Agenda item

Peter Knowles, LCC and Young People

To receive the draft Corporate Parenting Strategy for comment and agree a workplan for the next 12 months.

Peter Knowles and Roxanne McAllister, Lancashire County Council presented the draft Corporate Parenting Strategy to the Board.

The attached PowerPoint explained the seven principles from the Children and Social Work Act 2017 that the strategy is based upon.  From those principles Lancashire have devised the following nine key priorities:

Priority 1: Ensure Children can remain safely at home

'Our Priority is to ensure that early intervention is provided at the right time to prevent the need for statutory intervention''

Priority 2: Care Leaver Local offer

'Our Priority is to ensure that all care leavers feel supported and can access a range of service to promote their continued wellbeing into adulthood'.

Priority 3: Education, Training and Employment

'Our Priority is to close the attainment gap between those children and Young People that the Local Authority cares for and those that are cared for in their own families'.

Priority 4: A Suitable Place to live and be cared for

'Our Priority is to ensure that the children and Young People we care for have a range of suitable and appropriate accommodation to meet their immediate and long term needs'.

Priority 5: Health and Wellbeing

'Our Priority is to improve the health and wellbeing of the children and young people we care for'.

Priority 6: Money and Financial Support

'Our Priority is to ensure that Young People have enough money to provide for their needs whilst in care and after they have left care and ensure that they are supported financially to establish their own homes'.

Priority 7: Children are protected from harm and or Risk of Exploitation

'Our Priority is to ensure that children are protected from harm and exploitation and ensure that they are provided with support to overcome any pull factors that would lead them to being exploited'.

Priority 8: Children in Care and Care leaver celebration

'Our Priority is to ensure that the children we looked after and have looked after are recognised for their achievements'.

Priority 9: Children and Young People have a voice in the way we deliver our services

'Our Priority is to ensure that children and young people are consulted and actively participate in the decisions we make about how we deliver our services'. Nothing about me without me.

The Board were then asked to discuss on their tables the priorities and comment on them.  Feedback from the group work is attached.

Members were informed that most work had been done on the Health and Wellbeing priority (Priority 5).  Lots of work had been done on the other priorities also, but Priority 5 was the main one.

John Readman asked the Board if they felt whether there was a 10^th priority which was supporting leisure/play and that children in care/care leavers should enjoy themselves.

Resolved:  That the Board agreed there should be a 10^th priority and that this should also be incorporated into the revised pledge.

The next steps were to recreate the pledge with the help of LINX. A young person asked that three separate pledges for children in care, those with special educational needs and care leavers should be considered, not just having one.  Further discussions would be had around the feasibility of having three separate pledges.

The revised Pledge would be presented to the Board at a future meeting along with the final approved version of the Corporate Parenting Strategy which would take into consideration comments received from this meeting, would be presented for approval at Cabinet in September 2018.