong collaborative working relationships. To share good practice and be able to critically evaluate practice and to problem solve, in order to provide stronger relationships to ensure strong and consistent leadership and the middle management level of leadership. Operationally to develop and implement a programme of masterclasses and workshops to develop and improve partnership working in West Cumbria. Also to enhance professional development and to attract professionals to come and work in West Cumbria. Use case examples and performance data to develop and improve practice and ensure effective collaborative working.

· “Both the strategic and tactical groups have shown their innovation, commitment and agility in delivering meaningful results in quick time and I am really excited about what we can achieve together in 2017 and beyond.”

Gary Slater, Superintendent, West Cumbria 28 May 2017

· The revised thresholds guidance includes a clear pathway for step up and step down to and from early help and a stronger link between early help and social care is being developed to improve support to families preventing escalation of need. (Multi-agency Thresholds guidance http://www.cumbrialscb.com/LSCB/professionals/default.asp)

· Children stepping up to child protection or stepping down to early help now receive tighter scrutiny through district management oversight. We are working to ensure our step down arrangements are consistently robust.

· We undertook a focused audit during November looking specifically at step up and step down. The audits found some examples of good practice but some cases where arrangements for step up and step down were not as good as they could have been. (December 2016 Monthly audit report). A learning event was held with team managers in January 2017 and a series of actions agreed to address the issues arising from the audits including;

· learning from audits reinforced as a standing item on team meetings and management meetings,

· attendance of a team manager or service manager at each early help panel,

· early help officers to attend district management meeting to undertake signs of safety mapping of step up and step down in each area,

· management workshop looking at thresholds to be held by the end of February, the results of which will be shared with early help panels,

· identification of good examples of early help, and more thorough recording and tracking of supervision on TRENT.

P2. Further strengthening the role of the IRO service

· As a result of additional investment management capacity was increased for the IRO service to offer immediate support and drive the pace of change following the last inspection. The IRO service is now fully staffed with 12 permanent IROs and an additional 7 supernumerary Agency IROs (who have all been in Cumbria for 6 months or more). This has resulted in caseloads (average 64) that are in line with national guidelines and minimal changes in IRO for children helping them to build good relationships

· A small restructure elsewhere in the service, has led to a further 3 permanent IRO posts being created and one Agency IRO has converted from agency to permanent as part of the new incentives scheme. This has been effective from the 10 April 2017 which means continuity for children. Recruitment for the remaining 2 posts is underway with interviews in early June.

· A clear set of practice standards for the IROs has ensured tighter oversight of the service. (Appointment and role of IROs guidance and IRO practice standards)

· Ofsted monitoring visits have retained a focus on the IRO service and reinforced the progress made. Although it was noted in our October visit that IROs need to work harder to ensure child protection plans contain specific and measurable targets. In response to the feedback from Ofsted during the last visit, the IRO team have introduced mid-point reviews of child protection plans to ensure they are being driven forward in the child’s best interests and baselines and benchmarking has been established. (Cumbria published Inspections and reviews)

· The IRO service introduced an audit reflection tool during 2016, which has been recognised by Ofsted as a strength, and allows the IRO to reflect and give their view regarding the audit findings (Blank IRO reflection tool template). This has been commended by Ofsted and suggested for use in other local authorities.

· There were some issues in the service with timeliness of conferences – has been addressed through the IRO Service Plan (IRO Plan Nov 2016), which includes a project looking at streamlining back office systems and processes to ensure less handoffs, better use of technology and to improve the experience for children and their families.

· Work is underway to complete an IRO Self-Assessment based on the 3 Ofsted Inspection Report Recommendations, the recent Ofsted monitoring visits comments on the IRO service and “Good IRO Services”. The DfE advisor is going to facilitate a reflective session with the IROs to feed into this. The IRO Service Plan will then be refreshed in time for the September Improvement Board.

· The most recent performance for the service is detailed in the table below – showing significant improvements in the last 13 months with all on-target performance being reported:

Jan-16

Jan-17

Feb-17

Mar-17

Travel

CP Reviews - all reviews in last year held in timescale

85.00%

93.4%

93.2%

93.7%

CP Reviews - latest review up to date

93.70%

99.8%

100.0%

99.4%

CLA Reviews - all reviews in last year held in timescale

81.60%

85.2%

86.7%

88.7%

CLA Reviews - latest review up to date

93.80%

97.5%

98.9%

99.5%

CLA review participation for all reviews in year

85.40%

91.4%

91.8%

92.9%

Participation in latest CLA review

93.40%

96.2%

96.8%

97.3%

P3. Further strengthening our approach to CSE and missing from home

· For children and young people reported as missing from home and those at risk of child sexual exploitation we have taken robust action following the last inspection, and now have clear policies and procedures embedded across all agencies. We are committed to regularly reviewing these to ensure they are fit for purpose, for example in February 2017 a pathway diagram to support understanding of correct processes was added to the CSE procedure.

· We have a dedicated response to children missing from home through the centralised approach in the safeguarding hub.

· We still need to improve the rate of return home interviews completed within 72 hour timescales. However, we have seen a steady increase in performance Q3 2016/17 showed a completion rate of 29%, compared to Q4 which stood at 40%, the current task and finish group which commenced in November 2016 has put in place a series of activities which are intended to continue, which are speeding up and improving performance

· Mandatory CSE training has been delivered across both early help and children’s social care. Alongside this each team/service area has an identified CSE champion. Themed audits are triggered and overseen by the LSCB CSE sub group in order to measure the impact of steps taken to ensure safe oversight and improved management for children and young people vulnerable to CSE. (CSE themed audit )

· Over 1200 CSE e-learning courses have been completed since the launch in June 2015 (720 of which were during 2016) and during 2016/17 over approximately 200 practitioners have attended level 3 full day workshops, and a further 185 attended ½ day awareness raising workshops: all delegates rated the events as “excellent” or “good”..

· The number of CSE cases being managed and considered via oversight has increased from 34 in July 2015 to 77 in July 2016, demonstrating better awareness of, and responses to CSE. (CSE MFH Scorecard (Q2 30th Dec 2016))

· The Local Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCB) has an established group in relation to CSE. This has three strands to it; Strategic, Working, and Oversight. The Oversight Group provides Cumbria wide multi-agency tracking and oversight of perpetrators and individual young people where there is intelligence evidencing vulnerability due to high incidents of going missing and active CSE. This group is well established and well attended. (MFH reports)

· An LSCB multi-agency task and finish is now in place to address the known performance and process issues in relation to missing from home including the completion of return home interviews. (MFH Task and Finish group Terms of Reference)

· The task and finish group will be undertaking a clinical review of up to three cases every month to identify learning and development and improve performance monitoring to strengthen analysis of the factors impacting on our performance including developing a refined set of indicators.

· CSE awareness raising has been undertaken in schools via the delivery of a drama production Chelsea’s Choice (funded via the PCC). Two rounds of Chelsea’s Choice have been delivered across the County (2015 & 2016) with additional sessions for teachers and parents. In 2016 Chelsea’s Choice was delivered to 6835 children. Chelsea’s Choice will be delivered again in 2017; NSPCC and children and families services have worked together to produce a lesson plan for schools to deliver to pupils pre and post viewing the performance.

Key judgement 2 – the experiences and progress of children looked after and achieving permanence

2015 judgement – Inadequate

2016-self-evaluation judgement – Requires improvement

Our strengths


S5. Improved strategic management and understanding of CLA cohorts

S6. Strengthened permanence planning

S7. Children in Care Council

S8. Residential and edge of care service

S9. A strong virtual school

P4. Placement sufficiency

P5. Ensuring assessments and care plans for children looked after are consistently good across the board

P6. Strengthening the uptake of independent visitors and management of complaints

P7. Emotional health and wellbeing of CLA

P8. Ensuring more effective use of the PLO process

P9. IRO rigour and challenge

The inspection in March 2015, measured our children looked after services in Cumbria as inadequate. Ofsted felt that services to our children in care had not been prioritised and there was a lack of focus on improving outcomes for children and young people. Since then we have strengthened our strategic vision, planning and understanding of our CLA cohort, introduced tighter management oversight, and improved permanence planning.

S5. Improved strategic management and understanding of CLA cohorts

· We are successfully stabilising our cohort of CLA. In March 2015 692 children and young people were in care; a rate per 10,000 of 73.6. At the 31st March 2017 this figure had reduced to 635, a rate of 68.4 per 10,000. Our stronger planning around edge of care, reunification and improved success in progressing adoptions has contributed to this.

· In response to the Ofsted inspection in 2015 we developed a comprehensive CLA Strategy and action plan. To ensure strategic oversight and ownership, progress against the Action Plan is monitored through the Corporate Parenting Board and reported regularly to the LSCB. (CLA Strategy & CLA Corporate Parenting Board)

· In recognition of the need for tighter management and oversight of our CLA population, we introduced in November 2015 a Placement Commissioning Board, supported by a placement tracker. We have also undertaken tracking of specific cohorts to address issues as necessary for example s20, rehabilitations home, cases with drift identified and long term foster placements, including revocation of placement orders where necessary. (Placement Commissioning Board TOR (Jun 2016))

· We have improved and embedded pathways for entering care and care planning via the Legal Placement Panel, the Permanence Panel and the Adoption Panel and Fostering Panel (Legal and Placement ToR (Oct 2016)).

S6. Strengthened permanence planning

· In response to the findings of the 2015 inspection we have championed a culture of permanence from first contact, underpinned through a Permanence Policy and Permanence Panel (which we launched at the second annual social work conference) to oversee and challenge all permanence plans prior to the second child in care review. This has established the expectation that all children have a permanence plan at the second CLA review. The plan is monitored by the IRO service and team manager.

· We reviewed and strengthened our Legal and Placement Panel including reviewing documentation to ensure a greater focus on permanence, effective management of risk, and timely decision making in the best interest of children and young people. We also ensure tighter scrutiny by service managers.

· In recognition of the need to manage legacy drift and delay for some children, a time limited Permanence Panel was convened in each district to scrutinise care planning and secure permanence where long term fostering within a stable placement had been identified. 84 children and young people were subsequently referred to this panel, resulting in 78 permanence plans being agreed.

· We have promoted a kinship approach to support care within immediate or extended family where appropriate. This approach enables children to remain with family members rather than enter LA care where appropriate.

· As a result of our work to reduce the number of children waiting to be adopted, 60 children were adopted during 2015/16, a 20% increase compared to the previous year’s figure of 50. (DfE Statistics on Children Looked After including Adopted Children 2015/16)

· In September 2015 we had 80 children with a plan of adoption but not yet placed, by March 2017 this figure was 40, reflecting the work done to address historic drift and delay, including the work of family finders locating adoptive homes for children who had been waiting for some time due to their particular needs, as well as children with new plans for adoption.

· Ofsted Phase 2 monitoring visits found that “there was a stronger focus on promoting permanence for children and addressing historical issues of drift and delay” (Cumbria published Inspections and reviews)

· Ofsted Phase 4 monitoring visits reflected that “there was a strong focus on permanence planning, with good consideration of the various routes to achieve permanence” (Cumbria published Inspections and reviews)

S7. Children in Care Council

· The views of Cumbria’s Children in Care Councils (CICCC) are regularly sought on changes in process, documentation and resource provision. Young people are also now heavily involved in the staff selection, most recently contributing to the recruitment of our Assistant Director (Interview questions developed my CiCC for AD)

· We have introduced CICC and care leaver forums to ensure a wider reach to children and young people. (CiCC)

· We have a strategic approach to ensuring the voice of children and young people is heard (CiCC Participation diagram)

· We are positive about recognising the achievements of our children in care and all who work with them, for example through our annual CICC Awards (CiCC Awards and Celebrating Us event 2016)

· The Corporate Parenting Board undertook a review of the CICC in June 2016. This highlighted strengths as well as identifying practical issues to be addressed to maximise the reach and effectiveness of the CICC. (CLA Corporate Parenting Board)

· Cumbria was recognised as an example of good practice for our work with the LILAC standards and our RESPECT project, Cumbria’s Promise and our Corporate Parenting Board. (LILAC mentioned page 16 in NCB Guide to Good Practice in structure and running of CICC, RESPECT campaign http://cumbriacs.proceduresonline.com/chapters/docs_library.html, Cumbria's Promise to CLA leaflet (2015) & CLA Corporate Parenting Board)

· The next RESPECT assessment began in February 2017 and is again being led by young people. To date they have held a panel with elected members and scheduled interviews with Corporate Director Children & Families Services and staff (last year’s RESPECT Young Assessors report)

· The CICC have elected local member champions, who report back into the Corporate Parenting Board, ensuring strong corporate support and ownership of our CLA improvement journey. (CS CiCC Member champions)

S8. Residential and edge of care service

· Our three residential children’s homes have current Ofsted judgements of good.

· Our residential provision works in tandem with our edge of care service to provide a clear plan of transitional support for young people in our residential settings. There have been two successful reunification plans home for children in our residential homes. In March/April 2016 three of four young people identified, who were section 20, had a successful return home from Overend Road. The edge of care service provides strong oversight and guidance for families.

· Assertive outreach team also supports EDT and the emergency foster care service, they have supported 6 out of 9 children placed to return home with a reunification plan since the scheme started in December 2016.

· We continue to develop our edge of care service; an edge of care checklist is now in place to ensure clarity of threshold in accessing this support. From July 2015 to June 2016, Cumbria’s edge of care service has supported 159 young people

· From April 2016 to March 2017 149 children and their families were supported by the service

· Average occupancy for this period was 89%

· Any child returning home following a period of accommodation must have an updated child and family assessment as stated in our permanence policy to ensure the risks have been fully assessed before reunification takes place. (http://cumbriacs.proceduresonline.com/chapters/p_perm_pol.html)

· Family Group Conferencing is embedded with good use of the service. 70 families have been supported through a Family Group Conference with family plans in place between June 2015 and September 2016.

· Since January 2017 to May 2017 there have been 31 new referrals for FGC

· Edge of Care

S9. A Strong virtual school

· CLA have Pupil Education Plans which are regularly reviewed. As a result, at the end of February 2017 97% of children had an up to date PEP.

· Education outcomes for CLA improved in 2016 at Key Stage 4.

· Cumbria CLA achieved an Attainment 8 score which is higher than the national CLA cohort. The Progress 8 Score for Cumbria CLA was better than their national peers at -0.97 (compared to -1.14 for national CLA).Cumbria CLA performed better than their national peers in the A*-C in English & Maths measure - with 23.5% achieving, which is higher than national CLA.

· 18% achieved 5+ A*-C EM, an improvement of 5% compared to 2015. An additional 3 CLA achieved C grades in both English and Maths, so in total 26% of the cohort achieved C+ grades in both English and Maths. 74% achieved 5+ A*-G grades and 84% achieved GCSEs – the remaining CLA achieved qualifications in line with their abilities. A high proportion of the Year 11 cohort made a successful transition into EET, 95% of the cohort.

· At Key Stage 2 children looked after made very good progress from their starting points in Reading and Maths, their progress was significantly better than their peers. From 2013-2015, Cumbria CLA have been in line with their national peers for Reading, and were better in 2016. In 2016, they were well above their national peers for maths. In 2016, a higher percentage of Cumbria CLA achieved RWM combined than their national peers (nearly 4% more).

· 2016 Reading progress - Cumbria CLA achieved a progress score of 1.8, compared to national CLA of -0.5, thereby achieving a score of 2.3 better than national.

· 2016 Writing progress - Cumbria CLA performed below their national peers in this measure.

· 2016 Maths progress - Cumbria CLA achieved a higher score than national peers, scoring 2.5 more.

· At Key Stage 1 in 2016 - Cumbria CLA were in line with their national peers in Reading, above national for Writing and just below national for Maths.

· At Early Years Foundation Stage the percentage of Cumbria CLA who achieved a Good Level of Development decreased from the previous year. Cumbria CLA had shown an improving trend from 2013 to 2015.

· CLA are supported to attend school and this is routinely monitored by the virtual school. In 2015-16 9% of Cumbria’s CLA were reported as persistent absentees compared to 9.1% nationally. (Dfe statistics on Outcomes for Children Looked After by Local Authority)

· The areas where improvement is needed are writing at Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 and maths at Key Stage 4; these are key priorities 2016-17. The Virtual School will continue to focus on ensuring that children looked after make good progress from their starting points at all key stages through targeted use of Pupil Premium and will continue to work with the Cumbria Alliance of System Leaders (CASL) and Local Alliances of System Leaders (LASLs) for each area North, West and South to jointly address progress and attainment of CLA with a focus on those priority areas. CASL and LASL are represented on the Virtual School governing body. (Report for Virtual School Governing Body (Oct 2016))

· The systems in place to ensure CLA attend good or better schools are effective with an agreed protocol in place (Ensuring CLA attend a good or better school), in February 2017 88.4% CLA attend a school with Good or Outstanding Ofsted grade

· Challenge is provided by the virtual head, and reported to the Corporate Parenting Board, relating to moves at key transition points (Agreement form for a CLA school move during Key Stage 4) and an action plan is completed if school attendance falls below 90% link (Example Virtual School action plan)


P4. Placement sufficiency

· In-house fostering placement share reduced from 72% in 2013 to 44% at December 2016. On 31 March 2016, the Council’s fostering service had 198 mainstream approved foster carers (compared to 211 mainstream carers in March 2015) offering a maximum of 271 placements. (Q2 Fostering Service business (July-Sept 2016))

· Over the last financial year there were 12 newly approved mainstream foster carers compared to 22 who ceased fostering, reflecting an overall decrease in the number of mainstream foster carers within Cumbria. iMPower, a public sector consultancy agency, undertook a review with Cumbria regarding our foster carer recruitment and retention processes. A project plan has been produced “Foster Carers for Cumbria” to guide future recruitment and retention work. The report highlighted a high level of satisfaction with the supervision and support received by the fostering social worker; further work is needed to strengthen the working relationship with the children’s social workers. This is being addressed in the workstream for retention, and the work carried out in the West Cumbria area between Fostering and CLA teams to improve relationships with carers will be rolled out across the county.

· Media activity continues to take place along with drop-ins run by staff and carers. With an increasing emphasis on targeting the pioneer groups in the population who are most likely to become carers for the local authority. Cumbria joined the North West refresh of the ‘You Can Foster’ materials which became available in June 2016.

· Extensive work has been carried out to move towards implementation of a framework for provision from IFAs in May 2017. We have systems in place within our central placements team to provide improved evidence of the matching process and placement selection. Further work is required to ensure sufficient placements within Cumbria. Whilst our performance around short term placement stability for children looked after is consistently good (8.8% at December 2016) and above both national and statistical neighbour averages we still have a significant number of children in purchased placements and placements outside the county’s boundaries.

· At the end of February 2017 42.2%of CLA were in a purchased placement and 30.1% of our looked after children were placed outside Cumbria. While recognising Cumbria’s geography and that for some children in the south of the county a placement in Lancashire may be closer to home for them than an in county placement, there is a significant work stream focused on the provision of foster placements in Cumbria.

· Despite the sharp rise in demand and reduction in number of mainstream foster carers, Cumbria has sustained its proportion of children looked after in family placements. This has been achieved through market development (i.e. use of IFA placements). Cumbria needs to continue to use both mainstream and agency foster care provision to meet the level of demand for foster placements, where possible within Cumbria.

· A monthly tracking meeting identifies the children needing long term foster placements and possible matches, and tracks the progress of these. This enables us to have a clear understanding of children waiting for permanence in foster care, informing recruitment activity and progressing matches as placements become available. Profiles of these children are taken into skills to foster training and current carer support groups to enhance placement opportunities. Our first long term fostering Exchange Day is planned for June 2017

· CLA living in the same placement for 2+ years at 68.9% at March 2017 meaning we are less than 2% off the target of 70%. Again this is an area of focus particularly looking at support for placements at risk of disruption.

· We hold monthly support and training groups for foster carers, which receive positive feedback (Feedback for Nov 2016 South Fostering support groups) and contribute to retention.

· The Emergency Foster Care scheme became operational in November 2016, initially with 1 carer, which has now increased to 3 carer households. This is a valuable resource which enables children to stay with carers in Cumbria while a suitable placement is identified. 6 of the children who had exited the scheme by May 2017 returned to the care of their family.

P5. Ensuring assessments and care plans for children looked after are sufficiently good across the board

· We have worked to improve management oversight of social work intervention and planning for looked after children so that assessments and care plans are completed in time.

· Emotional health and wellbeing workers have a role in supporting and advising social workers to support effective assessment and planning regarding the emotional and wellbeing needs of our CLA.

· The introduction of the IRO mid-point reviews for care plans ensures more regular monitoring and challenge regarding the progress of the child’s plan. Baselines and targets have been established and the performance is reported internally. It will take some time for the true performance to trickle through. The learning from the first few months is being reviewed and the process will be refined in June 2017.

· We have extended the practice of joint meetings between children’s social worker, fostering social worker and foster carers following the CLA review to ensure clarity about the plan and everyone’s role in supporting the child to achieve the outcomes.

P6. Strengthening the uptake of independent visitors and management of complaints

· The council is committed to ensuring all children in care have access to an Independent Visitor through its contract with NYAS (National Youth Advocacy Service), Cumbria currently has 13 Independent Visitors who are trained and matched to children in care, (at December 2016). A further 7 are trained and currently unmatched. This is below our target of 20 and an area we are working to improve.

· All independent visitors by law have to be volunteers and NYAS have to recruit, train and then match them with young people. There is a high dropout rate during this process and the numbers of volunteers are constantly changing. To manage this challenge NYAS have a publicity plan for recruitment, training and retention but due to the constant throughput of volunteers maintaining volunteer numbers will always remain a challenge. However, when children are matched successfully with an Independent Visitor there are many examples evidenced in Cumbria from case studies of excellent high quality long term befriending taking place. NYAS as part of their publicity plan are on a regular basis reminding social work teams of the service and its benefits to children. (CLA Advocacy and Independent Visiting Service)

· NYAS also deliver the council’s advocacy support to children in care, young people leaving care, children in need, children privately fostered, children in foster care placements and those making a complaint under Section 24D or Section 26 of the Children Act 1989. Children in custody were also added from 1st April 2016. Currently there a 12 advocates, and 265 children and young people received an advocacy service during 2015/16

· As a learning organisation we are more robust in continually measuring ourselves against the experience of families accessing services. As such we recognise there has been a decline in performance in terms of our timeliness in responding to families with a complaint. In 2014/15 we responded to 59% of Children Act Stage 1 complaints within 20 working days, in 2015/16 this reduced to 50%. While this may reflect an increase in the complexity of casework being managed we know we need to strengthen practice in response to complaints.

· Our management team regularly review performance and address learning themes resulting from complaints

· We promote complaints via various routes including our literature for children coming into care and website, and have child/young person friendly literature.

P7. Emotional health and wellbeing of CLA

· As a local authority we have developed dedicated Health & Emotional Wellbeing officer posts to support the mental health needs of children and young people and have worked with our health colleagues to introduce a fast track CAMHS pathway for children and young people in care.

· We recognise the ongoing challenges in securing sufficient CAMHS resource to meet the needs of all children we work with. Ofsted’s monitoring visit in October 2016 also highlighted the need to strengthen the CAMHS offer. The partnership is committed to taking direct action to address this. The whole system vision is as follows: Whole System Vision from 2017 – 2019 that:

“All our children and young people can access the support they need to achieve emotional wellbeing and mental health and have the ability and confidence to ride life’s inevitable ups and downs, now and in the future”

· Discussions are taking place between Children and Families, the Cumbria Partnership Foundation NHS Trust and the CCG to establish dedicated psychological input to CLA. There is a proposal to implement the priority support by enhancing and adding to the ‘My Time’ Primary Mental Health Early Intervention Service.”

· The Partnership group will have oversight of the CAMHS Improvement Plan and report on key indicators to the CHIB. There will also be a cycle of audits of children in receipt of a service.

· During November 2016, three Emotional Resilience and Mental Wellbeing Learning events took place around the County, which provided the opportunity to showcase the many achievements of our Head Start Phase 2 project. They were well attended (320 people) by health professionals, schools and community services and the feedback received was excellent. We have a collection of resources and interventions that are now available to schools and services. We have been able to build capacity and skills in the third sector in Cumbria, through the Head Start funding. This has enabled them to make successful applications for further funding elsewhere.

· In May 2016 Cumbria’s Primary Mental Health Early Intervention Service became operational in all areas of the County. This service is part of a single point of access for all children and young people to child and adolescent mental health services and supports children in need, on the edge of care and children looked after by providing brief, early, direct emotional and wellbeing interventions for those with mild to moderate mental health difficulties.

· Barnardo’s deliver ‘My Time’ a primary emotional wellbeing mental health service in Cumbria, feedback and evaluation are positive from this. (Barnardos My Time Primary Mental Health Early Intervention service Report (Nov 2016))

· (CAMHS and mental well being)

P8. Ensuring more effective use of the PLO process

· We have seen an increase in our use of PLO from 48 children during 2015 to 93 in 2016, however we know that we have further work to undertake on the effectiveness of this intervention in reducing risk for children. There will be targeted training in the south of the county where the presentation of requests for PLO to the legal and placement panel have been the lowest.

· We have implemented robust tracking and monitoring, improvements to policy, processes and systems, and regular meetings with CAFCASS.

· Although we have an established Family Group Conferencing service more needs to be done to include this at an early stage to prevent the need for accommodation or to boost reunification once a child becomes looked after.

P9. IRO rigour and challenge

· We have made improvements following the last inspection regarding IRO oversight of CLA cases, and this is an area of continual focus.

· Timeliness of children looked after reviews have improved from a low baseline. At the time of the 2015 inspection Cumbria was reporting a figure of 61.7% for reviews held within timescale. By December 2016 this had improved to 83.7% and March 2017 performance evidences that 88.7% of CLA reviews (all reviews in the last year) were held within timescale further improvement is required to reach our target of 90%. Over the same period there has been an increase in the proportion of children and young people supported to make an effective contribution to their review, from 80.4% in March 2015 to 91.6% in December 2016. March 2017 saw 97.3% of young people participating in their latest CLA review.

· A reduction in IRO caseloads has provided the capacity to start visiting children in care between statutory reviews. The IRO service are undertaking mid-point reviews of children in care to ensure any drift in care plans is addressed in a timely manner. Baselines and targets have been established and the performance is reported internally. It will take some time for the true performance to trickle through. The learning from the first few months is being reviewed and the process will be refined in June 2017.

· The agreed Dispute Resolution Process (DRP) is being used widely by IROs across the county and robust tracking is in place to allow management oversight of the process. (Dispute Resolution Process Summary Nov 2015 to Oct 2016 & Dispute Resolution process summary 2016). The IRO Service Team meeting discussed the reduction in the number of DRPs and the views from the IRO was that this was due to the improvements in relationships with Social Workers and Team Managers in the districts, where issues were picked up informally and quickly. Therefore the DRPs are not always required.

Key judgement 2.1 – Adoption Performance

2015 Ofsted judgement – requires improvement

2016 self-evaluation judgement – requires improvement

Our strengths:

Our priorities for improvement:

S10. Timeliness of our adoption processes

S11. Increasing and now maintaining our number of adoptions

S12. Moving on and securing permanence for complex children and young people and sibling groups

S13. Our developing foster to adopt programme

S14. Adoption Support Services

P10. Recruiting in-house adopters for sibling groups

P11. Further develop the understanding of the whole workforce in relation to early permanence planning

P12. Continued development of emotional health and wellbeing practitioner posts for CLA

P13. Improving children’s experience of worker continuity to reduce delay in the adoption process

Our 2015 inspection highlighted a number of areas for improvement which we have worked to address, with demonstrable results. We are confident we have sustained a judgement of requires improvement, with progress towards becoming good.

S10. Timeliness of our adoption processes

· The council’s 3 year Adoption Recruitment Strategic Plan (Adoption Recruitment Strategic Plan 2015-2018) monitors and reviews the effectiveness of recruitment, reporting into the Children’s Improvement Plan on a monthly basis, and the Corporate Parenting Board on a six monthly basis. Our strategic approach not only now seeks to improve timeliness in the pathway to becoming an adoptive parents it also recognises the need for us to profile the existing needs of those children waiting for adoption, alongside horizon scanning and planning for future need in the monitoring and tracking of children where adoption is a likely final care plan.

· As a result of targeted efforts, completion of stage 1 of the assessment improved from an average of 116 days in Quarter 2 of 2015/16 to 56 days in Q2 of 2016/17 by addressing the difficulties previously encountered in timely completion of statutory checks. The average increased to 69 days in Q3, reflecting the volatility of low numbers In addition, a stage 1 workbook has been introduced to engage prospective adopters in meaningful work which can be used in stage 2 of the assessment. (Summary of ALB Quarterly Data Return (Q2 2016-2017) and Annual Report Adoption Business (2016-17)

· The milestone decision of matching children to adoptive parent has increased pace and timeliness through the introduction of 3 family finders in September 2015, one linked to each district. Each child is allocated to a SW Family Finder at the time of the SHOPA decision and a Family Finding Plan is completed at this point. The Family Finders follow through to the point of placement, including the facilitation of child appreciation days for all children over the age of three years. The number of children matched in the year prior to the appointment of the Family Finders was 57, compared with 82 in the year since their appointment.

· Our timescales have improved dramatically for the two below indicators:

Average time between a local authority receiving court authority to place a child and the local authority deciding on a match to an adoptive family

Year of SHOPA decision

Number of SHOPA decisions*

Average time between placement order and match

Number of children still awaiting match

2013

52

435.5

2

2014

63

287.9

8

2015

37

162.0

1

2016

64

111.1

30

Average time between a child entering care and moving in with adoptive family (DfE 2013-16 performance threshold 426 days)

Year of SHOPA decision

Number of SHOPA decisions*

Average time between entry and placement

Number of children still awaiting placement

2013

52

711.2

2

2014

63

575.1

8

2015

37

411.1

4

2016

64

337.7

31

· We are aware of our continued inconsistent performance against the adoption scorecard, but we are confident in our narrative around this. Our performance against the measures in the Adoption Scorecard continue to fluctuate as we have been effective in moving children who are harder to place, which has a negative impact on the scorecard at point of placement, but represents a good outcome for the child. Timeliness for children with a more recent plan of adoption is successfully achieved and demonstrated in the analysis of timescales by year of SHOPA decision. (Adoption storyboard)

S11. Increasing and now maintaining our numbers of adoptions

· Against a national 12% fall in adoptions through 15/16, Cumbria built on its previous 50% increase in adoption between 13/14 and 14/15 by a further 20%, with 60 children being adopted by year end 31st March 2016, and 83 by year end 31st March 2017 (DfE National Statistics – SFR41/2016)

· There were 82 children placed in the year ended 30 September 2016 compared to 53 in the year to Sep 2015, this is a 55% increase. Having moved on this large number of children, we have matched 66 children from April 2016 to 31st March 2017.

· In November 2015 we introduced bi-annual in house Adoption Exchange Days to supplement our involvement in regional Exchange and Activity Days. These are attended by in house approved adopters and adopters from 2 VAAs. In 2016 we have placed 5 children through Exchange Days, 1 via the national Adoption Register and 2 via Adoption Link. Our first in house Activity Day took place on 13th May 2017, with 16 children taking part, and in house adopters plus adopters from 4 of our future RAA partners. Potential links from this day are currently being followed up.

S12. Moving on and securing permanence for complex children and young people and sibling groups

· We have increased our ability to place siblings together where this is their assessed need. In 2014-15 we placed 6 sibling groups, rising to 10 in 2015-16 and 14 in 2016-17. We need to strengthen our in house recruitment for sibling groups and this is the focus of the current recruitment activity and plan

· We made good use of the reimbursement of the interagency fee facility for hard to place children was used to successfully. We placed47 children using this funding during its availability from July 2015 to March 2017.

· Of the 66 children matched from April 2016 – March 2017, 13 were aged over 5 years. 9 children were placed with LGBT carers, all of these were sibling groups, reflecting our inclusive approach to adoption.

S13. Our developing foster to adopt programme

· Our Foster to Adopt practice has continued to be used when safe and appropriate. We have gained pace in both registration of approved carers, (10 since April 2016) and the timeliness of placing children in care, (12 children have been placed from April 2016- March 2017, 7 with in house adopters, and 5 via the contract with ARC VAA).

· We have an additional one day training specifically covering foster to adopt and a foster to adopt handbook.

S14. Adoption Support Services

· We continue to strengthen the support we offer prior to and post adoption, with particular development of our support offer in the early stages of placement. This includes a comprehensive calendar of events (Adoption Support Calendar of Events 2017)) and specialist training for adopters. Adopted children and their families have also been able to access therapeutic support through our 94 successful applications to the Adoption Support Fund.

· There were 101 children and families accessing post-order services from the Adoption Support Team on 22 May 2017. The team are also working with 40 approved adopter households supporting adopters through the family finding process matching and placement to the final order. A range of work is being offered for example, direct therapeutic work to promote attachments and manage extremely challenging behaviour and enhanced therapeutic life story work. The service continues to commission a therapeutic service for families, accessing psychological input 2 days a week and a family therapy service for 3 days a month. At the end of March 2017 the service was also:

· operating 424 children’s adoption letterbox exchanges,

· working with 7 birth parents and

· working with 47 people regarding schedule 2 (birth records) counselling and intermediary services.

· The service receives positive feedback and can evidence impact at case level through case studies. “Good support, training sessions always informative, excellent monthly updates” – participant on adoption workshop ‘surviving the teenage years’


P10. Recruiting in-house adopters, particularly those for sibling groups

· We have an increasing demand for placement for sibling groups and we emphasise this in all our recruitment material and campaigns

· We recognise that we currently rely on external providers for a large proportion of this provision. We need to increase the proportion of siblings placed in Cumbria while not building in any delay.

· Profiles of sibling groups are taken to the adoption preparation groups, assessment sessions and to the in house exchange days

· Sibling groups attended the Activity Day and will be the focus of future events

· Adopters of siblings are encouraged to share their story with prospective adopters

· We place emphasis on the need for sibling adopters in the contract with ARC VAA.

P11. Further develop the understanding of the whole workforce in relation to early permanence planning

· We need to ensure that adoption is considered at the earliest possible point for appropriate children.

· The adoption service has a representative present at every permanence panel.

· Workshops have been and continue to be delivered to district teams

We have been successfully involved in the first stage of a joint bid for Practice Improvement Funding for early permanence planning and provision, involving Durham LA, Sunderland LA, After Adoption, ARC Adoption North East, Barnardo’s and Durham Family Welfare. The stage 2 bid has now been submitted but the outcome delayed by the general election. The bid, if successful will support us with cultural change and early permanence provision, as well as aiding our development into an RAA with those partners.

P12. Continued recruitment to and development of emotional health and wellbeing practitioner posts for CLA

· We recognised a gap in the provision of emotional health and wellbeing services for our CLA, including those with a plan for adoption so a decision was made to create dedicated in-house posts.

· These practitioners work directly with children and with carers and offer consultation to staff where additional resource is required to meet the emotional health and wellbeing needs of CLA.

· There are three posts in total for CLA, one based in each district.

· These practitioners are developing skills in sibling assessments and training children’s Social Workers to carry these out at an earlier stage.

· We continue to have one dedicated therapeutic social worker post in the adoption support team who links closely with these new posts as well as providing assessments and post adoption support. .

P13. Improving children’s experience of worker continuity to reduce delay in the adoption process

· We recognise the impact that frequent changes of worker for some children has upon the timely progression of their adoption plan. While the social worker family finders are able to mitigate some of this, they cannot carry out all the tasks of the child’s allocated social worker.

· As detailed in section 3 we have several strategies to improve workforce sufficiency across the whole service.

Key judgement 2.2 – The experience and progress of care leavers

2015 Ofsted judgement – requires improvement

2016 self-evaluation judgement – requires improvement

Our strengths


S15. Participation and engagement

S16. Improved practice relating to pathway planning

S17. Improved practice in relation to accommodation

S18. Awareness of entitlements

S19. Strong links with key stakeholders

S20. Outcomes for care leavers

P14. Ensure practice standards are consistent across the county

P15. Accommodation

P16. Transitions and support with mental health and wellbeing

We are aspirational for our care leavers and have worked hard to address issues identified during the inspection, including development of the role of the pathways advisor and working hard to ensure that across services, officers understand the needs of care leavers and their role in improving outcomes for them.

Care Leavers Performance

S15. Participation and engagement

· We have an active Care Leavers Forum (Care Leavers forums) – recent activity includes

· the organisation of Care Leavers Fayres around county to provide all care leavers in their area with information and advice,

· the development and current refresh of a young people’s guide to leaving care,

· involvement in shaping the refresh of the care leavers Finance Policy,

· assessing and making judgements on CLA provision through the RESPECT project (http://cumbriacs.proceduresonline.com/chapters/docs_library.html)

· and representing all care leavers in Cumbria through their involvement in the National Leaving Care Benchmarking Forum (NLCB), influencing best practice nationally. There is now a lead member for care leavers who meets with them regularly.

· Care Leavers have recently (Dec 2016) presented to the Corporate Parenting Board around higher education support (Dec 2016). (CiCC and CLF Champions Updates (Nov 2016)

· The Promise for CLA and Care Leavers was launched by CLA and Care Leavers at the social work conference in October 2015 (Cumbria's Promise to CLA leaflet (2015)). There have also been specific presentations around this to staff groups around the county. There are currently 265 people including social workers, the Chief Executive and Council Leader who have made a commitment to the Promise. All promises have been reviewed by the lead RESPECT Young assessor and the work is being incorporated into the current respect assessment. (RESPECT Young Assessors report)

· We have introduced health passports (Care Leavers health passport (2016)) and sought feedback on their usefulness. Following their feedback young people are taking a role in shaping future development and further improvement of these.

· We are implementing a feedback form to capture specific feedback at the end of the last pathways review. Learning from this will be shared across the service. (Care Leavers feedback)

S16. Improved practice relating to pathway planning

· We have issued and held workshops on the practice standards for care leavers and ensured clearly understood expectations around the review of pathway plans in line with statutory guidelines.

· We have improved practice to ensure that for our relevant and former relevant young people the review is chaired by a qualified social worker at advanced practitioner level or above. We have also developed a suite of performance indicators for this group. As a result, the up to date review of pathway plans on a countywide basis has increased from 62.2% in Oct 15 when this was put in place to 81.0% in December 2016 and to 93.8% in April 2017. There is also an expectation that pathway assessments are now updated within each review period which had not previously been the case.

· Recording of statutory 8 weekly visits for relevant and former relevant care leavers is now in a standardised format and the regulations in line with this are understood (Guidance for statutory 8 weekly visits for Care Leavers who decline/defer visit). This is linked to the pathway plan which is aimed at ensuring lack of drift. Our data suggests that visits have increased from 7.7% on 1 October 2015 (when we began recording in new way) to 65.3 % in December 2016 and to 76.3% in April 2017. This figure is not yet consistent across the county and is being addressed.

S17. Improved practice in relation to accommodation

· We continue to out-perform our statistical neighbours, alongside both regional and national benchmark targets with 92.1 % of care leavers aged 19, 20 and 21 in suitable accommodation (February 2017).

· We have improved the availability of suitable accommodation as well as the oversight and planning of accommodation arrangements. We have increased the capacity within our teams for recruitment and support for Staying Put and Homestay. There are currently 30 young people in Homestay accommodation (December 2016) and 40 in Staying Put (December 2016). Both figures have steadily increased over the year. (Homestays Quarterly Data)

· Three of our current care leavers are in staying put arrangements with Independent Fostering Agencies and are supported in the same way as internal carers by our own services. This has been recognised on a regional basis as being good practice and ahead of other authorities in the North West (NWACF).

· We have worked with our district council colleagues to embed a Local Housing Protocol which acknowledges and seeks to respond to the needs of care leavers within their preferred community. The authority is now working with St Basils to consult and build a pathway to accommodation for care leavers. This will look at sustainable housing options and future sustainability of accommodation for care leavers being mindful of welfare reforms. (Accommodation of Care Leavers for 16-17year olds)

· Early identification of care leavers accommodation needs are consider as part of the pathway plan. This is monitored and tracked by both management oversight and IRO. ‘In touch’ data returns give us a snapshot in time around accommodation but in an effort to have a better strategic understanding we have developed a ‘live’ version for our young people which is now in place and is enabling districts to understand this cohort and take action to improve outcomes quickly. District leads have a clear understanding of this. (Performance reports)

· We have a systematic way to understand the needs of all our 16 plus CLA (Accommodation of Care Leavers for 16-17year olds) for future accommodation to enable sufficiency planning around the type of placement/accommodation they will move to after care. This is collated within a countywide tracker.

· The proportion of care leavers reported as being in suitable accommodation remains consistently over 90% which is above national comparators. (Performance reports) For those adults not deemed to be in suitable accommodation we are aware of where they are and work to address the impact of this is evident on files.

· We have ensured our transition planning / pathway plans for young people with a severe learning difficulty and physical disability are linked to adult services but recognise further work can be undertaken to strengthen this. (Current policy http://cumbriacs.proceduresonline.com/chapters/p_leaving_care.html draft protocol DRAFT Transition protocol) Work is underway with our care leavers and partners to improve the transition pathway for those who may be vulnerable in terms of mental health and wellbeing. Work is underway with our care leavers and partners to improve the transition pathway for those who may be vulnerable in terms of mental health and wellbeing. This has been a key area which the Care Leavers Forum has asked to develop this year

S18. Awareness of entitlements

· We have taken steps to ensure increased awareness of and take up of entitlements. The entitlements document was revised and relaunched. The Care Leavers forum in Barrow and South Lakeland has taken an active role in this more recently and have looked at a document redesign which will be incorporated as part of the Local Offer.

· Following the 2015 inspection we completed an immediate audit to review allocation of the setting up home allowance as not all care leavers had had access to the £2000 amount. Where appropriate and not in place this has been reimbursed to the relevant care leavers since March 2015. Pathway planning routinely considers finance for all care leavers.

S19. Strong links with key stakeholders

· There are regular meetings with the DWP lead and the local authority to look at themes in practice and plans for young people approaching transition to adulthood. The aim being to overcome delay in benefit claims and improve the service care leavers receive.

· There have been meetings with key DWP personnel in districts to ensure good communication is in place to assist young people when they visit the job centre and make benefit claims. This has also recently been linked with the Apprenticeship team to ensure no care leaver is disadvantaged financially by taking up an apprenticeship.

· There is an advanced ‘claim and consent to share process’ being used across county to help facilitate stronger support.

· There was a Pathway to Economic Wellbeing workshop hosted by the local authority on 13th January 2017. This brought together DWP, Inspira, LEP and interested voluntary agencies (Cumbria Youth Alliance and Brathay) with Personal Advisors, Homestay/supporting people, the virtual school, residential services and the Apprenticeship Team. It was used to draw on the experiences of New Belongings and seek to jointly plan for a better targeted response, to be aspirational for our young people and to improve EET figures for care leavers. It improved awareness of services available in the county, enabled joint planning for better outcomes for our young people and means we have a stronger foundation on which to plan for those who are EET.

S20. Outcomes for care leavers

· We have 21 care leavers attending University. Numbers have increased following further success in this year’s exam results. At key stage 5 seven care leavers achieved level 3 qualifications in 2016 and of these five had applied to University and achieved the grades needed to take up their University courses.

· 49.4% of former relevant care leavers are in education, employment or training. (April 2017) This figure is now in line with the target of 49% and statistical neighbour performance however there remains a need for improvement in outcomes for care leavers overall.

· In 2015 10% of care leavers were in higher education, compared to 5.11% of our statistical neighbours and 8% nationally which is strong performance.

· Work is taking place with the apprenticeship team as part of the strategic plan to improve our offer to care leavers. We are currently working together on guaranteed interviews for care leavers within the local authority and targeted interview and preparation to enable better chance of success at interview for our care leavers

· There are regular multi-agency link meetings in each district which involve the virtual head and Inspira. Given the number of EET the district Service Manager Leads are also working within the districts on targeted responses to those young people to ensure pace and strong multi agency response.

· We have identified during our joint work with the DWP that for those care leavers who are NEET many are currently claiming Employment Support Allowance. Work is ongoing to look at ways of engaging young people to enable them to be ready to access EET in the future. (see S19 above for details regarding the Pathway to Economic Wellbeing workshop)


P14. Ensuring practice standards are consistent across the county

· Whilst standards are much improved there is still work to do on ensuring this is consistent across the county. This data is tracked on a weekly basis by senior manager performance reporting, and quality monitored through management oversight and audit. (Monthly audit reports) Moving forward we require consistency in Pathway plans as some would benefit from being more targeted and focussed on achieving good outcomes

· We need to ensure we are consistent across the county in developing clear and better evidenced pathways of work towards independence for all young people in our care.

P15.Accommodation

· We need to work towards a plan for sustainable housing for care leavers into the future especially in preparation for welfare reforms and the risks around Local Housing Allowance and the gap with benefits. St Basils are working with us to seek a Better Together outcome with partners and the first date for this was on 17th February 2017.

· We are aiming to be part of the North West Leaving Care Framework by May 2017. This will (where appropriate) move young people into independent living whilst CLA in accommodation, that is sustainable post 18. As this evolves we expect market development to improve and young people to have more choice around provider.

P16. Transitions and support with mental health and wellbeing

· We recognise that this is an area for development within Cumbria and are working hard to make the experience better for our young people.

· It is a priority theme for our Care Leaver Forum and they are being supported to run events in each district in the coming months. A care leaver was supported to attend the Improving Emotional Wellbeing thema

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Welcome to Cumbria County Council | Cumbria County ... · Web viewIn 2015 10% of care leavers were in higher education, compared to 5.11% of our statistical neighbours and 8% nationally