Outcomes for children in care are determined not just by the quality of placement, but also by the quality of their care plan and the wrap around support to them and their carers.
Virtual school and early years
Dorset Virtual School undertake three Personal Education Plan (PEP) meetings a year for our children in care, one each term, in partnership with young people and their carers, social workers and the designated teachers in schools/settings.
The current PEP return rate is over 99% which although not nationally reported on, compares favourably with regional informally reported return rates amongst South West Virtual School Heads’ termly meetings. The Virtual School Governing Body also has a Governor Champion for the quality of Personal Education Plans. A BI dashboard has been developed by commissioning staff to enable the school population of children in care to be tracked.
Options appraisal is taking place on dedicated software to enable the virtual school and partners to develop PEPs in a digital space and track attendance and attainment in year in real time.
Family Time - Keeping in touch
Our current arrangements for helping children in care stay in touch with their families and other people who are important to them are in need of an overhaul – starting with the cessation of the use of the work “contact” to describe it – which young people have told us they dislike.
Some of this will involve changes in awareness about the role of the corporate practice and ensuing practice. There is also a need to review the service which enables children to meet family under supervision when there is an identified risk.
Most of this work is done by employees in the Community Resource Worker service. These are employed on zero hours contracts with a view to providing a flexible and responsive service.
The service is currently under review with a view to creating a more established service with dedicated meeting venues, which will reduce travel costs and over avoidable overheads. Our aim is to have new arrangements in place by April 2021.
Keeping healthy
Overall, our practice is improving in ensuring we understand the health needs of children entering our care, with improvements in timeliness of gaining consent for Initial Health Assessments as a result of increased management oversight and weekly monitoring.
However, we lag behind comparators on the percentage of children who receive an Annual health Assessment on time, and on the percentage of children who access dental services. Our average Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) scores are also higher (negative) than comparators.
We have a Child in Care Psychologist based in the council who works with our children in care and their carers to ensure that we have a good understanding of the therapeutic needs of our children and that the placement can meet the identified needs. In addition, there are psychologists based in the NHS.
There has been a rise in the numbers of requests for support, advice and guidance to foster carers from the Children in Care Psychologists which has had an impact on their offer. One off consultations have more often been provided rather than a series.
The Youth Offending Service obtained NHS England funding for a Speech and Language Therapist and to support the introduction of trauma informed practice. A 4- month pilot saw all new young people being assessed by the Speech and Language Therapist.
About 80% of these assessments identified some level of speech, language or communication needs, with recommendations for the young person, for YOS workers, other professionals and for family members about how best to respond to the child’s needs.
This learning will be incorporated into the Harbour and discussions are taking place with the CCG and health providers about establishing dedicated psychology and speech and language therapist support as part of the Hub team.
Adoption and Special Guardianship
Adoption Services are provided since July 2017through the Regional Adoption Agency (Aspire), which serves the Dorset Council and BCP Council areas. Dorset Council retains the Agency Decision Maker responsibility.
A review is being undertaken with Aspire to fully consider impact and outcomes for children within the existing RAA to support future plans for service delivery. This will be completed by January 2021.
Improve our contract monitoring with partner organisations who provide placements
We have created new posts within the Commissioning service to improve our contract monitoring and quality assurance arrangements with providers. We believe that this will:
- give more assurance about quality and standards
- ensure value for money
- improve placement stability by enabling us to work closely with providers to address issues early
All current external placements are RAG rated by the Quality Assurance Manager and a program of checks and visits is underway. The team is able to respond to notifications from Ofsted where inspections or investigations have raised concerns, or where judgements about individual settings have changed.
A programme of monthly case file audits is also carried out which provides oversight of the quality of care planning for individual children.
We have also taken steps to establish a procurement business partner role with the corporate procurement hub. This will enable us to make best use of the resources and expertise of the corporate hub, and focus our contract officers on contract monitoring. Our current Independent Fostering Agency (IFA) placements have been made from the tendered sub-regional frameworks (South West until 31.3.17) and South Central since 1.4.17 that can provide for special and needs, where these cannot be met within local provision.
There were 36 independent fostering service providers pre-qualified to provide placements on the South West framework the individual placement agreements persist for as long as the placement is required even after the framework period has ended.
The South-Central Independent Fostering Framework provides the consortium of local authorities with 49 foster agencies able to provide standard foster placements, 43 children with a disability placement and 43 parent and child placements.
This Framework has 9 providers who can provide a new service of Alternatives to Residential placements. The successor to the South-Central Framework will be tendered in 2021.
Dorset does not have enough children’s homes to accommodate children who require residential care. To date we have not attracted external providers to invest in or set up provision in Dorset.
Therefore, the vast majority of our residential placements are made out of area, sometimes in adjoining local authority areas, but also at a considerable distance from Dorset in other LA areas.
A number of steps have been taken to address this shortage of provision. We began by hosting a local market engagement event in September 2019. This was attended by thirteen children’s home providers.
We outlined our placement needs and discussed with providers possible ways to address our lack of children’s home capacity. Block contracts were felt to be a useful way to secure capacity in Dorset. Initially this would be through using the flexibility of the Local Authorities of the Southern Region (LASR) framework to ‘call-off’ block contracts for Dorset children’s homes. We have established a block contracts with the Beaufort Care Group for two of their homes in the East of Dorset.
We are in discussion with other Dorset-based providers to see if similar block contracts could be established. For all Dorset-based providers we are aiming to get notified ahead of other local authorities of vacancies and planned vacancies.
A more medium- term solution would be to encourage providers to set up new provision in Dorset, perhaps utilising Dorset Council land or re-purposing Dorset Council buildings. We will tender for this in 2021 with a view to attracting providers who are not part of the current frameworks.
The LASR flexible framework is now in its third year and the reopening of the tender resulted in an increase in the number of homes available for calling-off placements as and when required in the following categories:
- planned and same day residential care
- crisis care
- residential care with DFE regulated education
- residential parenting assessments
- therapeutic residential care
- children with disabilities
However, the difficulties of sourcing beds cannot be underestimated, and spot purchasing is still required on occasion.
Since February 2019 a Post 16 Accommodation and Support South-Central Framework contract has been in place following a joint tender.
This is a framework of 18 providers covering 4 lots:
- Looked after Children including UASC, 16 providers
- care leavers, 16 providers
- young people with complex needs, 14 providers
- parent and child, 7 providers
and also provides us with the ability to block contract for specific numbers and types of placements. The Consortium of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, Bracknell Forest Council, Dorset Council, Hampshire County Council, Portsmouth City Council, Southampton City Council and Wokingham Borough Council are currently considering a reopening of this framework to new bidders or bids for further provision from current providers.
This remains a difficult market where conditions mean that we still need to make occasional spot purchases.
Dorset Council’s joint Adult Services and Children’s Services Supported Housing contract (also known as the Vulnerable Young People’s Service) was due to expire in July 2020, but was extended for a year due to the pandemic.
Services are to be reconfigured to secure sufficient higher needs accommodation and support and with lower level needs met by enhanced housing management and floating support. The tender will be led by Children’s Services with active involvement from colleagues in Adult services and Housing.
The remainder of our post 16 accommodation and support or supported housing is currently subject to a block contract with a Dorset provider. This will be rolled into the new tender to drive efficiency, effectiveness and choice.