Still standing by
Joe Lepper
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
With the Children and Social Work Act requiring councils to produce a "local offer" outlining services care leavers are entitled to, Joe Lepper investigates progress to improve outcomes for young people.
Local authorities must spell out care leavers' entitlements by way of a "local offer" from next year as stipulated in the Children and Social Work Act.
But Ofsted's most recent social care annual report suggests many may struggle to provide a genuinely beneficial offer.
Out of 99 councils inspected, 14 were found to be "inadequate" in terms of the experiences and progress of their care leavers, 49 were rated as "requires improvement", 34 were rated "good" and just two were judged to be "outstanding".
"I don't think most local authorities are geared up to provide a good local offer," says Ed Nixon, a residential social work consultant involved with the Every Child Leaving Care Matters campaign. "Frankly, care leavers are not high profile. Of all the priorities that councils have, my understanding is that care leavers are often further down their pile."
The Act also puts the responsibility of good corporate parenting on to councils in their entirety, including housing departments, and extends the role of personal advisers to support care leavers until they are 25.
But Nixon is concerned the legislation will be difficult to enforce: "It is so vague that your average 10-year-old could have written it," he says. Lack of funding could also hinder its effectiveness as there are currently no details on how much extra money councils may receive to comply with the Act.
"We need to remind the government that councils need more money to deliver high quality support," says Claire Cockett, policy and research manager at children's charity Become (formerly The Who Cares? Trust).
Extra funding is particularly needed to recruit more personal advisers and avoid them being swamped by high caseloads, she adds.
It is also necessary to pay for promotion of the local offer, says Jasmine Alli, senior policy and research adviser at The Adolescent and Children's Trust (Tact).
She says: "We can't just publicise services for children and young people on council websites. Young people have a much more sophisticated relationship with the internet and councils need a digital media strategy.
"If you want to make an impact you need to go where young people are and that is their social media sites."
It is also important to ensure care leavers with restricted online use or who do not have English as a first language have access, adds Cockett.
EXTRA SUPPORT
CYP Now understands the government plans to allocate "new burdens funding" to local authorities in recognition of their extended duties to care leavers under the Act. It is also understood the Department for Education is close to agreeing a delivery partner to administer the Care Leaver Covenant, promised originally by former children's minister Edward Timpson for introduction last October. This will aim to rally organisations and businesses to support care leavers through offering work experience, apprenticeships and discounted goods and services.
In addition, the government's appointment in September of Mark Riddell as national implementation adviser for care leavers, should help ensure councils are properly supported.
As a care leaver himself and a former leaving care manager at Trafford - the first council judged by Ofsted to have "outstanding" care leaver services - Riddell's role is to work closely with councils in developing local offers and recruiting personal advisers.
Cockett hopes one of his priorities will be to ensure care leavers are involved in developing local offers to ensure they are relevant to their needs. She anticipates their involvement would lead to a greater emphasis on long-term emotional support, rather than the current focus on practical skills such as cooking and money management.
"Care leavers need someone they can talk to at 3am. They might get pregnant, or go through mental illness. Someone needs to be with them to see them through that and recognise that those ups and downs will happen in their 20s as well," says Cockett.
Barnardo's wants to see local offers emphasise good access to mental health support.
A study published in September of 274 care leavers supported by the charity, found that 125 had mental health needs but 81 of these were not receiving child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) support.
Barnardo's is calling for mental health workers to be placed within all leaving care teams and for care leavers' access to CAMHS to be extended beyond their 18th birthday, when currently support switches to adult mental health services. Sessions should also take place in locations that are designed with young people in mind, such as youth centres.
Barnardo's policy officer Nicola Smith says: "If you put a mental health worker in a team who can see them in a place they know, then it is much easier for a personal adviser to say ‘if you are not feeling great have a chat with this person in our team', rather than, ‘I will talk to someone, to get you on a waiting list, to see someone you don't know, in an adult setting'."
Nixon wants to see assurances in local offers that trusted adults, such as residential care workers and foster carers, will continue to play a role in their lives, for example helping them choose accommodation. This would recognise the difficulties care leavers face in trusting new adults and minimise disruption to their lives as they leave care.
WHOLE COUNCIL INVOLVEMENT
Janet Rich, trustee of Rees - The Care Leavers Foundation, welcomes the Children and Social Work Act's stipulation that all council departments are involved in corporate parenting, in particular housing, since accommodation is a major problem for many care leavers. Although councils have a legal duty to provide "suitable accommodation" for care leavers, too often they are placed in poor quality housing, says Rich. "Suitable is not where a young person becomes sick because of the mould they have to breathe in, where cupboards fall on them, where they walk in on day one to concrete floors with no money for floor covers, or near to drug dealers," she says.
A practical way housing departments can help care leavers is to make sure they are considered in local social and affordable housing developments, says Alli: "Councils should be saying they want 10 per cent of homes for foster carers and care leavers. That can be put into the contracts but it requires local authorities being innovative."
Another way councils can improve their local offer concerns council tax payments. Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced last month that her government is to exempt all care leavers from council tax.
The Children's Society has been among those campaigning for this to happen across England and last month revealed that 36 councils are offering this exemption.
Rich backs this campaign but also wants councils to do more to help care leavers financially. She hopes that "the next big campaign" for care leavers will be around debt-forgiveness, whereby councils as corporate parents write off any rent arrears their care leavers amass via their social housing providers or own housing stock.
"Taking a care leaver to court over an unpaid debt would often cost more than it would to wipe the debt. It is ridiculous for a council to do this," she says.
Such a move would require strong partnerships between social housing providers, housing departments, leaving care services and the voluntary sector.
Fittingly, this year's annual Care Leavers Week - run by Rees - The Care Leavers Foundation and taking place between 25 October and 3 November - is themed around the word "together".
"This has many layers, whether working together with care leavers, delivery partnerships, councils working together with each other and local government working with central government and communities," explains Rich.
Such co-operation will be vital if local offers and the Children and Social Work Act are to truly transform support for care leavers.
POLICY FOR LEAVING CARE
July 2016 The government's leaving care strategy Keep on Caring is published, promising to focus on improving relationships between carers and those leaving care, and introduce a Care Leaver Covenant by October 2016, setting out care leavers' legal entitlements. Then children's minister Edward Timpson announces in October this covenant has been delayed.
December 2016 Ofsted director of social care Eleanor Schooling says too many councils are failing to support care leavers, especially regarding mental health and careers guidance.
April 2017 The Children and Social Work Act becomes law, placing a duty on councils to produce a local offer to care leavers of their entitlements. It also defines good corporate parenting as the responsibility of all council departments and extends the role of personal advisers for care leavers until they are 25.
September 2017 Mark Riddell, a care leaver and former head of Trafford Council's Ofsted-rated "outstanding" leaving care service, is appointed national implementation adviser for care leavers by the government, to support councils in meeting Children and Social Work Act commitments.
FAMILY ETHOS IN CALDERDALE
The importance of family relationships is at the heart of Calderdale Council's support for its looked-after children.
This includes offering care leavers the chance to work "in the family business" through apprenticeships within the council, says Julia Redgrave, Calderdale's commissioning project co-ordinator.
As corporate parent the council also uses its connections with local businesses to run a summer careers scheme, bringing together older looked-after children with employers to arrange work experience placements. Latest figures from the council indicate this is already having an impact, with 17 per cent of its care leavers at university - three times the national average.
In addition, the proportion of care leavers and looked-after children who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) in Calderdale is 21 per cent, around half the national average.
The council was also involved in the government-backed New Belongings project, which ran nationally between 2013 and 2016 with the aim of involving care leavers in shaping services and piloting new approaches. "It gave us an exciting opportunity to test out things that we could do better for young people, and the learning from that has influenced the design of our current support," says Redgrave.
Among care leavers to benefit is Claire Haymonds. After leaving Calderdale's care and working as a volunteer supporting care leavers, she was offered an apprenticeship as project co-ordinator for New Belongings in Calderdale.
She is now pathways services development and improvement co-ordinator - a jointly funded post between the council and Prospects, which is commissioned to provide care leaver and older looked-after children services. "At an early New Belongings meeting it was discussed how it would be run and who best to do it. Because it was around supporting care leavers and changing services it was thought what better way than to have a care leaver run it," says Haymonds.
"To be given that opportunity was unbelievable," she adds. The council also has a "corporate grandparent" role in supporting its care leavers when they have their own children, adds Redgrave.
Through the Positive Choice's programme, which is backed by £444,000 from the Department for Education's Children's Social Care Innovation Fund, the council offers intensive support to its care leavers and looked-after children whose own children are at risk of being taken into care.
Further support being considered includes council tax exemptions for care leavers and care leaver healthcare passports, which hold key medical information and are being designed by young people themselves to make access to health services easier.
This article is part of CYP Now's Children in Care supplement. Click here for more
Read the full supplement online, or download as a PDF