Agenda item

Young People and Barnardos

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

Performance Report

Young Inspectors

Care Leavers Strategy

Ofsted

What LINX Have Been Doing

LINX took the Board through everything they had been doing since the last meeting.  Please see powerpoint attached.

150^th Anniversary of Barnardos

A video was shown which included some members of LINX which is marking Barnardos 150^th anniversary and invited everybody to a Summer Fayre on 11 June 2016.  The invite is attached and the Board were asked to share this amongst colleagues.

CPB Performance Report

Next, LINX gave feedback on the Performance Report which is attached.  Questions that were raised on the powerpoint will be addressed when Diane Booth goes to visit LINX at their meeting. 

The fixed term exclusion target of 70, was felt by the young people an unacceptable target and wanted this lowering.

Action:  Tony Morrissey agreed to discuss this with Audrey Swann and endeavour to reduce to the target.

Catherine raised an issue around there currently being more perspective adopters than there were children.  Georgine Lee stated that there were a number of older children, sibling groups and children with disabilities awaiting adoption and there is work being carried out with the Government Adoption Vision to address this.  There are currently no Adoption Activity Days planned, however with the new Adoption Recruitment Strategy, the Adoption Service are looking at planning more Activity Days and also looking at Adopters Activity Days.  This will be a joined up approach with Blackburn with Darwen and Cumbria and will do further work around this together.  CC Prynn requested that Board be kept informed when these dates are planned.

Young Inspectors Report

The Board noted the Young Inspectors report as attached and feedback from these visits, especially the revisits were that young people at the establishments welcomed the Young Inspectors back and that they were following up the recommendations to ensure they had been fulfilled.  It was requested that for the next meeting a more detailed report be provided ie a case study. 

Action:  LINX agreed to bring a more detailed report to the next meeting.

Debbie Ross commented that she had attended a National Safeguarding Steering Group where examples of good practice were requested.  Debbie informed them of the Young Inspectors work and offered to share with them the LINX model.  Health colleagues have also appreciated the feedback received on health assessments.

Kirsty Clarke invited the Young Inspectors to inspect Lancashire's Children's Rights Society and Advocacy Service where Lancashire have children/young people placed.  The Young Inspectors welcomed this invite.

Activity

Two County Councillors became care leavers for this activity and put on blindfolds and were asked to make their way to the back of the room which was their road to finding supported accommodation.  The rest of the Board stood in their way holding up obstacles as they tried to reach their destination.  A sample of comments that care leavers had raised with regards getting supported accommodation were as follows:

·  Lonely

·  Isolated

·  No pathway plan

·  Not seeing social worker regularly enough

·  Feeling too young to live independently

·  Lack of information on college bursaries

·  No finances in place

·  Low paid apprenticeships

·  Mental health concerns

The activity was to highlight what barriers care leavers faced around supported accommodation.

Cheryl Lovell commented that Fostering Solutions used this activity also in their initial foster carer training to highlight to them what issues Care Leavers face.

Action:  to explore the above issues in the Care Leavers Task Group.

Care Leavers Strategy

Mark has recently experienced a number of difficulties as a Care Leaver eg:

·  finding out what he is entitled to

·  issues with Leaving Care worker not having correct information on Staying Put Policy and then going on leave and no other contact given

·  top-up not being paid from Lancashire County Council (LCC)

·  Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) not knowing what a CLA was

·  Income support issues

The Board recognised that this was totally unacceptable and wondered just how often this was happening.  When Leaving Care Workers go on leave or off sick, there needs to be contingency plans in place to cover this.  Work with Care Leavers needs to be happening months before they turn 18 and not on their 18^th birthday.  Systems appear to be in place, but how robust are they?

Action:  Tony Morrissey to speak with Mark outside of the meeting and follow the issues up.

Action  With regards the training of Leaving Care Workers, Linda Clegg will address this and share some information on this in the next item.

The Board had recently worked with the DWP, however it appeared that this needed to be revisited.

CC Brindle agreed to contact the Housing Benefit Officer at Burnley Borough Council to find out how Care Leavers claimed housing benefit and would share this with the Board.

Kirsty Clarke stated that there had been a project piloted recently called Care to be Different run by their Advocacy Service where young people could contact them for support.  Kirsty also commented that the issues that Mark had faced were common with lots of Care Leavers.

LINX were thanked for all their hard work.