Looked After Children and Care Leavers Placement ... Suffic… · 5 Most children live in family...

RMBC Placement and Sufficiency Strategy DRAFT v4 JP MW 01.10.15

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Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council

Looked After Children

and Care Leavers

Placement Sufficiency

Strategy

2015 - 2018

Date Version Contributors

11.09.15 DRAFT v1 Michelle Whiting

18.09.15 DRAFT v2 Jane Parfrement in response to comments from DLT

14.09.15 DRAFT v3 Michelle Whiting in response to comments from CPP

22.09.15 DRAFT v4 Michelle Whiting in response to comments from CN


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Contents

Section Title Page

1 Background 3

2 A vision for placements and sufficiency in Rotherham 6

3 Rotherham children are supported to remain with their families

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4 Achieve permanency trough adoption, permanent fostering and special guardianship

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5 Most children live in family placements 11

6 Most children will live in Rotherham or less than 20 miles of their home address

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7 Young people will be supported to stay in their foster placements and residential children’s homes beyond the age of 18

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8 Reducing spend 17

9 Measuring success 21

Appendix Supporting documents 22


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1. Introduction

1.1. Background

This Placement and Sufficiency Strategy details how partners need to work together

over the next three years to achieve the statutory requirements of the sufficiency

duty, set out in the following section. This Strategy also sets out Rotherham’s vision

for placements and sufficiency, why this is important, and how this will be achieved,

as detailed in sections 2-9.

This Strategy seeks to improve the outcomes of looked after children through

sufficiency of local, high quality placements. Moreover having a sufficient range of

placements to meet the needs of looked after children makes good economic sense.

As is argued later in the Strategy not having enough local, in-house placements is

leading us to place children in higher cost placements which meet their needs less

well than cheaper local family placements.

1.2. Legislation

It is a statutory requirement under Section 22G of the Children Act 1989 for local

authorities to secure, so far as reasonably practical, sufficient accommodation for

looked after children in their local authority area in order to stay at the same school

or near to other family where contact can easily take place. This is called ‘the

sufficiency duty’. Additionally, national guidance clarifies the responsibilities of local

authorities under section 20 of The Children Act 1989 and Part 7 of The Housing Act

1996 with regard to young people aged 16-17 years at risk of homelessness or

requiring accommodation. Following the House of Lords judgment in R (G) v

Southwark (2009), reference was made in particular, to the function of children's

services and housing services when young people seek help from or are referred to

local authorities because of homelessness. In these circumstances, the local

authority needs to assess the need for and in certain circumstances provide

accommodation under section 20 (Children Act 1989) to these older young people.

In this circumstance the young person becomes a ‘looked after child’.

1.3. The local context – placements in Rotherham

There are a number of ‘requirements’ set out in the new Ofsted inspection framework

related to sufficiency of accommodation that local authorities have to meet in order to

receive a judgement of good. The 2014 Ofsted Inspection in Rotherham raised

concerns around sufficiency.

“Looked After children in Rotherham do not receive enough care and they

wait too long for permanent homes. Too many children and young people are


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placed out of borough because there are not enough local placements”

Ofsted1

Our Looked After children told us:

‘We need more foster carers living in Rotherham…..it gives you more chance

to see your family’.

“We need the right kind of foster carer…. You should do good assessments of

foster carers… recruitment can attract carers who just want the money….

There shouldn’t be too many children in one home…. Carers need to have

good training to understand children’s mental health needs.”

It is well understood that the needs of children and young people can only be met

effectively if they live in care environments that provide the highest quality of care

and support. In the vast majority of cases that care is best provided within a family

home setting. This is usually also the most cost effective placement. It is within

family settings that children and young people are able to live most like their non-

looked after peers the principle of ‘an ordinary life’ and where they can be best

prepared and equipped physically and emotionally for adult life. There will be some

occasions when children and young people’s needs cannot be met within a family

setting but that this should be only for as long as is required.

We also realise that wherever possible and safe to do so, young people should be

placed within Rotherham, allowing them to have regular contact with their birth

families, friends and local communities. However, in order to meet the needs of

those children who cannot be placed locally Rotherham has had access to external

placements sometimes at a great distance.

This is at times necessary in order to accommodate children who may have some

very specialist requirements but we know that a significant number of Rotherham

children are placed outside of the borough only because there was no suitable

placement nearer. Some of these children have been in those placements for years

and we will need to make a case by case decision informed by the child’s view as to

whether we should work toward finding local placement or ensuring their needs

moving into adulthood can be met in the area which has become their home.

The insufficiency of local placements has been a longstanding problem in

Rotherham. It has been exacerbated by negative publicity leading to a significant

drop in the recruitment of local foster carers and adopters. This is compounded by

having significantly fewer independent providers in the area in comparison to

neighbouring authorities.

1 The Ofsted

1 Inspection of Services for Children in Need of Help and Protection, Children Looked

After, and Care Leavers – September/October 2014


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The placement provision however, is about much more than having sufficient

accommodation for looked after children. Many children who come into the care

system have had very traumatic experiences and need immediate support with their

emotional wellbeing. A great number also need access to mental health services as

well as support throughout their education. All of this must be achieved in the most

cost effective way. Partners must work together through their active participation in

new and innovative ways that will maximise sustainable outcomes and service

provision within increasingly tighter financial constraints.


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2. A Vision for Placements and Sufficiency in Rotherham

This Sufficiency Strategy sets out our strategic approach to ensuring that we can

provide the right kind of placements to meet the differing needs of all our looked after

children. As such the Strategy is essential for improving outcomes for looked after

children.

Our vision for this Strategy is that:

• Rotherham children are supported to remain within their families and

communities wherever it is safe to do so;

• Children will achieve permanence through adoption, permanent fostering and

special guardianship in a timely manner whenever it is appropriate;

• Most children will live in family placements;

• The significant majority of children in care will live in Rotherham or within 20

miles of their home address;

• Young people will be supported to stay in their foster placements and

residential children’s homes beyond the age of 18 where that is their wish,

and we will develop our range of supported accommodation with young

people;

• We will afford this vision through improved commissioning and partnership

working and by decreasing the use of residential placements.

The following sections of this document describe how this vision will be achieved.


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3. Rotherham children are supported to remain within their

families

3.1 The role of the family

The child’s own family is usually the best place for bringing up children and young

people. There are unique advantages for children experiencing family life in their

own birth family and in most circumstances children’s needs are best met by being

cared for within their immediate or extended families. Rotherham recognises that

children should always be supported within their own family, with the assistance of

family support services when necessary, unless there are clear reasons why this

might not be consistent with their safety and wellbeing.

The DFE and ADCS have undertaken research on teenagers coming into care.2

“Our approach to intervening with adolescents, particularly when they have first entered the care system in their teens, has a poor track record in improving outcomes, how can we better understand both what is realistically achievable for this group, and how to deliver it?”

Such insights have informed our approach.

3.2 What is Working Now?

Progress has been made in supporting children to remain at home, as follows:

• The numbers of adoptions have risen and timeliness has improved

• The introduction of Strengthening Families is beginning to engage families

and communities more productively.

• Children who are reunited with their families are getting support for a

minimum of 3 months, and children are only stepped down to Children in

Need services when managers are satisfied that the family is ready.

3.3 Next steps

To achieve the ambition of supporting more children to remain at home, the following

actions will be taken:

• Ensure only children who need it enter care - Rotherham’s numbers of

looked after children seem slightly higher than would be expected taking into

consideration the growing trend for the safety of many children subject to care

proceedings to be secured via private law. While the Local Authority will be

financially supporting them under child arrangement orders and then Special

2 What is Care For? ADCS Position Statement 2014


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Guardianship arrangements they may never actually become a looked after

child.

• Ensure that children stay in care for the shortest time possible - the

traditional preventative and in-care services do not match the needs of many

of the young people coming into care for the first time in their teens. This has

led to the teenagers receiving further labels or putting themselves at more risk

as they refuse to comply with these mismatched services. Most of our older

teenagers coming to care are currently placed in expensive residential

provision. Addressing the balance of provision and providing more robust

targeted step down arrangements will mitigate against this.

• Ensure that the whole family and community is supported to maintain

their child(ren) where appropriate to do so - There have been some recent

experiences where potential family options have not been found until late on

in proceedings. This can be addressed by the reintroduction of Family Group

Conferences.

• Develop services with partners around the key areas leading to children

entering care - About 25% of children coming into care over the last 3 years

are under 2 years of age. Where we have very young children coming into

care the issues are often around domestic violence and substance misuse.

There are families who have several children taken away at birth because

these issues haven’t been addressed prior to the next pregnancy. Addressing

support for domestic abuse and substance misuse will help.

• Develop specific Early Help for teenagers and their families, and for very

young children and their families - Around 25 % of new entrants to care are

15 – 18 years of age. Rotherham has significantly higher number of 16 year

old entrants than our neighbours and as such an improved Early Help offer for

this group will make a difference.


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4. Achieve Permanence through Adoption, Permanent Fostering and Special Guardianship

4.1 The Current Situation

Ofsted have advised that there is insufficient use of Special Guardianship Orders

(SGO) in Rotherham, our own analysis confirms this. Work has been undertaken to

identify children who have been in the same placement for more than 2 years. The

lack of a policy and post placement support services to give foster carers or families

the confidence and financial ability to care for children outside of the care system

has prevented the exploration of the potential for either Special Guardianship, or

adoption options.

There are 49 fostering arrangements which have been to fostering panel and

approved as long term or permanent fostering arrangements. The placement review

panel has identified many of these as needing to be revisited as potential for

adoption or SGO.


There has been progress towards achieving permanence:

• 49 Long term or Permanent fostering arrangements have been formally

approved and marked with a family event. This means that 49 of our looked

after children know that their foster families are committed to them to adult

hood and beyond.

• There is some post adoption support;

• All looked after children are being reviewed and tracked via review panels

chaired by Senior Management. This has made the care planning very

transparent and given senior management greater grip on ensuring that

children are reaching permanence in a timely way. It has been agreed to

make these panels a permanent feature so that all children continue to be

tracked until senior management are satisfied that they are in the right

placement with the right legal orders to take them to adulthood. This approach

has been successful in speeding up children’s journeys to adoption.

4.3 Next steps



• A clear permanence pathway which incorporates the risk assessment and

evaluation of the various options will be developed;

• A robust Special Guardianship Policy, which addresses the barriers of

finance, contact and other post order support that might be required, will be

developed.


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• An improved post Adoption and post Special Guardianship Order support

package offer will be developed.

• A revised Fees and Allowances Policy for Foster carers, and the holders of

Residence orders, Special Guardianship orders and Adoption Orders which

doesn’t penalise carers who take children out of the care system will be

established.

• Training, written information and briefings for social workers and carers to

support the above will be developed and implemented.

• Current post adoption support will to be extended to post Special

Guardianship support.

• There will be continued management grip via the review panels and improved

performance information.


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5. Most children will live in family placements


There are around 64 children in residential provision which is 13% of Rotherham’s

Looked after population. In every authority there are children that due to the level of

their needs cannot be managed in a family environment. However, this should be for

the shortest possible time and for a very small number of children. 8% is a

reasonable average though ‘Good’ authorities can bring it down even lower by

providing outstanding fostering placements and wrap around services.

The right to a family life is part of the Human Rights Act. It is important that our

children experience the benefits of family life. Even the best residential provision will

institutionalise children and this gives already challenged children even more hurdles

to overcome once they go on to be parents themselves.

The long term lack of local foster placements has led to a culture where older young

people tend to be placed in residential care. There was a lack of urgency to get them

back into family settings. The panels have found children who have remained in

residential establishments for many years without challenge. The current placement

process does not lend itself to challenging the assessment of need and being

relentless in seeking the right placement for each child.

The internal residential provision is in the process of being reshaped to better meet

the needs of our young people. There is a comprehensive internal residential

improvement plan to improve the quality of care

What is Working Now?

There has been progress towards most children living in a family placement:

• The Review panels have started to challenge thinking and are setting clear

actions for step-down plans

• It has been agreed to pilot a placement team who are a single point for

referral. They will track children until the review panel is satisfied with the

placement

• The commissioning team have started a series of meetings with providers as

part of the market shaping element of the new Joint Commissioning Strategy

• A Service Improvement Partnership with Providers has been established to

further improve the quality of support.

• As at March 2015 93.8% of commissioned placements were with providers

rated good or outstanding by Ofsted.


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• There is a substantial improvement programme being implemented within the

internal residential accommodation

5.2 Next steps



• The principle will be set that most children should be in family placements and

where they are assessed as needing residential care this should be for the

shortest possible time;

• Where children are assessed as requiring therapeutic care the nature,

qualifications and delivery of that care will be monitored by the appropriate

health practitioner;

• Management grip via statutory reviews the single placement referral point and

the review panels will be strengthened;

• There will be increased use of internal and independent foster care able to

meet the needs of more challenging children and young people ( particularly

sibling groups and teenagers);

• We will ensure access to bespoke wrap around services able to meet the

health education and social needs of more challenging children e.g. to be able

to put in a package of physical and social activity to prevent young people

from putting themselves at risk and build up meaningful relationships.

• We will backfill the residential worker so it is a key worker who brings the child

home rather than an anonymous police officer when they are missing.

• Internal residential accommodation will be improved;

• Improved quality assurance of all placements will be delivered.


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6. Most children will live in Rotherham or within 20 miles of their

home address

6.1 Analysis of the Current Situation

Reducing the distance children are placed away from their homes is a key issue for

many Rotherham looked after children. Distance negatively impacts family and

community relationships. This further disadvantages vulnerable children particularly

when they come to leave care.

There is an ongoing piece of work looking at every child placed at a distance to work

out with them whether we should be working to get them back or closer to

Rotherham or whether we need to be supporting them to build roots where they have

been placed. Each situation will have to be assessed individually but we need to

develop local placements to prevent so many children being placed at a distance in

the future.

Fig. 1 Map showing LA by placement postcode


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Progress has been made in ensuring that most children are placed within 20 miles of

their home address with 86% of Rotherham looked after children live within 20 miles.

• The South Yorkshire Child Sexual Exploitation Fostering Scheme is

developing high quality placements and support packages

• Commissioning has started the engagement process with independent

agencies:

• A dynamic fostering recruitment campaign is in the process of being

launched.

6.3 Next steps

To achieve the ambition of most children living within 20 miles of their home address,

the following actions will be taken:

• Capturing the findings from the completed review of every child placed at

distance will inform a needs analysis exercise to assist the shaping of internal

recruitment and external commissioning.

• Effective internal foster care recruitment particularly older children and sibling

groups will be developed.

• Improved internal residential provision will be implemented

• A range of supported, semi supported and independent move on

accommodation will be put in place;

• Training and wrap around provision, which will enable local provision to

effectively care for a wider range of more challenging children, will be

developed.

• Effective commissioning and market shaping strategy will make Rotherham

the local authority of choice with independent fostering and residential

providers

• Quantity issues will ease as we improve our ability to predict and be specific

about placement needs.


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7. Young people will be supported to stay in their foster

placements and residential children’s homes beyond the age

of 18 where that is their wish


More young people in foster care are benefiting from Staying Put arrangements (the

term used when young people stay with their foster carers post 18 years of age).

Staying put is usually only available to young people who have been in stable foster

placements for many years. The average age of leaving home in the whole

population is now 26 years. We need to find ways of extending this opportunity to

young people who may have been in their foster placement for a short period of time

and to young people in residential establishments as these are often the most

challenged of an already vulnerable group.

There is some semi-independent move on accommodation but it is quite large and in

need of refurbishment. Best practice modern units tend to be quite small because

bringing together groups of vulnerable individuals tends to be problematic


Progress has been made in ensuring that young people can stay put if they choose

to:

• Numbers in Staying Put arrangements increased from 5 in 2013/14 to a high

of 13 currently as at June 2015. There were 8 young people in in-house foster

care that turned 18 in 2014/15 and all of them remained beyond 18 with their

foster carer in a Staying Put arrangement

• Silverwood Residential Home has developed 2 semi-independent units

attached to the home.

7.3 Next steps

To achieve the ambition of young people being able to stay put, the following actions

will be taken:

• We will review our agreements and contracts with internal and external foster

carers to include staying put expectation

• We will review staying put financial payments ( typically the payment for a

staying put arrangement is less that the fostering fee) within the fees and

allowances review

• We will review arrangements with Ofsted for enabling staying put in Children’s

residential homes

• More flexible arrangements with foster carers and residential homes for

continuing support packages will be considered.


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• Young people will be involved in a review of the semi-independent and move

on accommodation.


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8. Reducing the spend on high cost residential placements

8.1 Analysis of the Current Situation

The Rotherham spend on childrens placements is signficant equating to over £17

million per year so Rotherham joined the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and

Accountancy (CIPFA) Children Looked After Benchmarking Clubwhich provides very

detailed analysis of spend, assessing performance against the other 76 members.

In terms of overall unit costs Rotherham has an average unit cost per child per week

of £950 in 2014/15 compared to the club average of £905. However our unit cost per

placement type compares well to the other authorities.

This means that we are not paying more for our own provision or independent

provision. Our higher costs are because of the composition of our placements. That

is we have a smaller proportion in lower cost internal fostering and a higher

proportion if children in high cost residential provision, this has a negative impact

both in relation to outcomes for the child and budget and financial costs.

In Rotherham, we had 2% more children in residential care than other authorities

and 2% less in internal foster care than the other authorities.

The overall impact of these two factors results in our unit costs for a child in care

being £45 per week higher than average.

The differences in cost are even greater when Rotherham figures are compared to

comparator group of statistical neighbours and the Yorkshire and Humber

authorities. The first part of this table illustrates the differing costs of different types of

placements.

Unit Costs Rotherham £/per child/per week

CIPFA Comparator Group Average

Authority £/per child/per week

In-house homes £2,764 £2,819

External Homes £3,474 £3,191

In-house Foster Care £411 £387

External Foster Care £938 £826


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Rotherham’s own children’s homes and fostering cost broadly the same but we pay

more for external residential and foster care.

But the biggest issue as we can see from the second part of the chart is that a

greater proportion of our children are in higher cost placements compared to our

comparators.

Composition Rotherham

% of Children CIPFA Comparator

% of Children

In-house Homes 5% 4%

External Homes 8% 7%

In-house Foster Care 55% 67%

External Foster Care 31% 23%

Average Cost Per Child Per Week £950 £768

The table shows us that:

• We have 2% more children placed in residential care

• We have 8% more children placed in more expensive external fostering

placements and12% less children in the lowest cost in house fostering

placements.

NB In good authorities the % of children in residential care is about 7 % therefore

there is significant room for savings.

The CIPFA information confirms that compared to the other authorities:

• We place too many children in residential care

• We place too many children in Independent fostering Placements

• We have too few internal fostering placements

• We are paying £67 per child more for external placements compared

to the comparator group

The net result of this is that on average Rotherham is paying £106 more per child

compared to the CIPFA comparator group. This is exacerbated by the number of

children we have in care.

It is not simply about getting placements at the lowest cost, but about getting the

best value for our children by meeting their needs. This means making sure children

are not escalated to higher cost options because of lack of availability and that lower

cost options have the resources to manage more challenging children.


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Other issues highlighted by CIPFA information are:-

i) We have a lower (by 4) staff to child ratio in our children’s homes compared to

other authorities. This is an issue if our own children’s homes are going to care for

more challenging young people. Many children pulled into CSE did so because they

valued the time and attention they received from their abusers. It is therefore critical

that children’s home staff have the time to build positive trusting relationships to be

able to work effectively with young people in their care.

ii) Our own foster carers are paid less than those in the other authorities. We know

that, other than our 4 Poste Plus Carers, we pay Rotherham foster carers less than

our directly neighbouring authorities and also give them a lower allowance to spend

on each child than our immediate neighbours.

Given that lack of recruitment is a critical issue it is important that our fostering

payment scheme is competitive compared to neighbouring local authorities and in

line with independent fostering providers. Rotherham children should not be

disadvantaged by having a lower weekly allowance for their care than if they were in

the care of another authority.

iii) We have fewer connected carers and SGO’S than other authorities.

Next steps

It has been demonstrated that we can reduce Rotherham’s care costs in line with

other authorities if we:

• Manage the number of children in care through Early Help and Special

Guardianship and Adoption

• Change the composition of placements i.e. increase the percentage of

children cared for in foster care and reduce the percentage of children

placed in residential provision.

• Invest in fostering recruitment

• Ensure fees and allowances are competitive

• Ensure local residential provision is of high quality

• Ensure there are high quality move on options.

• Improve commissioning.


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9. Measuring Success

Our looked after children have a right to receive the best possible care in placements

that meet their needs and promote good quality education, health and maximise their

opportunities for a positive transition to adult life. This can only be achieved if there

are enough placements to meet their needs.

In addition the cost of providing care to our looked after children is substantial and

ensuring best value from these placements therefore has to be a top priority for any

council, this is certainly the case in Rotherham.

This strategy has identified the development actions that are required over the next 3

years and it will be critical that this is delivered.

In order to achieve the vision described in this Strategy, and measure our success

we will establish performance targets overseeing the following outcomes measures:

• In house fostering to increase the number of children’s placements by 20 each

year for the next 3 years

• At least 4 of these placements to be for teenagers and 6 for sibling groups

• Commissioning to increase the number of local independent fostering placements

in or close to Rotherham by 20 each year for the next 3 years

• Prices for external placements to be in line or better than Comparator group

• At least 4 of these placements to be for teenagers and 6 for sibling groups

• % of children in Rotherham or within 20 miles of their home address (excluding

children placed with adopters)

• 95 % of new entrants to care (in financial year excluding children placed for

adoption) in Rotherham or within 20 miles of their home address target by April

2017

• The number of children in residential placements to decrease by 3 by April 2016,

by a further 6 in April 2017 and a further 6 in April 2017

• 90% of children in care are in family placements by April 16 and that 92 % of

children are in family placements by April 2017

• 90% Children who have been in foster care for more than 2 years are in

permanent foster care

• Placement spend reduced by £1.2 million by April 2017 (£200k to be reinvested)

and by another £1.2 million in April 2018 (£200k to be reinvested)


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Conclusions

Achieving the significant shift away from the use of residential care to foster care is

challenging on a number of fronts. Not least in recruiting the number and quality of

foster carers required.

Our children only have one child hood so it is important that accurate assessments

of need, underpin careful matches and that the effectiveness of placements are

carefully monitored to ensure that our children achieve the best possible outcomes.

The service is currently operating in a mixed economy of local authority and

independent care. Following the steps outlined in this strategy will start to improve

placement choice and quality but there is still the question of whether it will achieve

the ambitious numbers set out in Section 9 Measuring Success. This can be tested

out as a short term option.

It is recommended for the medium/ long term, utilising the more detailed

performance information that is being acquired, a detailed options paper is

developed to consider broader commissioning options such as partnerships or social

enterprise these options will be evaluated in detail throughout year 1 of the strategy.


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Appendix A

This Strategy has accounted for and/or is supported by:

• The Ofsted Inspection of Services for Children in Need of Help and

Protection, Children Looked After, and Care Leavers – September/October

2014;

• The Children’s Services Improvement Plan;

• The Early Help Strategy;

• The Joint Commissioning Strategy;

• The Rotherham Promise to Looked After Children and Care Leavers.

• The third letter to the Secretary of State from the Children’s Commissioner for

Rotherham setting out his key priorities

• 2015-18 Rotherham Needs Analysis

• 30/6/15 Looked After Children and Young People’s Views

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