Members of the public are welcome to attend our meetings to watch them in person at any of the venues across the County. Publicly accessible meetings held in County Hall will be webcast, which means they are available to be watched live or recorded on our website. Please see our webcasting notice here. The Committee may, in certain circumstances, resolve to hold part of the meeting in private. If this is the case, you will be required to leave the meeting.
PDF 121 KBVenue: Committee Room 'C' - The Duke of Lancaster Room, County Hall, Preston. View directions
Contact: Sam Gorton Tel: 01772 532471 email: sam.gorton@lancashire.gov.uk
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Introductions and Apologies County Councillor Prynn
To note who is attending and any apologies for absence. Minutes: All were welcomed to the meeting and apologies were received and noted from County Councillors Lord and Beavers, Dr Nicola Bamford, Diane Booth, Tony Morrissey, Annette McNeil, Debbie Duffell, Mark Twiname, Mia Leyland and Audrey Swann.
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Notes of the Meetings and Matters Arising from 16 June 2016 and 4 August 2016 County Councillor Prynn
To agree for accuracy the notes of the meeting and receive any matters arising. Additional documents: Minutes: The minutes were agreed as an accurate record and there were no matters arising from them.
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What our Elected Members have been doing (15 mins) County Councillor Prynn and other Elected Members
To note feedback from work undertaken by the Chair of the Board and our Elected Members as part of their role on the CPB, including Member visits carried out since the last meeting. Minutes: CC Prynn
CC Prynn and CC Brown had carried out a Reg 22 visit recently. Following this, there had been some quite negative meetings with regards the use of CAMHS (Child and Adult Mental Health Service) between Mental Health Officers and Senior Officers from LCC. There is a Pan Lancashire initiative to provide help for all mental health issues for young people.
There is a Care of the Most Vulnerable Workshop to be held on 27 September 2016. If any County Councillors wishes to attend, then let CC Prynn know. Key professionals across Lancashire will be attending. CC Prynn will be feeding in with regards to needing more therapies and support in residential settings, which is more than what CAMHS are offering.
Debbie Ross reported that Health are also expanding the number of therapies offered for vulnerable young people and that self-referrals are now accepted from young people.
CC Prynn queried an Activity Day that she had heard about, and was disappointed that the Board had not been informed about it. Following this it was requested that Sam Gorton source more information and let CC Prynn know the details.
Action: Sam Gorton to follow up further with Tony Morrissey/Georgine Lee.
Kate Baggaley confirmed that the Council Tax exemption letter is now finalised and ready to be sent to the District Councils.
CC Brown
Reported that the Reg 22 visit he carried out with CC Prynn was very interesting and that he was continuing to work on issues around mental health.
CC Brindle
Reported back with regards the follow up on Housing with Burnley Borough Council. There was no specific training given on dealing with care leavers, it was on the job training. CC Brindle felt that this was not satisfactory and also that there was no specific leaflet or guidance on leaving care for young people. This was a big gap that needs looking at.
Action: Officers are producing a leaving care pack which will be presented to the Board.
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LINX (Lancashire's Children in Care Council) (60 mins) Young People and Barnardos
To receive feedback on the work our young people have been doing:
What LINX have been doing Young Inspectors Feedback on CPB Report In Care, Out of Trouble Additional documents:
Minutes: In Care out of Trouble Report
LINX presented the attached PowerPoint which outlined their response to the recommendations at Appendix One in the Report as requested by the CPB at the meeting on 16 June 2016. Following on from the slide which shows what LINX wanted, their request was that a Police Representative be on the Board. It was noted that there was a Co-opted Member Police role in the Terms of Reference, however, in the past when this had been discussed the young people requested that they did not feel comfortable with a Police presence, so the Board welcomed that they would now like Police representation at the meetings in future.
Action: Sam Gorton to liaise with Superintendent Andrea Barrow to find a Police Representative to attend future meetings.
LINX then led with an activity (attached), where the Board worked in groups and were presented with scenarios, and then each scenario was added to which changed the opinions of the outcomes and what led to them. The groups were asked how they would deal with the different issues (as attached). The scenarios were based on experiences young people had had in care in Lancashire. Kate reported that young people had stated they had not experienced any discriminations from the Police because they were in care and that they reported positive experiences when dealing with the Police. The Board and Superintendent Andrea Barrow welcomed the positive comments made by the young people.
What LINX have been doing
LINX gave a detailed account of what they had been doing since 4 August 2016. Details can be found on the Powerpoint attached.
Kate reported that LINX had been working really hard with the Fostering Service and what they had been doing was detailed in the Bingo game that the Board played and is attached.
Feedback on CPB Report
Young people raised a number of concerns with regards the Performance Report, and it was requested that Sam contact Chris Greenwood who provides the report to address the issues raised.
Action: Sam to send the Performance Report to Chris Greenwood to address the concerns raised by LINX and for Chris to feedback to LINX.
Andy Smith, Children's Social Care addressed the query around why the Contact Centre had received more contacts though less referrals had been made. He stated contacts and referrals are the same, they are both dealt with in the same way. There are around 30,000+ contacts a year with around 1000 going through to Social Workers. Around 3000 a month should be dealt with at the early help stage which is dealt with by MASH (Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub).
Andy also gave some feedback from the recent Ofsted Monitoring visit. Six cases had been sampled from Section 47 and Care Leavers and the findings were that significant progress was being made and the processes that are in place are on the right track, however there is still room for improvement, but no children have been left at risk.
The children missing data ... view the full minutes text for item 4. |
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In Care Out of Trouble Report (30 mins) Tony Morrissey/Robert Ruston/Superintendent Andrea Barrow
To discuss the report.
Receive feedback from the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner and Police on what they are doing to support children in care and care leavers.
Receive statistics on children looked after and care leavers who are cautioned/end up in the criminal justice system in Lancashire.
Minutes: Superintendent Andrea Barrow, Lancashire Constabulary and Robert Ruston, Victims Commissioning and Partnerships Manager, Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) were welcomed to the meeting.
Robert spoke about the role of the OPCC and explained that they were the body that oversees the Police. Currently they are focussing on restorative justice and developing it in homes and are very keen to look at and support it in residential units across Lancashire.
Maria Lewis, Youth Offending Team, LCC informed the Board that the YOT Team have restorative justice work planned too, so the team will contact Robert and make the links.
Action: Maria Lewis to contact Robert Ruston about collaborative work around restorative justice.
Superintendent Andrea Barrow then gave a PowerPoint presentation (as attached) as to what Lancashire Constabulary is doing around Early Action and Public Service Lancashire Development.
Early Action – Prevention is the Forces way of delivering Neighbourhood policing in the future.
Looking at deep problem solving and asking the question WHY-
Why the individual has escalated to crisis? Why have previous cries for help not lead to a sustainable solution? Why should we as Police be interested in incidents and problems that are not crime related?
This is why Early Action is so important – 48% classed as Early Action when the problem has reached crisis and the police are called. Case studies show that many of the incidents could have been prevented with Early Action. Only 19% of incidents are crime related demand on Police.
Lancashire Police Force are leading the way in working in conjunction with other services and acting as leads for individuals and then working with the family and identifying what help is needed, so the individual and family are not seeing lots of different people over the same issues.
Further funding has been applied for to help put interventions in place.
Police do not complete Common Assessment Frameworks (CAF's) as a matter of course, but they do act as Lead Professionals for hundreds of others. As part of the Integrated Team in Preston they are looking at Police instigating a CAF, looking at a joint case management system and looking at using Liquid Logic. A CAF would be built into that and used as an assessment tool.
Superintendent Barrow also informed the Board that they are doing preventative work with other agencies around mental health issues. The Board agreed that they would like to be a part of this initiative going forward. Superintendent Barrow welcomed input on identifying vulnerable people on this from CPB and foster carers would also be a good source too.
Action: The Board were asked to let Sam Gorton know if anybody would like to be involved and that Sam would pass details on to Superintendent Barrow.
It was noted that joined up working from Service 6, LCC would be very useful especially in helping people who have been released from prison.
Action: Sam to pass contact details of Service 6 toSuperintendent Andrea Barrow.
Robert Ruston then ... view the full minutes text for item 5. |
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IRO Annual Report (15 mins) Sally Allen/Andy Smith
To receive the report. Additional documents: Minutes: Andy Smith, Children's Social Care presented the IRO Annual Report. Key facts from the report were presented in the Powerpoint attached.
Following the Ofsted Inspection the number of IROs was increased from 30 FTE to 45 FTE. Caseloads were extremely high (around 130) and the focus has been to reduce caseloads which has happened. The current number as of today of children looked after is 1,754 which has increased since March 2016 where the number was 1,674.
Children with child protection plans was also increasing and from March 2016 there were 1,443 children to the number today which is 1,746.
As can be seen, figures are increasing, however, with the increase in staff, this has enabled IRO's to manage and provide good practice. Problem resolution within the service was identified as a positive way for IRO challenge to improve outcomes.
The Board asked if there could be some form of a problem resolution specifically for Care Leavers so they are able to escalate and resolve any of their concerns and Andy agreed to take this forward.
Action: Andy Smith to take forward the recommendation of a problem resolution service for Care Leavers and report back to the Board on this recommendation.
Kirsty Clarke commented that the Advocacy Service provided by Children's Rights was now available up to the age of 21 years old, and that this service had a good relationship with IROs.
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Any Other Business County Councillor Prynn
To receive any other business.
Minutes: There was no other business to report. |
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Date and Time of Next Meeting County Councillor Prynn
Thursday, 1 December 2016 at 6.00pm (refreshments served from 5.30pm) in the Henry Bollinbroke Room – Cabinet Room 'D', County Hall, Preston, PR1 8RJ. Minutes: Thursday, 1 December 2016 at 6.00pm (refreshments served from 5.30pm) in the Henry Bollinbroke Room – Cabinet Room 'D', County Hall, Preston, PR1 8RJ. |
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Care Leavers Guide - An Update Report To note the report. Minutes: This item was for information only. Any queries arising from this, please email hannah.peake@lancashire.gov.uk. |