Agenda item

Report of Interim Strategic Director, Care Wellbeing and Learning

The Committee received a case study on the support offered to care leavers. The Looked After Children’s Team tracks 17-21 year olds in terms of whether they are in employment, education or training (EET).

It was noted that the Staying Put scheme allows young people to remain with their foster carers until they are 21, if the young person feels this is their best option. However, there are still a number of young people who want to leave care.

In terms of 2015/16 data, there were 144 care leavers, aged between 18-21 years, the highest number of young people were aged 20, with similar numbers of both male and female. It was noted that some young people will not work with the team and work is underway on how to prevent this, so there has been identification of hard to reach young people and additional support put in place.

In 2015/16 there were 50% of care leavers in some form of education, employment or training, of which; 56% were in full time training or employment, 22% in education, 11% in high education, 8% and 3% in part time training or education respectively.  It was acknowledged that there were 39 male and 41 female NEET during the year 2015/16, some became parents and some were no longer in contact with the service.

It was reported that a panel is held on a monthly basis to look at potential care leavers and a bespoke package is put in place for each child.  An accommodation panel is also held to encourage potential care leavers to stay put or if not supported accommodation is considered. The panel has been developed with Housing colleagues who help to look at the cohort and can offer taster flats. Taster flats offer a high level of support, the tenancy sits with the local authority until the young person is in a position to take on the tenancy alone. Work is ongoing to look at areas that young people want to live and appropriate resources.  It was reported that this work has been nominated at the NGA Awards and the team has been shortlisted for an award.

Work is underway to try to engage better with those hard to reach care leavers, for example they must come in and speak to the team in order to receive their weekly living allowance, this has proved to be fairly successful. In some cases the living allowance has been split into instalments to encourage more contact.

It was questioned whether the number of care leavers not going anywhere is a sign that they have been failed at an earlier point in their lives. It was acknowledged that these are usually young people who have come to care at a later point in their childhood.

It was noted that apprenticeships are being pushed as far as possible but there are some young people not ready for apprenticeships so the team is looking at lower level opportunities. Discussions are underway with Paul Dowling’s service around the provider offer becoming wider.

Concerns were raised about the number of care leavers NEET. It was acknowledged that there are strict rules in terms of how the data is collated, and if a young person’s EET experience is intermittent this is not always captured in the figures.

The point was made that performance of care leavers is worse than was reported last year and it was therefore suggested that a further report be brought back to inform Committee of the direction of travel.  It was noted that Ofsted identified this as an area needing improvement but that performance is above the England average. It was recognised that there are challenges in relation to the 16-17 offer and the 18-25 offer, as well as the trend in receiving LAC at later years in their life, therefore this is being looked at more strategically to effect change.  It was suggested that in the future report information should be included about the age of children entering care and what setting they live in so give a better understanding of the outcomes.

It was questioned whether the pregnancy figures amongst care leavers is high in terms of the general population and whether these pregnancies were as a result of mature choices. It was confirmed that some young people made those choices purposefully, however some are accidental. Youth Services continue to provide sex education. For those male care leavers NEET, becoming a father is not the primary reason for why they are not in employment or education.

RESOLVED    -           That a further report be brought back to Committee in 6-12

months, to include background information on each care leaver.