Agenda item

Young People from LINX (Lancashire's Children in Care Council), April Rankin and Adam Riley, Participation Team, Child and Family Wellbeing Service, LCC

To receive information on what the Participation team have been doing and what is their offer.

Mary and Georgia from LINX (Lancashire's Children in Care Council), April Rankin and Adam Riley, Child and Family Wellbeing Service, Lancashire County Council provided the Board with a revised presentation which can be found attached to the minutes and provided further insight on Participation including:

·  What is Participation?

·  What are the aims?

·  Meet the Staff Team

·  Lancashire Youth Council

·  What has Lancashire Youth Council been up to?

·  POWAR Send Forum

·  What has POWAR been up to?

·  LINX Children in Care Council (CICC) and Care Leaver Forum (CLF)

·  What has CICC and CLF been up to?

·  Working alongside

·  Upskilling to teach additional skills

·  Locations

An update was received on what LINX (Children in Care Council) (CICC) and the Care Leaver Forum (CLF) had been doing from July 2021 to the present, which included online sessions which had now moved to a hybrid model as well as face to face, to better facilitate the needs of young people.  To date there had been 191 engagements with 50 unique young people.  The sessions included the summer events and care leaver week activities which were a huge success with 21 care experienced young people attending the summer involvement Zoom sessions and 28 care experienced young people attending the summer involvement activity day sessions. The age range of the young people that attended were between 8 and 25.  Care leavers week also saw 55 engagements of whom 23 were unique young people to the Service.

It was noted that the young people have been committed to their role in these groups and have been taking part in extra meetings and sessions such as interview panels for social workers,  facilitating interviews for the youth policy strategic lead role and are currently working with Children's Social Care managers to interview senior social workers where the young people's marks are equal to the managers.

An important aspect of the Children in Care Council (CICC) and Care Leavers Forum (CLF) is to ensure that Lancashire's looked after children and care leavers, are making changes which helps other children and young people.  There are opportunities to attend meetings and work with other children looked after forums across the North West, as well as working with local groups, Social Workers, Targeted Youth Support Workers, Personal Advisors, Managers and Heads of Service.

One of the ways in which young people can make change is through Young Inspectors, and a training day was recently delivered for all members to become young inspectors who will then inspect services for cared for children and young people.  Other young people from Lancashire's  wider participation groups also attended the training, to plan for visits to SEN schools, and Child and Family Wellbeing provisions.

Members on the groups have also taken part in consultations where the feedback received is imperative.  This included the Family Safeguarding booklet, fostering and adoption, what's it like to be supported by Children's Social Care and the summer involvement and recruitment event with the aim being to share the outcomes and reports with the young people.

Presentations have also been given to locality managers and team meetings to share the Participation Offer and there had been attendance at the Key Stage 4 Children Looked After Conference to share opportunities for children looked after across Lancashire, with the help from young people, who have also delivered a presentation to the Social Work Academy on what is and why participation is important.

The Board also noted that one of the roles as workers in the Children in Care Council and Care Leavers Forum is to support young people to attend the Corporate Parenting Board and other meetings, so they can see what change and discussions are being had to make positive changes.

The group recently met Brendan Lee, Head of Service, Children Looked After and Leaving Care, Lancashire County Council and Councillor Stephen Clarke, Chair of the Corporate Parenting Board, to talk about various topics which are important to the group, which included mental health, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), accommodation and social worker changes.  Work is also ongoing to support young people to attend meetings as it is important for them to speak up, however at the moment that is a big step for some of the young people and work on this will continue.

There has also been involvement with the BBC who have offered workshops for young people with topics such as fake news and how to film a short story on a mobile phone.  The BBC also talked to the young people on apprenticeships and job roles that they had coming up and how Lancashire's care leavers could apply for them.

During Care Leavers Week, young people talked to elected members about their lived experiences and current issues and the Participation groups have also had the opportunity to meet with The High Sheriff of Lancashire and County Councillor Cosima Towneley, Cabinet Member for Children and Families, Lancashire County Council to discuss support, campaigns and current topics.

Members were also shown a short video from Georgia, young person, on her positive outcomes, life experiences and achievements and how participation has helped with this.

Following the presentation there were a number of questions raised which included:

Whether feedback from consultations would be given back to young people and it was confirmed that this would be shared with them and the impact that their feedback had made, along with explaining that change cannot always be seen overnight and ensuring they are updated during the process.

There was a request as to what the next steps were for the Participation Service and whether there was a difference that had been seen following the service being brought back in-house.  The Board were informed that prior to Christmas an evaluation would take place on what has been done well, and where improvements could be made.  It was also noted that it had been good to see new young people attending the groups and that participation in the summer activities and care leavers week had been really positive.

A driver for participation was that young people could meet new young people in similar and different situations and seeing a difference to change being made.

The Board thanked everybody for their update and congratulated all involved for the difference that had been made since taking over the Participation contract.

Resolved:  That the Board noted the update.