Agenda item

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

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 is inconsistent and the reason behind this is that the Police data does not match with the Children's Social Care data.

The Chair commented that it was really pleasing that the KS4 results had increased from the previous year.

Five looked after young people had been placed in either young offender institutions or secure units.  Maria Lewis agreed to follow this up and find out further information.

Action:  Maria Lewis to follow this up and report back to CC Prynn.

ITV Fixers – Leaflet

Brad and Sam had been involved with creating a leaflet for care leavers called Out of Care and Going it Alone.  The leaflet can be found here.

The young people were thanked for their detailed reports and continuing hard work.