Agenda item

Young People and Barnardos

To receive feedback on the work our young people have been doing including:

Performance Report

Housing

As this meeting was a thematic meeting around care leavers, LINX had focussed on this element of the performance report and fed back as per powerpoint attached.

Tony Morrissey and Moya McKinney responded to the issues raised

Action:  Tony Morrissey agreed to feedback issues raised from this presentation to relevant officers.

CC Prynn challenged the District Councillors present around what they had in their districts in supporting care leavers around (ie any information leaflets in young person friendly language):

Housing Tenancy toolkits

Budgeting

Deposit scheme/bond scheme

Homelessness – is this a priority for care leavers in this situation?

It was felt that guidance from the District Councils needs to be available for care leavers, taking into consideration those with learning difficulties also and revisiting the housing policies in the districts and seeing how simplistic it is for young people leaving care and also for those preparing to leave care.

Action:  District Councillors to find out what information is available and whether it is suitable for young people and feedback to CC Prynn (Chair of the CPB).  Contact is susan.prynn@lancashire.gov.uk.

Caroline Beswick from Lancashire Children's Rights Society informed the Board of a new pilot project called "Care to be Different" which is to provide intensive support for 16-24 year olds and have a one stop shop for help and guidance through the issues that occur.

One issue that was raised by a care leaver was around the need for guarantors and the issue that this has been.

Action:  Tony Morrissey/Moya McKinney to look into this further and report back to the Board on possible solutions.

CC Snape mentioned that there appeared to be different standards of housing for care leavers and wondered if there was a breakdown of housing by district.   Moya reported that Children's Social Care would be aware of this as well as the Commissioning Team, however there are definite issues with resourcing provision before you even look at property.

Children's Social Care are working with Preston City Council around housing and how young people can help to renovate/decorate properties and then secure the place to live in.

Councillor Moon from South Ribble District Council is the portfolio holder for homelessness and is currently looking at how South Ribble works with care leavers around housing and housing support and looking at empty properties.  She asked what the Leaving Care workers for LCC do to support young people around this and really wants to engage with the Authority to move this issue forward.

There were reports that Service 6 were receiving up to 7-8 phone calls a week, where young people were stating they had been signed off from Leaving Care worker and were being evicted from properties and felt they had nowhere to turn to.

Jane Hylton stated that there was a fundamental problem and support workers have left the authority and not been replaced.  However with the New Belongings project every 16 year old will have a Personal Advisor (PA).  Further details will be given at item 5.

Moya McKinney has taken notes of issues raised by young people and will take that back to Diane Booth, Head of Children's Social Care.  She also stated that if any young person wished to speak to her in private after the meeting, she would be around and if they wished to email her, her details are as follows:  moya.mckinney@lancashire.gov.uk.

LINX then shared the Care Leavers quiz with the group as attached with the answers.