Scrutiny: Fostering and the Fostering Strategy

1. Scrutiny: Fostering and the Fostering Strategy 23rd June 2011

2. Programme • Fostering Strategy • Value for money • Recruitment and retention • Inspections • Support for foster carers • Involving children and young people • Corporate Parenting

3. Introduction to Fostering Neena Khosla – Interim Operations Director - Specialist Services

4. Children Looked After in Hertfordshire • Children in the care of the local authority are one of the most vulnerable groups in society • 1099 children looked after in Hertfordshire (March 2011). Number increased significantly in 2009 and early 2010 • Children Looked After Strategy aims to reduce the number of CLA and reduce the costs of placements • Fostering service has a key role in achieving the objectives of the CLA Strategy.

5. Fostering • Foster carers play a valuable role in meeting the needs of children who are looked after. • 778 children (70%) are placed with foster carers (86% of children aged 10-16) • Mixed-economy of provision to meet sufficiency duty (currently 84% in-house and 16% independent) • Different types of foster care: • Mainstream / Specialist (514 children, 429 carers) • Family & Friends (142 children, 127 carers) • Independent Fostering Agency (122 children)

6. Hertfordshire’s Fostering Service Fostering Service is responsible for: • Recruiting new foster carers • Undertaking the assessment and approval processes for new foster carers • Working with the Central Placement Service to review requests for placements, match children and carers, and establish successful placements. • Provide ongoing supervision and support to foster carers

7. Priorities for the Fostering Service • Increase capacity, in order to reduce the need for out-of-county residential and IFA placements

8. Fostering Strategy Wendy Evans – Performance & Improvement Manager Lynn Costello – Head of Fostering

9. Background to the Fostering Strategy • Children and Young People Act 2008 • Reduction in the number of in-house foster carers • Increasing numbers of CLA • Increasing costs

10. Outcomes of the Fostering Strategy CYPP Priority 2 ‘Children and young people achieve their potential whilst in and moving on from care’ Children Looked After have a choice of placements Five year “invest to save” scheme to improve in house foster care provision in Hertfordshire

11. Objectives • Increase the proportion of CLA placed in in-house foster care from 47.4% to 50.4% • Expand family and friends placements from 10.8% to 19.4% • Reduce the proportion of Independent Fostering Agency (IFA) placements from 13.3% to 4.7%. • Reduce the cost of CLA placements overall • Savings of £2.285 million by 2013/2014

12. Achieving the Objectives • Recruitment targets • Placements and placement choice • Financial savings

13. 1. Recruitment Targets – Mainstream

14. 1. Recruitment Targets – Specialist

15. 1. Recruitment Targets – Family & Friends

16. 2. Placements

17. 2. Placements

18. 3. Financial Savings • 1,830 additional placement weeks – equivalent to 41 whole time placements (and a larger number of children) • Savings of £565,000 • Exceeding our target by £286,000

19. Value for Money Darren Newman – Commissioning Manager Tara Geere – Central Placement Service Jackie Albery – Finance Manager

20. In-house foster care • Fees and allowances – average of £328 per week for mainstream carers and up to £600 per week for specialist foster carers. (Linked to Fostering Network recommended rate) • Unit cost of in-house placements (including) overheads - £403 • Benchmarking data indicates that Hertfordshire has lower unit costs

21. Benchmarking • CIPFA Benchmarking club – 40 other local authorities • Additional benchmarking with neighbouring consortia (e.g. Pan-London)

22. Independent Foster Placements • Independent provision only chosen where no in-house placement is available (e.g. for children with complex behaviours) • Eastern Region 5 group • Achieved 10% reduction at time of tender • Cost and volume discounts. Fixed price for 3 years. • Contract extended for 12 months with a further 2% reduction for half of providers. Others have stayed at 2008 prices • Ofsted Announced inspection found that “changes in council commissioning practices have improved the quality and choice of independent placements while ensuring value for money”

23. Recruitment Strategy Sally Beaumont – Recruitment Team Manager

24. Recruitment • Aim to develop a range of placements in order to achieve placement choice and maximise the opportunity to make local, well matched, stable placements • Dedicated Recruitment Team launched in June 2009: • Generate more enquiries • Raise the profile of fostering – publicity and calendar of events • Oversee all initial training • Oversee independent assessments • Up-front matching of placements

25. Marketing and communications • Targeted in geographical areas where placement need is greatest • Focused on attracting carers for hard-to-place children – e.g. adolescents, sibling groups and children from BME groups • Informed by the profile of our children looked after population • Monitoring of source of enquiries

26. Recruitment and retention • Foster carers becoming younger – average age 50, compared to 53 elsewhere • More same-sex couples • IFA carers transferring to Hertfordshire. 5 transferred in 2010/11 with 5 Hertfordshire children. • On average, foster carers remain with Hertfordshire for 9 years. Most likely to leave within the first 18 months. • De-registrations are carefully monitored, e.g. through exit surveys

27. Enquiries, Visits, Approvals and Training • Number of enquiries has increased year on year. 812 in 2010/11 – increase of 283 from 2008/09. Response within 24 hours. • 1 in 4 enquiries lead to an initial visit. Visit made within 10 working days. • 1 in 13 enquiries leads to an approval. • More efficient process – carers booked onto panels at earlier stage; additional panels where required. • Initial training for foster carers co-ordinated centrally by Recruitment Team – able to respond to increased demand and fast-track carers for hard-to-place children.

28. Fostering Inspections Lynn Costello – Head of Fostering

29. Fostering Inspection – March 2008 Outcomes:

30. Recommendations and Actions • Ensure that foster care agreements include the amount of support and training to be provided • All agreements have been completed and updated in line with the new National Minimum Standards 2011 • Ensure that all foster carers undertake first aid training • First aid training is now part of Core Training Programme. Provided in-house or financed externally due to demand • Ensure that children are only placed with carers whose terms of approval are consistent with the placement • Where possible, foster carers are approved for 0-18, with an appropriate age range • Ensure that employment records contain a full employment history • All employment records for staff and carers are completed, and gaps are explained

31. Future Inspection • We are due a Fostering Inspection at any time • We are currently getting ‘inspection ready’ – e.g. self-assessment audits against new National Minimum Standards

32. National Minimum Standards • NMS, together with regulations, provide basis for the conduct of fostering services • Standards are taken into account by Ofsted for inspection of fostering services. • Focus on delivering outcomes for children – qualitative but measurable • 12 Child-focused standards – e.g. child’s wishes and feelings; safeguarding; health and wellbeing; educational attainment • 19 Standards for Fostering Services – e.g recruitment and assessment, matching child with placement; placement planning and review; learning and development

33. Announced Inspection – October 2008 Positive judgements: • CLA health team contributes well to training sessions for foster carers • Good quality commissioning and procurement processes • Targeted work has been effective in increasing the number approved local foster carer placements • Strategies in place to recruit foster carers from minority ethnic communities and have been effective in increasing culturally and racially appropriate placements • Positive action to build local capacity – resulted in more children with complex needs returning from out of county placements

34. Announced Inspection – October 2008 • Negative judgements: • Transition arrangements for care leavers are variable – some care leavers expressed concern at having to leave their foster homes too soon • Young people report a lack of choice in placement provision and in some cases inconsistency of care • Quality of support provided to unaccompanied minors is variable. Some feel that their specific needs are not understood by foster carers. • Amended Staying Put policy and provided training • A 14+ checklist has recently been launched and workshops held. • CLA are invited to Fostering Forum, and care leavers are involved in Skills to Foster training • Recruitment of in house carers specifically for unaccompanied minors

35. Support for Foster Carers Lynn Costello – Head of Fostering Ed Maguire – Performance & Improvement Manager

36. Support • Carers are provided with comprehensive support package. Good support leads to positive placements for children and improves retention of carers • Supervising social worker provided monthly professional supervision – to explore placement issues, identify learning, and ensure children’s needs are being met • Membership of Fostering Network • Foster carer support groups – including buddies for newly approved carers • Specialist foster carers – support from the ARC and Datchworth turn and are supported by a team of therapists • Quarterly Fostering Forum – carers and senior management • Emergency Duty Team - 24 hour support

37. Training opportunities • Initial “Skills to Foster” training. • Core training – Attachment; Safeguarding; Recording; Safe Caring; First Aid; Behaviour Management • Children’s Workforce Development Council workbook • Access to HCC Learning and Development programme • Fostering teams provide bespoke training courses (including TCI Therapeutic intervention on behaviour management and Webster Stratton positive parenting)

38. Survey of Foster Carers • Postal survey of all foster carers • 111 responses – over 20% • Questionnaire asked about: • Training and Support • Overall satisfaction • Likes and dislikes

39. Overall Satisfaction • Large majority say support they receive is excellent (30%) or good (54%) • Some small differences between different groups. Satisfaction highest among foster carers who: • Are aged over 60 • Are female • Have most experience

40. Support

41. Support • Comparison with results of national Fostering Network survey (2009) indicate that satisfaction is higher in Hertfordshire than elsewhere.

42. Likes Almost all respondents identified things that they liked. • It is so rewarding watching a child or young person blossom in your care. You can make such a difference to them • We love to see the child grow in confidence and do well at school and enjoy life in a safe secure environment • It’s challenging and varied - no two days are the same

43. Dislikes • Contact with birth parents (14 foster carers) • Contact makes it difficult when having to continually meet angry and upset parents • The children seem to be disrupted during these times • Poor communication (13) • The frustrations that often come from lack of communication and last minute changes • “Not always knowing what is going on and not being able to answer questions the children have asked

44. Dislikes (cont) • Feeling undervalued (10) • Sometimes I feel that my views are not taken into account regarding the child • We do all the hard work and the social workers take all the credit • Paperwork and bureaucracy (10) • Too much paperwork and too many rules and regulations

45. Involvement of Children & Young People Lynn Costello – Head of Fostering Tara Geere – Central Placement Service

46. Involving children and young people • Children in Care Council – e.g. discussion of what makes a good foster carer • Young people involved in recruitment of foster carers as part of preparation training • Viewpoint Interactive • Factsheets / profiles on foster carers • The Pledge – Taking part in decisions • Placement Surgeries

47. Corporate Parenting Neena Khosla – Interim Operations Director – Specialist Services

48. What is Corporate Parenting? • Responsibility of local authorities to improve outcomes and actively promote the life chances of children they look after • Shared by the whole local authority in partnership with partner agencies • Act as the best possible parent for each child they look after and to take action by speaking out on their behalf, arranging for appropriate services to meet their needs, standing up for them and representing them Sixth line of text • When they are elected, all councillors take on the role of ‘corporate parents’ - duty to take an interest in the wellbeing and development of those children, as if they were their own children

49. Announced Inspection • Corporate parenting was identified as an ‘area for development’, including in the role played by members. • Jan 2011 – Briefing for Members on Corporate parenting roles and responsibilities

50. Member involvement • Children in Care Council • Fostering Panels • Adoption Panels • Visits to Children’s Homes • Regular meetings with lead member for children’s services • Reports to Corporate Parenting Panel • Performance reporting