Children looked after and placement sufficiency strategy 2021 to 2024

Across the period of the sufficiency strategy we have focused on building close working relationship across the service and wider teams to ensure young people are effectively supported. In particular in the past 6 months we have worked closely with our partners in CAMHS to put in place training and support with a focus on therapeutic support and closer working with the virtual school. This ensures that our carers and staff are best able to support young people who have more complex needs.

Permanence remains a central focus across the service. Our aim is to ensure that whenever possible young people are placed in long-term placements which are able to effectively meet their needs. We continue to hold regular permanence tracking meetings to identify any blockers or issues which may be preventing a young person from achieving permanence. We have also increased resources focused on family finding and matching to help us identify the best matches for young people.

Covid-19 has significantly impacted the service. This has been really challenging time, for example, the extension of timelines for proceedings, have reduced progression and increased anxiety for carers/adoption. Although, we have also learnt a lot such as about alternative ways to engage carers and young people and this has been really positive. Our children’s homes have remained open throughout the pandemic and have put in place extensive plans to respond to the virus. We have, however, seen a significant increase in the number of adopters and special guardians requesting support as a result of the additional pressures they are experiencing through Covid.

Over the course of the last 3 years we have delivered significant growth of our in-house fostering service. As of April 2021, we are now at 51% in-house and 49% external compared to April 2018 24% and 61%.(NB the 24% is for mainstream in-house carers only and doesn’t include friends and family/connected persons carers, who we usually count as in-house. Adding those back in takes the in-house figure for April 2018 to 39%). We exceeded our target last year and remain on track to do this again. We have also continued to increase family and friends placements ensuring that this option is always considered first when we are looking for a placement. This ensures that young people wherever it is appropriate are given the opportunity to remain within their family network.

The adoption service has focused recently on maximising the impact of digital recruitment. Following an award-winning project to implement an online adoption readiness checker we have seen a significant increase in registrations of interest. We are now working on a second digital project which will enable them to identify where they can access support. The team have also expanded their support offer through the adoption support fund. This has enabled upskilling of staff and implementation of more specialist support groups to ensure all adopters and special guardians are able to access support which reflects their needs.

Since April 2018, we have opened 3 new children’s homes and fully renovated our existing Aylesbury home. We currently have 7 children within our in-house children’s homes. This will enable us to continue to place more young people within the county and ensure we are able to provide high quality placements. We have a 19 bed residential children’s home service. Following the success of Newlands Ofsted registration on the 19th June 2021 we have 4 operational homes.

Our new children’s Home provision Newlands located in High Wycombe was delayed in opening due to the pandemic causing a shortage of available building materials to proceed. However, since the ease of restriction the builders were able to continue the project which has now allowed the building works to be completed. Recruitment has been a challenge due to professionals not leaving their employment due to the uncertainty of COVID. The home is in the closing stages of full registration with Ofsted.

Buckinghamshire Council currently has 24 children aged 16 to 18 years and 36 children 19 to 21-year olds placed in semi-independent placements. 14 of the 19 to 21-year olds are Unaccompanied Asylum Seekers who do not have rights to social housing. The number of commissioned semi-independent provision has remained stable over the last 12 months. However due to mental health needs, we do have a higher number of children/care leavers with enhanced support packages.

Alongside developing our new children’s homes, we have also renovated our existing Aylesbury semi-independence provision, Redwood house, to provide an opportunity for young people aged 18 to develop their independence. Following the opening of Redwood House, we initially opened 3 apartments, however from 1st July 2021 we have furnished the 4th apartment to allow opportunity for an UASC to be placed within the home. As part of this we have also focused on building stronger relationships with providers and implementing a set of minimum standards to ensure that all provision for 16 to 18 year olds is of a high standard and supports young people to live independently. The aim of introducing minimum standards is to provide guidance relating to placing children looked after and care leavers age 16 and 17 (and in certain circumstances care leavers aged 18 and older) in placements and accommodation which is not regulated under the Care Standards Act 2000 and as a result is not inspected by Ofsted. The standards have been supported via a multi-agency approach which has welcomed by Thames Valley Police, Environmental Health and discussed within the Buckinghamshire Council Strategic Exploitation and Missing Meeting.

In order to support the delivery of local, good quality semi-independent placements that meets the needs of our young people, the council has now established a Dynamic Purchasing Vehicle (DPV) to procure and commission semi-independent accommodation for young people in Buckinghamshire. Potential suppliers will be required to go through an accreditation and enrolment process which sets out our minimum quality standards required to join the DPV. If successful in meeting these minimum standards, the supplier will be enrolled on to the system and will be able to start offering services for young people in Buckinghamshire.

One area where we have focused specifically in the past 6 months is developing specialist placements alongside external providers to ensure we can meet the needs of all young people. This has included, working closely with our health colleagues, putting in place a project to develop specialist disability placements for young people who need step down provision from hospital. Within the fostering team we have now recruited to the fostering operations manager post which brings together both in-house and external fostering oversight to ensure a consistent and high-quality provision.