Agenda item

LINX – Lancashire's Children in Care Council

To receive information on what each district offers care leavers with regards to housing/accommodation.

Receive findings on what the Young Inspectors have gleaned from carrying out inspections of accommodation where our children in care live.

Prior to the meeting, LINX were asked to find out what each of the district councils offered care leavers with regards to accommodation and support.  Their results are attached.

Members of the Board then looked at the findings and raised questions as follows:

What is the District Local Housing Association offering – application for housing? (West Lancs)

What was the District Local Housing Association offering? (Pendle)

What's District Housing offering? (Fylde)

Capacity – how many beds/rooms? (Fylde)

How difficult is it to secure tenancies when moving on? (Lancaster)

The young people did not have this information.

The aim of this activity was to see what was available on the Districts and Housing Associations websites and what they were offering, which would then determine the Chair and Lead Officer of the Board to make a decision as to which Districts needed to be targeted with regards what they were offering young people and how useful young people found information when looking for what they offered care leavers with regards accommodation.  This would then inform the Board as to what the next steps in the process would be, ie initiate a separate meeting with leads from the District Councils, or write a letter from the Board requesting information and what information the young people would like to see on their websites and available to them.

The young people reported that they found Fylde and Wyre to be good with regards information on supported accommodation online and that it was quite a supportive website.

Rachel Blundell informed the Board that each District took a different approach to a young person prior to 18 requiring accommodation and this was something that this Board could take forward to ensure that if a young person wanted to move to independent living at 16 they could do.  Rachel agreed to speak with Legal Services at Lancashire County Council regarding this.

Resolved:  That Rachel Blundell would speak to Legal Services, Lancashire County Council to explore if/how we as a Council could put anything in place that would enable a young person under the age of 18 to secure independent accommodation.

With regards housing providers they will only support Care Leavers from 21-25 years of age.  Some accommodation is unsuitable with mould and damp, away from transport links, in unsuitable areas and would only support care leavers up to 25 years of age.  Identification was also required when securing accommodation with a provider and some care leavers do not have this.

One young person raised an issue around mould and damp in accommodation and Dave Carr agreed to speak to that young person outside the meeting.

Finally with regards Post 18 Pathway Plans a discussion took place as to how young people could be more involved with them.  The pathway plans were done to ensure that final reviews were completed and this was a compulsory review.  Some young people spoke and highlighted that in some cases this was not happening.  There were systems in place and as this was not happening as reported by the young people, Barbara Bath agreed to report back to the Senior Management Team regarding this and would feedback to a future meeting.

Resolved:  That Barbara Bath would highlight to Senior Management Team that it had been reported that final reviews were not always taking place even though there were systems in place and would report back to a future Corporate Parenting Board on this.

Young Inspectors

The Young Inspectors had carried out six inspections at Barnardo's Supported Accommodations since the last Corporate Parenting Board meeting.

Feedback from the inspections were shared with members of the Board and recommendations given to the accommodations and progress of them would be feedback to this meeting in July.