Transcript

Do you think we could have the door shut, please? Thank you. Just before we start, I've got something to read out. Good morning, Councillors. You will be aware that the general election is due to take place on the 4th of July. And as therefore, we are holding this meeting during a period of heightened sensitivity. Although this Council is largely operating business as usual, we all need to be taken particular care of our comments today. I would therefore ask that you ensure that any comments or questions cannot be perceived as seeking influence to get public support or against any candidate or political party. This may also mean that officers feel they cannot answer all questions publicly today. But if that's the case, I would expect written responses to be provided by a democratic services at a timely manner. All chairs are being asked to make this statement before any meeting. OK, thank you. So now we can start the meeting. Have we got any apologies? Yes, thank you, Chair. So today we have apologies from Councillor Joel Simpson-Vince, but we have Councillor Dave Humphrey's substituting. We also have apologies from Michael Cowland and Phil Johnson, who are the committee's co-optees. And apologies from Councillor Sue Marcom and Cam Corr, but welcome to Councillor Heather Timms, who is standing in their place as portfolio holder. And I believe we also have apologies from Councillor Penny Ann O'Donnell. Thank you, disclosures of pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests. Minutes of the previous minutes for April and May, yeah. So, Chair, there's just a minor amendment to the attendance for the minutes of the 9th of April. So it's been noted that Phil Johnson's apologies were sent. The minutes of the 14th of May are as they are in your pattern. Has anybody got any disagreement with minutes? [ Pause ] Right, we're going to public speaking. And I'd like to welcome Mr. Doolay. He's addressing the committee on his experience of the complaints process. Mr. Doolay, just morning, just to let you know that you will have three minutes to address the committee. And would you like a 30-second warning when you're near the end, or are you happy to manage that? It should be a half time myself, and it's three minutes and ten seconds. Okay. All right, okay, no problem. If you're able to, once I've turned the microphone off, if you turn that microphone on, and you let me know and you're ready to start. Yep, ready to go. Okay, this is not nice to hear. I am angry, and I'm rightly so. I'm here today after 18 months, 19 up-powered complaints and counting across seven different teams. Three minutes is impossible to tell you the level of failure that has happened. Firstly, safeguarding. Progress should be clear by the first review meeting. If actions are not likely to be met, they are too broad, unrealistic, and need to be amended. Amended. That's what your policy says. What happened? Six meetings, over six months, and the actions and the recommendations were identical in meeting one as they were in meeting six, identical. I asked for statutory assessments. They were refused. Despite the evidence being the same in meeting one, in month one, as there were in month six, when action was finally taken, I had to complain and get subject access requests to prove my point, and only then did they commence. With early help, I was promised support multiple times. Only after I chased and ultimately complained did the council deliver the support that they promised. It took months. It took months. It was not early help. It was late help. Secondly, management. Your complaints policy is failing, and your team regularly tell me they're under-resourced. You're meant to respond within two working days to say whether it's statutory procedure or not. Here's the reality. In my case, an average of over 14 working days just to acknowledge the complaint way beyond the two days in your policy. In fact, none of those 19 complaints have ever been acknowledged or dealt with in line with your policy. None. Your policy says we believe feedback is essential to learning and improving our approach, and we will always aim to provide a remedy, a remedy. Rarely if ever is a remedy actually provided in your complaint responses, and instead what you get are broad statements such as we will take learning forward with no specifics of what, when and how. It sounds like a similar response to the serious investigation in relation to former members of this committee. Finally, culture. This committee receives numbers, not reality. If you take your child protection KPI, you have a target of 350. If it's 360, you say great. That means more children are protected. If it's lower, you say that's good, because we're below our target. The reality, it doesn't matter which way round the figures are. This committee thinks it's okay. That means what you are presented with is not useful to drive real discussion and scrutiny. There's also no committee self-effectiveness done by this group. I sit in front of you as a dad. However, I'm also a qualified member of Sipfer. I do understand what good governance in councils looks like, and it's not this. But here's the thing, sometimes hearing words is not enough. You need to see the impact. This is what sits behind those 19 complaints. 18 months, seven different teams, and counting. You should take this as a mirror. You should reflect on this and ask yourselves, how did this level of failure happen in your organization? That's all right, Mr. Dilei. Thank you very much. I now call on Elaine Lam. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm Elaine Lam, and I'm one of the directors of War Wickshire Parent Care Voice, the independent and recognised parent care reform for War Wickshire, representing the experiences of families who have children with additional needs. War Wickshire Parent Care Voice participated in the complaints process regarding the children and young people over the scrutiny committee meeting on the 25th January, and our full statements on that meeting and our response to the decision notices can be found on our website. War Wickshire Parent Care Voice recognises that the outcomes of the decision notices are not what many were hoping for, and that these notices have been met with frustration and anger in the same community. War Wickshire County councillors need to recognise that, irrespective of the findings, the relationships between councillors and the same community is damaged, and that more work will be needed to build trust. War Wickshire Parent Care Voice were pleased to have been part of the group developing the mandatory training for councillors to support accurate understanding of SEND, and we would like to thank all of the councillors who attended the workshops we delivered last week. We hope that these sessions will lead to more engagement with councillors so that they can further understand the experiences of being a SEND family in War Wickshire, and can provide effective scrutiny to make a positive difference to improve the lives and experiences of local families. Children and young people with SEND face many barriers from difficulties accessing education and services to disability discrimination, and hate crime. We ask War Wickshire County councillors to prevent disability discrimination and stand up for some of the most vulnerable children in War Wickshire. War Wickshire Parent Care Voice will continue to ensure that the voices of parent carers are heard and improve the services to meet the needs of War Wickshire SEND families by working as a strategic co-production partner within SEND systems. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, thank you very much for speaking. If you want to stay through the whole meeting, then you can. Or if you wish to go, you can. It's entirely up to you now. Okay. We have now questions to portfolio holders. Has anybody got any questions? Update from portfolio. I think I was here in 2012 as a children's portfolio holder, which actually was both at that time. So it does feel very much. But I'm pleased with the welcome I'm receiving. You will be aware that War Wickshire was selected as a sector led improvement partner by the Department of Education. This means we support other councils to improve their children's services. And we've just agreed to support our first local authority. Which one is it? Or aren't I allowed to say? No, I thought that was probably going to be the answer. Okay, and we have two other local authorities in the pipeline. You will be aware that War Wickshire is the only sector led improvement partner in the West Midlands. We are also part of the Pathfinder, so we've been selected by the Department of Education for wave two of the families first for children Pathfinder program. This is about social care for children. All areas of England are expected to implement this by 2027. And by becoming a Pathfinder, we're really at the forefront of these reforms. We will also receive 4.1 million to implement these changes. And I know you're going to have something on your agenda later about all of this, which will give you the full update. What I really want to say on behalf of the portfolio holders is congratulations to colleagues across police, health and the county council who have worked together to apply for this opportunity and gained it for War Wickshire. I'm really pleased as a cabinet member and I'm sure the portfolio holders will be really excited if they were here. Okay, so that's one. I'll try not to be too long here. If I read everything they've given me, I'll tell you, I'll tell you immediately. Right, access to education. All I think I want to say here is that we are with the extended childcare entitlements that have been coming forward. We're about 2% above the national and the regional average for take up. 22% of two-year-olds under working families entitlements. So we've gained a number of grants approved to increase capacity. So we're doing well in War Wickshire and we've been able to offer this. We have the education, the sufficiency strategy that's due to go to first the cabinet and the council in June and that will set out the approach to place planning. We've had a very positive implementation of the new fair access protocol with a 20% increase in placing children locally, that's within three miles, and 60% for PX children. You're going to have to excuse my ignorance here because I need to know what PX children are. Sorry? Was that permanently excluded? Well, that's good then, 60% of them to be placed. Excellent, well done. So we have alternative provision working group and primary and secondary working groups established with schools. We've got under development two models in the north, secondary and in the east. So both the partnership models with trust schools and the local authorities. So working together to get alternative provision increased and made more sustainable in War Wickshire. I think I have to go for it. Oh, I want to say this one. War Wickshire Music have been successful in its partnership bed with Coventry City Council and Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council to lead the music hub for the sub-region. So this is really exciting for our musicians right across War Wickshire. The hub will launch in September and be known as the heart of England Music. So I'm sure you'll all join me in congratulating everybody who's been involved in putting that partnership bed together. We also have our new school attendance model that's been rolled out to War Wickshire schools and becomes a statutory for all schools and local authorities from the 19th of August. So for the 2024 September start year. And we've also produced an information about going about elective home education and that's with the support of education otherwise, which is the charity and the War Wickshire Parent Care Voice. And we'll soon be uploading all to our web pages. So people who have chosen to home educate will be getting support via our web pages. Yeah. Good. Doing alright so far. Okay. The school early years, we've got the Integrated Delivery Plan that's been established for sign off. And that's all about the extended childcare entitlements and wraparines. So some good work going on in our early years. And we've also got our school effectiveness strategy and that's due to go to cabinet in December. We've had a successful first year of the strategic partnerships and school settings. And it's really about team around the school approach. So it makes progress and enhances the whole education service way of working. 89% of schools in Borussia County Council are good and outstanding, which is in line with the national figures. And 88.8% of children attending a good or outstanding school. That's offstead report on the 14th of June. Okay. Finally, I've got another page here somewhere. Got quite sure how many pages I've got here. SEMD and inclusion. We do have continued pressures from increased numbers of children and young people coming forward with EHC plans. We have over 6,300 and obviously increased unit costs in independent specialist provision. We've got discovery work taking place on improving performance against a 20 week deadline, which is a good deadline. And we continue to develop the strategy and the self evaluation. We have our inclusion framework trials continuing in rugby and bed with and now agreed for the Stratford area from September. We've also got progress on the resource provisions that we're putting into schools currently ahead of schedule. 9 to open in 2024 or 2025 in our schools, which I think is really good news. We've also got some development progressing on our workforce development and the digital infrastructure. And I don't know what the I know what maps are, but I don't know what pins is. So you're going to have to tell me what pins is. 2 out of 3 maps approach have joined the pins project. It does say NHS DFA. So I'll find out more about that I think. And so yes, we've got some really good progress going on in our sense and inclusion area. And that's me, or rather that suit and can cancel a call and cancel a mark. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. I'm happy to take any questions, but I might need to refer them to the officers. David. I was going to ask if I may, and I know you're stopping for 6,300 children in send at the moment. Do we have any idea, the hardest thing about sending we've got personal experience of this is actually getting the diagnosis to actually enter that number of that 6,300. We have any idea of any queuing up in the hoping for a diagnosis. Thank you. What I would say is following the training last week and also it's not just there is actually in schools, a 6,000 pound budget, which is for children that perhaps need extra support in the CND area that haven't got a diagnosis or have got a diagnosis, but not an EHC plan. So there is a difference and schools can support children up and have the extra money to do that. I know it's not increased, but there is extra money in schools to support people without before they get to the EHC plan process. So there is a graduated approach in schools to this, the 6,300 is those with plans, and I'll have to refer to you about what the pipeline is. My question was there was 6,300 listed in the plan. Do we actually know how many people who are waiting for a full diagnosis, and we're still waiting for any ECHP for our own grandson, so we know about the length of time. Do we know how big the queue might be of people that might add to that number 6,300. We're issuing about 80 to 90 plans a month at the moment, so the numbers, I couldn't give you a definitive number right now, but go and get what the forecasting is over the next year or so. But at the moment the demand is increasing, we're looking to issue this plan. Any more questions? Thank you very much for standing in there, thank you very much indeed. We're going to take a short break now because we've got children joining us, and we want time to change over and get the children involved, so we are going to... We need to let Shinde Paul know that we're ready. Right, thank you. I'm going to hand over straight to Shinde, and he will be able to organise this next section, thank you. Thank you Chair. So today we've got an update on the work of the voice, influence and change team and the work in connection with participation. This report covers the period November 22 through to May 2024, so November 22 being the last time that we actually came to this committee to provide an update. The report has a focus on a number of changes around the breadth and scope of the work that the voice, influence and change team have been undertaking. This has been an expansion of responsibilities. The range of activities and events have increased with young people, and there's been ongoing work in relation to service design and service delivery initiatives. Over the past 18 months, the work of the voice, influence and change team has been established. Certainly work with children in care and care levers has been quite positive and received well. The expansion of the work has focused on working with SCND communities, youth justice service, the youth council and more recently parental participation. So the scope is much broader. There is focus on working with children, young people and families at an individual level, a family level, a service level and a strategic level. So there's, again, quite a lot of breadth involved in the work of the voice, influence and change team. There have been a number of initiatives that have been regional and national, which is enabling young children, young people to have voices beyond the county's boundaries. Appendix 1 gives an illustration of the range of activities, events and other initiatives taking place within participation. This doesn't include everything. The volume is quite significant. It does also highlight the number of contacts we have with young people in the work that we're undertaking and the number of contacts has been gradually increasing over the past 18 months. The voice influence change team is also reconfigured to try and absorb some of the work that is now being brought on and meant that we have further areas to consider. The new reconfigured arrangements allow us to continue work with the Children in Care Council, with the Care Leaveers Forum, with impact, with Warxer Youth Council. There's work with unaccompanied young asylum seekers, support to watch a parent care voice. There's also work that is ongoing in relation to listening to a lot of groups within those groups. Certainly, in terms of listening to young people within the Youth Justice Service, young people from LGBT and Q communities. There's a vast range of work and the reach in terms of voice influence and change team are constantly trying to increase. The report actually outlines some additional areas of work in the main body of the report, and some of those are quickly worth noting. There's a work with the Cross-Ministerial Board, which has taken place. That's the second invitation we've had to come along and talk about work with young parents that we're carrying out in the work that's been received well. There's the Brothers and Sisters work. This is an area of work that is now enabling Brothers and Sisters to have more time together. So this is a change in how the services work previously. Apprenticeships continue, so we have had four care experts, young people, that have completed their apprenticeships and gone on to full-time work. This is both good for them. It's also good for the service. We've also have a further four care experience apprentices that have started. I'm pleased to say one of the apprenticeships is within legal services, which is a six-year apprenticeship. And we hope that that young man is able to stay throughout that period and come away with a law degree. There's work, certainly with Incent Communities, an impact will be talking about that briefly. Their work in relation to the working together chart, their work in relation to the head teachers and the head teachers conference that they attended. There's been some larger events, a youth voice event, which is brought a number of young people together. And the Warwickshire Youth Conference, which brought young people together from across the county. All of this feeds us information about priorities that are important to young people. Again, some of the young people today will be talking about those priorities. In relation to the Youth Justice Service, there is work now going on to try and work more closely with young people. This is a complex area of work. It's a newer area of work for us. We are beginning to make ground in terms of being able to seek the views of young people within Youth Justice Service. Similarly, parental participation is an area of work that we've just embarked upon, but we are really keen to also hear the experiences of parents. I'd like to hand over to young people so that they get the opportunity, they get the space to be heard. We do have a presentation which the young people would follow, so hopefully we can get the presentation up. And young people are able to then talk to that. It's a possible point of presentation from my side, because if you can join the teams meeting and put it up from your side. Have you been invited? It's not. [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] It takes the activities throughout 2023 going into 2024. I'd like to hand over to the Children in Care Council now so that they can have their input. Dave?

Yeah, we're ready. Hello, my name is Mohammed. I'm part of the Children in Care Council. I was born in Sudan. I've been living in the UK for one year. I'm at college studying science. When I'm older, I'd like to be a pharmacist because I've always been passionate about helping people. My ultimate goal is to discover new treatments to help people live happier and healthier lives. The Children in Care Council is a group of children and young people, age 11 to 17. We meet once a month, we act as a voice for every child in the care of or age accounting council. It's a safe place to share experiences and expectations and provides an opportunity to meet friends. But most importantly, to make change. Today, I'm going to tell you about what we do in Children in Care Council. Some of the things we as a group are proud of. Things we think need to improve in and also our key messages. Next slide, please. What we do in Children in Care Council as a group, we introduce children in care to other children. Support is available if you need it. Gives us a voice to discuss important matters for Children in Care. We do fund activities and talk about serious topics. Creates opportunities for us to take part in. We have pizza and also we have chance to talk to our friends. Next slide, please. Things we aren't proud of as a group helping to improve the care system we have been listening to. Being in Children in Care Council professionals, listen to us and take us seriously. Having a voice and how we communicate things. Taking part in opportunities. For example, meetings, events, panels, advisory boards. Next slide, please. Things that need improving, placement, stability, better healthcare access, cultural and identity support for Children in Care, better communication with professionals before decisions are made about our lives. Next slide, please. Our key messages, placement issues and frequent moves can affect child's education and also social relationships and emotion and wellbeing. We need to continue to try and make difference. We need to see more changes. We would like more trips, opportunities and get togethers. Thank you for listening. I'll now pass you over to Care Leavers Forum. Hi, my name is Ricky and I'm from Care Leavers Forum. I'd just like to say the person who worked on this with me have, I couldn't make it today. But I know she really wanted to be here, so I don't know if I have to say that. I'm from Care Leaver Forum. We are a group of about 10 Care Leavers and we all get together to discuss things that we think need improving, things that we think have gone really well. Meet once a month and every month we'll talk about new topics, discuss the last topics we talked about, the changes that have been made, the changes we want to make. And it's also a good way for us all to just get together and share our experiences and life experiences and stuff like that. One thing we think we feel good about is the events in the Care Leaver Forum. We often go on different activities, so we go on wellness days, so we go walk through countryside, fields, local parks, and it's just really an excuse to get together and make friends, support each other. Additional agency support has also been a big improvement. The agencies such as Bernardo's, St. Basil's, House Project, the exploitation teams and housing officers, the additional agencies have come in a lot more to support us with housing, any mental health problems, any everyday problems really. There has been a big improvement in that which a lot of us have realised. More involvement in recruitment, training, and future opportunities for Care Leavers. Now over the last year or so, we see that a lot more Care Leavers have been given a voice. We've been given the chance to start apprenticeships through the Care Leaver System. I know Katie is an example of that. It's basically all about getting us included in the work. A big thing that is mentioned in the Care Leaver Forum is we've been through the system, we know the system, and we know the areas that we need help in. So why not? We have the opportunity to have these opportunities to do apprenticeships and things like that to help the other people. Handing over to Melissa to just take on the next part. Thank you. I like to just add as well that actually in people sometimes say we know best, and in cases like this actually they do. So it's really key for us to get that message across. As you know Heather wasn't able to make it today, and I just want to get across one of the key messages that she wanted to share on one of the improvements, which is more support within people who are harder to reach. We appreciate that there are young people out there with additional needs, addictions. Sometimes they're not as local as we wish that they would be. There are young people in prison, and she wanted to advocate that actually having more training for professionals and how to deal with working with people who are harder to reach and having more knowledge around their difficulties and how this affects their behaviours, it would show a lot more empathy and understanding which in hope would help with their relationships and growing into society and coming out of the service was really key for her to share with you today. I'll pass you back to the next one. Cheers myself. Another thing is independent and lifestyle, so we've recently held a group discussion in the cantaloupe forum and we recognise that those have good need of improvement. Yeah, those are good need of improvement. There's a good need of improvement. Need is for young people for life skills and support. We know that young people who get the right support on life skills can go on to do well, and those who don't, they do have a negative impact. Also, I'd like to touch on educational barriers. While young people are dealing with hard times and difficult times, it is hard to stay in education and do well throughout their additional support and to do well through their additional training and stuff. And there is more support needed for this as that time of a young person's life coming out of a place that they've called home for many years at the age of 18, they're also having to go on to do full-time jobs or apprenticeships or A-levels and the stress of leaving a family home and potentially not being able to, you know, have that support and have that grounded feeling. And then also having to have the stress of, yeah, exams and everything is challenging, so you do see a lot of people dropping out. Transitioning through is very hard. And I do think maybe support with that would be very beneficial to people. There is a higher risk of young people to be able to not work with their mental health. As they are moving into new housing, poverty, things like that. And I think a big thing is we do need to learn that what causes young people to not be in education and training and employment and look at how we can make it easier for them and turn this into a better experience. Some key messages we'd like to share that have been brought up in the group's discussions we've had and that is having the right staff helps us make a better experience. Some are lucky to have great workers and you get on very better and you see the improvements through the ones who have the more understanding and down to our staff. Kelly, from a physical place to meet new people with similar experiences and talk about important topics, nothing is perfect. We need to keep revisiting things and keep up to date with improvements. As the site changes, we also need to adapt to make changes. We ask that professionals continue to keep us in the loop and give us feedback on our improvements and meetings like this. Thank you for hearing me. Thank you for hearing what I have to say. I hope you find it useful in the work that you do it. And I'd like to now pass over to impact. Hi, I'm Ray and this is also Ray and we are part of IMPACT. We have fun and we make a lot of friends but we also have a serious focus. IMPACT is a group of young people with additional needs in education and although we have different experiences of education, we all agree that the system is not working and needs to be fixed. To fix a system you need the perspectives of young people who are experiencing it and those who are potentially seeing family members experience the effects of the system that is not working. IMPACT is the strategic partner in representing the voices of children and young people with additional needs in Markshire. We are proud to have worked together with the Parent Care Forum, the Irish County Council and other stakeholders to develop the working together charter, which sets out how we will work together and also establish the commitment to ensure that young people and parents would be involved in developing plans and changes that affect their lives. This charter was launched in May 2023 and IMPACT also worked on the school inclusion charter, which was launched in November 2022. Both of these charters are based on the four cornstones of inclusion and co-production, which centers around key principles of welcome and care, value and include, communicate and work in partnership, which are nurtured and developed to create trust. This is important because children and young people frequently share the need to feel safe and whether someone feels safe is about the presence of trust. We continue to raise this issue about needing to feel safe because children and young people continue to experience the school system as a one-to-size-fits-all approach, which does not work for children and young people, especially those with additional needs. We looked for opportunities to share these experiences. In summer 2023 IMPACT had our first big opportunity to speak for ourselves as IMPACT. We went to the Head Teachers Conference to say to them, This is what we experience in school and this is how the system has affected us. It was a big scary room with big scary people, but they listened to us. We took our speech and with some help it became a film script and we worked with a crew of neurodivergent students from Coventry University Film Production course. Making it into a film means we can share it with more people, including more children and young people. The film is called Wrong Size Fits All, which is the reference to the one-size-fits-all system being the wrong size. It has over 23,000 views so far. It is important for IMPACT to share their experiences, because there are too many young people who don't have a voice and don't have the privilege of being heard. Our hope is that this film inspires young people to open up and it has a positive impact on the way teachers work with students. One of our key messages is about now and not later, and that it should never be too little too late. My schooling costs are a lot per year now, plus transport costs. But if the local authority invested in supporting me when I was eight and nine, then the cost of supporting the support I needed would have been much lower in the long run. They did not see this need and then it sold snowboard, leaving me and the local authority playing the cost. Schools should be a place that you want to go, but it can't be a safe place if there isn't a support system in place. My needs weren't seen, and by the time I recognised that my needs weren't being met, it was far too late. I was busy giving 110% to everything I did, including masking whenever I had issues, and by the time the mask fell apart, I couldn't be the perfect student anymore. I was seen as lazy, as unmotivated, and not trying hard enough. Even though I was trying too hard to pretend to be any version of fine, which left me paying the cost. When we speak to young people, some of them say that they haven't had the trust in the system for the last decade. It didn't start with the comments at the January overview and scrutiny committee. Some young people explained that they have tried to keep their confidence in the system as long as possible, even when it feels like they're being consistently let down. Impact will continue to speak about the things that are important to young people, or the opportunities that we have. The key messages from young people are, if we don't feel safe, we can't be expected to learn, that small things make a big difference, that every interaction has an impact, whether that's positive or negative, and we need to feel that you care. As an expert with young people, highlights that to build safety and trust, it helps when you stay calm, you give us time, you give us breaks. It helps when you see us and not results. You let us wear what is comfortable, and you let us move to keep our brains alive. It helps when you are honest, you explain, and you give reasons. You listen, and you understand us, and you give us notes in advance. It helps when? You ask us, you make plans with us, and you follow the agreed plans. Many of the things that could have made such a difference, particularly in relation to early intervention, are simple things, but often the answer is no, which leads to an escalation of need. All we ask is that we are given the support we need as early as possible, so that we can access our educational entitlement rather than it being too little too late. Impact has representation on the Sand and Inclusion Partnership Board. This is incredibly valuable, because it is given young people a voice and a say, strategically, at the highest level, and new perspectives can be brought to the members of the board. Things like this would be more achievable if we had an impact apprentice, who would be available to directly represent young people throughout the week, and we hope that this will be an option in the future. Impact have highlighted these priorities, which continue to be as concerned about mental health and experience in school, because they are very much linked. We want to increase the diversity of children and young people, not just with ethnicity, but with different areas of neurodiversity and areas of need and the LGBTQ community, to improve the experience of all members of the Sand community. Impact reaches out through workship special schools and meets with young people who are part of the special school's councils. They have particularly highlighted the need for there to be activities that they can access, including for them to have the support they need to access activities in their communities. It is important that schools and society have a better awareness of Sand to end the stigma that we experience, and this is essential for an inclusive society. Thank you to those of you who have attended the training last week, delivered by Sam Craven, who represented Impact, and Elaine Lamb, who represented parents. In the current system, there are clear challenges in balancing the budget and the needs of workshes children, but never forget that we are not just a statistic, but we are real people, and please don't leave us paying the cost. We would now like to pass over to the Youth Council. Thank you. Good morning. My name is George Finch, and I was elected Youth Councillor in April 2024 for Bedworth and the Neaton. He was just a bit about me. I joined because I have an ambition, a vision, and a dream for change. I see a wave coming, a wave of change, and I'm ready. With the Youth Council, we can spearhead this change for youth. I played rugby for the Neaton Club since I was there for, however, I no longer play, due to having two ACL injuries. I decided to retire and hang the boots up at the ripe old age of 17. It was a shame, but it was such a good blast. Now I find myself delving into politics. I have to spend a week working down in Wet Parliament and in the offices of Westminster. I now support my local candidate by campaigning, creating videos and posters and much more. I'm currently working on organising a local host in, but we know how hard it is to get people working together, especially politicians. I also advocate and campaign for children under child protection plans and tell their stories to ensure the mishaps of counter-counsels. For example, our children are likely to be invited to the first conference, which can decide the fate of a family without an advocate, without a voice, due to statutory requirements. Next slide. Here is a brief summary of the Youth Council and what we do. The Youth Council is for 11 to 17 year olds who live in Mauritius or go to school in Mauritius. We meet and campaign for issues that are important for young people across Mauritius. There are 30 of us and we meet monthly. Some of us want to meet more. At the moment, we are very active and a keen group. I also mentioned earlier the newly elected councillors members have only been together since April 2024 and we are still learning and getting to know our roles. We have met with the police, youth service, town planners, local MPs and we have started some interesting conversations on who we are and what we want to get involved with. It is an exciting time and we are learning such a lot. Some of the older members of the Youth Council who have re-elected tell me that they felt proud of these three things. Next slide. One, online Youth Council elections. The Youth Council has been around since 2008 and for the first time the elections were held online. The publicity, the nomination process, the manifesto and voting all happened in the virtual world. For example, I saw the publicity and put my name forward, created my manifesto and encouraged young people to vote for me. There were 66 candidates for the Youth Council elections. The highest number ever. There were over 1300 votes cast by 11 to 17 year olds. There was a good balance of votes across all eligible ages entitled to vote. The first test for online voting worked really well. It still needs improvement but it is a great tool to get more young people engaged. One of the most important things to note as part of this online approach is that young people co-produced the whole election process with county council staff. Warwick's year has spearheaded online access for youth-driven elections. By the way, our Youth Council has two co-chairs and we have two police and crime commissioner reps, a secretary and a social media rep. We are currently setting up three campaign groups. The second thing is grants for youth projects. Next slide. You may know that the youth service in March year holds a grant to support voluntary and community organisations in March year to provide club activities for young people. Warwick's year Youth Council has given a proportion of this money to allocate to youth groups. Youth Council has spent a long time creating a criteria, publicity, applications and selection process to make sure that we produced was accessible and fair. Over 20 organisations applied for this grant, eventually four organisations were successful and being awarded by being awarded a grant. On July the 23rd this year all four organisations have been invited back to give us an update on how the money has been used. Thirdly, the Lemington Town Centre vision and next slide. One of the first projects that the Youth Council members got involved with are the early conversation to look at the transformation of Lemington Town Centre. We were invited to contribute our ideas on what the Town Centre feels like for young people and what changes would make a positive difference for us. In fact, we did so well presenting our ideas that we have been invited to continue our involvement over a long period of time. Next slide. Now looking ahead, one of the things that the online elections was also able to provide us with was responses from young people on what matters the most to them. Three things came up, mental health, experience in schools and crime and safety. We know that these issues have been mentioned by young people for a little while now. Unfortunately, being new to the Youth Council, we do not understand the detail behind each of these issues enough yet. We do as a Youth Council have a plan to get into some schools in every district and borough to speak to groups and young people to get more insight on what they think. For the reasons, we have set up three wireless Youth Council subgroups to progress these issues on behalf of young people in Mauritius. We will bring in our findings to your attention once we are ready. Next slide. Our key message, it's simple, space. We would like to thank you for providing us a space to meet and share ideas and thoughts. Our voice, we want to be heard. We should be heard and we will continue to be heard as it's the only way to get our views across. We would like for you to be patient and continue to listen to us – audience. At the Youth Council, we speak to a large organisation's important and important individuals. And we would like to keep this as our voices are important too. Change. Change is something we all strive to achieve to make our lives better. In order to do so, we must work together. Thank you for listening and back to Shane. Thank you. Thank you to all of the young people that presented. That concludes our update for the overview and scrutiny committee. Thank you. Well, can I just say, I think you've done a fantastic job. You know, it takes guts to just come in and talk to anybody, but to come in and talk to this law, I think you've done very well indeed. You should be proud of how you feel and what you've stated and carry on with what you do. I attend some of these meetings. I've been to brothers and sisters. I've been to care leavers. I've been to a lot of the functions that go on. So, you know, if you see me around, just tap me on the shoulder and say, you know, I mean, you've seen me at the do. So, you know, just come up and talk to me and say, you know, well, I was at your meeting or whatever, and have a chat with me. Okay. You will see me around. So thank you so much. And on behalf of everybody that's here. Thank you for a very good presentation, very interesting presentation. We've got time now for you to leave the boardroom. So thank you and we hope to see you again soon. You take care. Ray and Ray are noted down saying, you know, we went into a big scary room with some big scary people. I hope this room didn't feel as big or us as scary, but nonetheless, I thought they were brilliant. Really, all of them, all of them. So please pass it on. One shouldn't take any of that for granted. What was clear to me listening hard to all four presentations was that they were really clear in their minds, very succinct, very erudite in terms of their views on areas for improvement. No lack of clarity. What I'd like to understand from you, representing the authority, is how have you or will you use that insight to make change that improves outcomes? If you can give any specific examples, that's helpful. But even if it's just generalist, how do you use their insight to make us better? Thank you. I don't think that there's any one way that we do that. I think there's a number of ways that we do that. I should begin by saying that participation isn't really an easy area of work to grapple with, because it's a work that's sometimes not very tangible for people. But the ways in which we work are to work very closely with officers at different levels of the organisation. Make sure that officers hear what young people are saying on a regular basis in the right place at the right time. And to ensure that we then look at what actions can be followed in order to try and address some of the issues that young people have raised. So if I use one example that is quite clear, we have had a young person that did talk about, but we actually had a brother and sister that did talk about not being able to see each other as often as they would like. So that did go to the service leadership team for discussion. There was a conversation that took place there. There was further conversation that followed. And some of the agreements that followed from that was to increase the activity to enable brother and sisters to come together. And to also look at relaxing some of the stipulations that we put in place as a service to enable them to be able to see each other more regularly. So overnight stage, for example, with the appropriate checks, etc. So that's a change to how the service is then delivered. There's an increase in activity to enable brothers and sisters to have more contact more frequently. There's other ways in which we work. So sometimes we might listen to young parents. And these are significant areas of work that have changed things. Young parents had told us that in the very early years of when having a child, things were very difficult. And through listening to that, the baby box project came about. And that was about not necessarily looking at young parents having children as something that's difficult or problematic, but to celebrate it. But also provide the support. I mean, that was a conversation that went all the way to a ministerial board because they were interested in the work that Warwick should have done with young people. But again, stemming from young people. So it's ensuring that we are linked in with the right teams at the right place, with the right officers at the right level to ensure that young people are heard. It's when young people are heard in those forums, we can begin to then talk about the change. So having young people sit as part of the sending inclusion board, for example, is very important because they're sat with very senior level staff and have a contribution to make. Have young people be involved in the corporate parenting panel? That's very important because we have elected members and officers then here to young people who were care experienced. So it's about making sure that we have a number of different situations and circumstances in place across the county council. So where we've had the youth conference, we've had young people, young people's views taken to different teams. So where young people may have raised issues around climate change, we look at our sustainability team and say, these are the things that young people have raised. How will you include them as part of your plans moving forward? And the Lemington Visioning event is another example of how young people can contribute to the Town Planning of Lemington Town Centre. So there's many different projects, many of those are listed in the report on how we engage young people, sitting as part of interview panels to help choose staff that are employed by the county council. It's quite important for young people, young people training staff, so we have young people that have been training some of our fostering social workers and some of our foster carers to help them understand young people's experiences and what they could do differently to be able to support young people. So there's many examples of where the work is going on and there's many different things happening at many different levels. Would it be reasonable to when this process is repeated in the future for you to come to the committee with a written summary of what you've just described? Because I found that very interesting, very useful, and that's obviously what you're thinking on off the top of your head, which is great, and there's lots of detail there. But I think personally, other members of the committee would find that useful to understand the difference that that input has made and if it's possible to have a report in the future that I personally would welcome it. Yes, certainly, happy to pull that together. Part of our purpose is to affect service design and delivery. So very recently as part of the Pathfinder that's taking place, we're ensuring that parents, there's a parent form and young people form the contribute and make sure their views are heard. So we can certainly prepare something in the future. Happy to do that. First in. Excellent. One of the things that came through from everyone was communication, I think, and in each talk, except perhaps the wider young people's council wanting to be included in decision making. And have feedback and have reasons and all that. I mean, that came through from the children in care and the care levers and impact. So it's obviously, I mean, it's a specific example there, maybe of how you've listened to that. I mean, because that's still happening. I know this works be going on a long time and I've always thought we have a great team and a great relationship with young people, but we're still hearing things like the system is broken when it comes to impact. And we want decisions made with us, not to us from children in care. So that's question one. Can I just clarify what you're asking? Sorry, I followed some of it, but not. Well, essentially, it's everyone says we want to be more involved in the decision process and hear from us. Why are they saying that? You know, who isn't communicating with them? Are we not communicating with them? I think some of that is about the different levels. So we heard Ricky talk about it matters who your support worker is. So for young people, it matters who the support worker is. So the experience can be very different for different young people. And so I don't think it's generically that young people are saying that people are not listening. I think that it can be specific to young people depending on their circumstance. In terms of trying to create avenues for young people to have a voice, I think that certainly through the governance arrangements, that's something that's ongoing, something that we want to continue doing. One of the most important things I think is making sure that young people reach the most senior officers within the county council, because they're certainly the people within the county council that can influence the culture of the organization. And I think that that's quite key. And we're creating those spaces. Sorry, just George who spoke about a space voice audience and influence is talking about exactly that. Making sure they have the right space to get their ideas together, be it the right place talking to the right people that can affect the change. Yeah, that is great. And that is what is happening here, obviously. I suppose specifically on an individual basis, it seemed to be, especially from Mohammed, that he was representing a view very clearly that things were sort of decided for them about them and not communicated with them enough that's what came across to me quite a lot. I think that different people's experiences will be different. And I think that for some young people, it may be about the relationship that they have with the worker, not all relationships work really well. And we know in instances where young people raise that, we try and recognize that and see if it might be appropriate that somebody different may support them. These things are considered. It's not that they're not considered. But we're certainly trying to move as an organization to a more restorative way of working. So if young people are telling us that things are being done to them, that's something we respond to and react to. The culture is very much driving towards we do with, and that's reflected in some of the planning processes that we have and how we've changed those planning processes to try and encourage the work to develop differently. Sorry, we need more meetings. This is a huge agenda today. And very important. The dropout is so much there. The harder to reach care levers, comment, what are we doing? And the dropouts and difficulties at 18 when you leave home, when you start up on your own doing something completely new into support that was obviously asked for there. How are we? That's too huge. I'm sorry. It's too big. But let's just stick with the harder to reach kind of people in prisons and things. I assume, are we doing enough there? The answer to that, I think we can always do more is the honest answer. But some of the work that we're moving towards, for example, we've just now started to involve ourselves within the Youth Justice Service, and we're understanding that it's a very complex area of work, but they are young people that are harder to reach. And the interesting work around the Youth Justice Service is a lot of the work that we're doing with some of the forums that you heard today. Some young people readily volunteer to be involved. Within the Youth Justice Service, that's a little trickier because young people aren't there on a voluntary basis, and engaging those young people can be more challenging. But it's an area of work that we don't shy away from. Certainly within our Children in Care Cows and Care levers forum, we work with some young people that attend the forums, because the forums don't suit them, but we're still engaging with them to try and understand what their experience of services has been. And for some young people, it works better that way, because being in a forum environment, they find it very difficult. Thanks. They were brilliant. There are many things that impressed me when they spoke, but one of the things was, from all of them, they didn't just talk generally about making things better. They were quite specific about things they believed would help in the future. There's, thinking it through, there's one in particular that I think is a simple and quite clear example that throws up an immediate problem for me in this. The problem is around communication partnership and how you actually make a significant difference. A really small, it's not a small thing, a one liner on one of the slides was let us wear what's comfortable. That seems like such a simple operational thing to do. And I picked up on that because I've got the family at the minute who are having extreme difficulty with their child in school because they will not wear a lanyard. And the lanyard makes them feel constricted, uncomfortable. They're not used to it. They don't want to wear it. And the school has really dug their heels in about it. That throws up, to me, a practical example of something that's actually a strategic issue. The school's in academy. How do we, turns the education people thought, how do we make that difference when we can see quite clearly there's something that would help that child learn in school. And it's not the child being disabled or whatever, it's the situation that's disabling the child. It's the situation that's making that difficulty. How do we approach organisations that work with the sort of goodwill really rather than anything else when they are not as accommodating as we would like them to be. Do you see, this is, I don't expect a simple answer. This is really challenging. And how do we help each other deal with it. And I don't expect you to answer it on your own either. Johnny might have some things to say. Thank you. So, I mean, yeah, it's not a straightforward answer. But we do have a key role to play as a local authority. We hold a strategic position across our schools. We know there's a mixed economy of academies, multi academy trusts, maintain schools. Ultimately, the responsibility for experiencing school is down to the schools that have their own governance structure. But as a strong local authority with the responsibilities that we have for children with send, for attendance, for those that are entitled to access education if they're not able to medical needs, or those are excluded or those that need alternative provision. We do provide those kind of services as well to ensure that our most vulnerable young people are our champion, if you like, and we're champions for young people in particular, in those contexts also the virtual school children looked after. So, there are times where we are directly responsible and able to champion directly. There are times where we do it through a facilitation. And for example, having strategic partnerships and strategic meetings where we can present back things like what young people are saying, or we present back to school leaders about key initiatives in schools. We've got various of our own initiatives that support workforce development, for example, to support teachers in schools deliver a very critical people, special educational needs. So it is wide and varied in terms of what we can do. And I think that as a strong local authority in which we are and joined up with our services, we are able to have a key influence at times and a key direct impact as well. But absolutely, we hold the data, we hold the strategic overview, we work with health partners, we work with commissioning, we work with justice, we're with the police. There's all sorts of things that we can do in the wide web that we're in the club that we're sitting in, so there's lots there. Thank you, that's really helpful to me. There's something in that about schools listening to what we've just heard. The school I'm thinking of in particular would, I'm sure, respond to that sort of felt experience, particularly on the two rays. You know, I thought that was very powerful indeed. So thank you for that. Did that help with your answer, by the way? Well, yes, I think that was helpful because it's such a big issue. As you say, the change is small, but what's required in order to enable that change is quite significant. Thank you, I mean, that's all powerful stuff, which always comes from the group when they come in, isn't it? I mean, it's always good. Just coming to the report, really, paragraph six, you talk about the next steps and going through that. I'm looking at the working together charter, and you say across other county council services, and I suppose it partly leans back to Barbara, and Johnny just talked about this. Sure, it shouldn't just be about worry about county council services. We should be embedding this with health and wellbeing board and adjust the whole gambit district boroughs, parish camp, the lot, really. And I'm just wondering whether that wording should be tweaked out to sort of try and make it that core, but I've seen knowledge also. Presumably agreeing, but I mean, but it's about extending that, I think, in that particular way. So it becomes that broad a bit, because if we are the strong local authority in relation to where we want to go to with academies and those elements, this is a particular tool that we can use and can be, you know, it's against in a way and say, look, this is, this is what's needed. This is what's good. This is what we need to do. That's the first point. The rest of the, I'd be intrigued to know what the, I identify the potential sources of funding of how much actually an impact apprentice would be. I don't know whether you got that sort of figures with you on that. And I do know also within here that it's going to be quite a lot work within the pathfinder stuff as well, which I think would actually help and develop and bring that forward. But I think it's about also, but you have said corporate parenting the rest of it for always broadening that out. So part of one of the concerns I slightly have is that I know about the corporate parenting and all the particular elements are, but it sort of narrows us down to just that element of corporate parenting. And then we don't actually look out wider about how does that all fit. It's sort of, you know, not quite silo is it, but it does in a way. And I think that's a shame really, because we should be looking at the broader stuff. And when we talk about the outdoor education strategy, how is that all fitting in? And we don't always do that because we just wait for the corporate parenting strategy to, or the corporate parenting item to come in, don't we? And so we need to see some of that really. That's the only comment so far. Thank you, Chair. Just to pick up a couple of points really from Jerry and probably some of Barbara's points as well. I think one of the things that's really important to kind of note is that the voice influence and change team started with a social care focus. It was a team that was looking very much about we have children care council, we developed our care experience apprenticeships, and it kind of grew out of that. It doesn't sit under that title remit anymore. I think what it's done is expanded. So impact is a new development. Bringing the youth council and those teams together with those things is in an attempt to do exactly what you're talking about, Jerry. Actually, it's to talk about how we spread participation across our services. And we are on a journey with that. You know, we're a lot further down the line than we were a year or two ago. There's still a distance to go into it in terms of how we make that a much wider arrangement. One of the really important features of the involvement in the Senate Improvement Board, which a couple of the young people mentioned, is that it is a multi-agency board. It's co-chaired by the council and the NHS. It has ICB members. It has school members representative as well as parents and young people voice and actually does give opportunity to spread some of those messages to our key partners, both providers and commissioners within the NHS and within other areas so that there are opportunities. And the children and young people's subgroup for the health and wellbeing board will be getting more information about this particular thing. I think the other thing I wanted to mention, though, and it comes back a bit to the point that the council of Brown raised, is that in quite a lot of these pieces of work, what we're trying to do as a local authority is be an ally to those young people and for those young people to be an ally for us. There's a lot of the issues that you heard about and not issues about their relationship. Some of them are and we need to address those, but they are also issues about relationship with their school. One of the things we know about really complex, broken down relationships between families and the sense system are that starts quite often while they're at school and by the time it reaches the level of relationship is already broken. So there's something we need to do about that. So it's how we use our influence to actually support them in challenging schools about uniform policies, about not implementing camps, recommendations or whatever it might be in the places that they're going to be. So it's how we use that influence, how we support them in challenging mental health service in terms of access. So I think there is something really, you know, we can't decide, we can't deal with all of the issues they're addressing, but what we can do and what we're trying to do is process. And as I said, it is an evolving process is get to a point where we can support them to make those points. And as one of the sort of new members on this committee, you know, I'd like to first of all thank you, the officers for bringing those children say to the committee, because I learned more from that than actually probably 10 presentations from high level offices and things. So thank you for that. And I think that's something I'd like to say going forward that we hear from the non then bringing back to the committee. And it's actually, you know, they're the real experts and they've gone, you know, they've gone through it and seen it. I'm glad you and we are listening to them. One of the things that Ricky said, I just want to tell you what they said about making improvements. I'm sure you've taken note of them. And one of the ones that we as counselors get sort of involved with on a street level is the antisocial behavior, you know, it comes across every other day, somebody says. And what Ricky said about that was actually not understanding people who are actually doing the antisocial behavior. And I think they'll be extremely useful to solve a lot of the problems in whatever shape of form you take it forward to find answers to that. To the pathfinder program or whatever, it'd be helpful all around. I think if you take those bits on board and I would be interested in going forward to see how we actually understand why the antisocial behavior happens through their eyes and find answers. And if somebody said to me, there's an antisocial behavior, they're ordering the local police team and they go and they come back. I don't think that's the solution. So, so, thank you for actually bringing them here. And I've learned a lot today. Thank you. I think everybody agreed it was very good. And I would like to see them maybe in six months or a year. I'd like to invite them back and see how things are going. I think it was really interesting. And I think also, if we spoke about it, for counselors, well, they could present there and be the wider audience. I think it was very interesting. And as you say, it's at ground level. And I think that is what was interesting about it. You can talk about things all the time. But when you've got it at ground level from the horse's mouth, if you like, that is what we're interested in. So, yeah, very, very good. Thank you very much indeed for everybody that was involved in it. Thank you. End of year. Integrated performance report. That's myself. So I'm going to just present the high level report. I've got colleague, we've got colleagues here Zoe from commissioning in Sharday from public health and Johnny from education. So, they might coming on their specific area. So, I'm not going to talk too much because I'm unconscious of time. We haven't got presentations. I'm going to highlight a couple of things really to you. So, in the report at 2.4, it highlights some of the issues around performance. So, particularly about the percentage of children and people with education and health care plans, attending mainstream school has reached 36%. That's the highest figure reported for five years. It's in line with the council's aim to increase the utilization of mainstream settings. There's more education and health care plans are issued. The proportion of mainstream settings is likely to increase further. So, we're still wanting to definitely improve that even further. I think in the, in the appendices, it also notes quite a lot of improvement around the number of children who are in education and employment, which is really positive as well as some improvement trends there. There's a number of performance challenges. I'm not going to go through all of them. There was a particular relation to the budget percentage of maintained schools with a deficit as risen, and you'll see the figures for that in your reports. In terms of some of the other areas of improvement, if you go down, I'm now looking at page 39 at the top there, it's got some bullet points. The first two are around the percentage of in your applications for schools and the time scales for those offered. It is an area that has improved. It's on in a positive, going in a positive direction, but it is still an area that we want to improve in this year. Chardonnay, maybe I want to talk about this a little bit more, but we have seen a decline in children at year six or overweight, including a beast, and that's something that we want to focus on. We have seen the rise in the number of children in need and children in child protection. The figure that we were looking towards was 3,400 children. We've been working consistently with about 3,700 children. The impact that has really is upon our case lays our workloads for our social workers and family support workers. Obviously, we are seeing a rise in children needing support, and that's relating to issues around poverty, domestic abuse in particular. When you benchmark us against that particular figure with our West Midlands local authorities and our statutory neighbours, actually we've seen a very, very small rise compared to others. Almost every other local authority in the West Midlands has seen a significant rise in the number of children in need that they have been referred to them and they're working with. And then the final area though is about the issues around the budget, particularly around end budget and budgets for schools that I've already mentioned. So just moving down to the budget, you'll see that there was a significant overspend, particularly in the children and family service, and that's detailed in Appendix 3. In children and families, there was an £11.9 million overspend. The majority of that was in relation to the cost of residential care for children in care. We have about 86 children today in residential care, and the vast majority of those are not in the County Council yet. We are open to our own children's homes and I'll come back to that in a minute. The average cost of residential children's homes has risen. In the last five years that I've been in this job, it's probably risen from about £4.5 a week, which seems to be really expensive to around between £6.5 and £7.5 a week per child. And that is what's driving a lot of that spend. The other elements of that overspend relate to staffing, particularly agency staff. We spent about £3 million on agency social workers. Corporate Board agreed a new approach to hard to recruit to post a few months ago. That basically has increased, provided a market for two years for those posts, and that's been positive. We've been able to see an increase in recruitment and retention. And we have a plan to reduce the number of agency staff down from about 36 to around 10 or less over the next couple of months. And then in terms of all of those elements, impacts upon savings, which you've got in the report. And so a majority of the savings were met, but actually, it's significant, particularly around residential care was not achieved. And then in terms of capital, you'll see the majority of the council's capital programme is actually in relation to increasing school places and they're detailed in that appendix as well. And then the last thing I think I was going to point out really was the integrated delivery plan. So that's appendix 2. You can see that there has been progress and that you've got two and a half pages of things that have really progressed, that there's programmes that the council have delivered. There are some elements that have been compromised. We would like to see more children under the age of five receiving early health services, and that is something that we're looking to address with the Pathfinder. It's one of our key areas of priority in the children family service. And there's some specific programmes. So I know the committee have asked me before about the youth centering bed worth. It is the only area that doesn't have a Warrickshire County Council youth centre, but we have plans in the pipeline for that. We have taken a paper to the capital investment fund to see capital to develop the payer's site to have a youth centre on that site. And I think, and then there's also a number of other elements in the delivery plan, particularly around children's homes. So because of the residential spending, it's probably just worth mentioning that is that our children's homes projects are progressing extremely well. The beachwood house, which is in the neat and has been registered with Offstead. Acorn Lodge has been registered with Offstead and has a child there. And our other homes either have children either with Offstead waiting for registration, such as OCAHs. And today we get the keys for Silver Birch from the builders because they finished that work. So then we'll then be able to progress on the emergency applications that Offstead asking them to register those homes. That open our own homes, as you know, is key to reducing some of the costs for residential care. Not all of them, but a significant proportion of them. So I think those are the highlights that I wanted to make sure that you're aware of, and I'll leave it open to yourselves then for any questions to myself or the other directors. Justin. Lovely, thanks. Thank you. Obviously lots of things are going well. So two things, one. On the broad scale of it, it looks like just under half of the measures aren't on track, you know, and it looks like. So that, I think that's in 2.3. So those that are not on track are either static or in decline rather than static or trying to get back on track. So, always focusing on the negative, I'm very sorry, because I know you do a fantastic job. But could you, you know, give me some of your assurance or something or explanation of that? Yeah, I think it's, as you say, it's difficult when you look at these specific measures. I mean, if you look at the top one, 15 of them are on track and 14 of them are not on track and the one specific for this committee. So it's a mixed bag and sort of 50/50 there. And when you look down, I mean, you can see in here, six of them have improved, nine of them are static, five of them are declining. And so one of the things that we are doing around those things really is making sure that we've got some detailed plans about how we're addressing some of those issues. Some of them are systemic issues that aren't easy to resolve, they're long term issues. Others, we've got very clear actions and strategies in place, and I guess like the children's homes ones, making sure that that comes to fruition over the next 12 months and it will do. Other ones, like, you know, ABC for children in year six, I think there's only one local authority in the country has managed to actually improve that significant name leads. And there is a challenge, I think, and that's more of a systemic issue, so it is a mixed bag, I think it's fair to say that. No, that's really reassuring, actually, that answer. And in what we are achieving, what we're not, why we're not, I can understand better, thanks to that answer. And it's good, you know, we're doing what we can, where we can, I think. The other thing is something specific in 2.4, you said as we, we approve more plans, the HCPs, that the percentage of those in mainstream schools will increase. Why is that? Yeah, yeah, and actually it gives me a perfect opportunity to answer Councillor Humphrey's question from earlier as well, because joining this team have provided the numbers that you're asking for. So we issued 700, I've lost it now, I've lost the numbers. 712 new EACP plans last year. We're expecting to issue just over 1,000, about 1,070 this year, and of those 448 are currently in the system. So those are numbers. So there is a significant continuing increasing need, I think, which is something we need to reflect. Obviously our biggest focus is trying to keep children and young people with special educational needs in their communities, in their local schools, where that is in their best interests. And often it is in their best interests. Clearly there are some who have specialist needs that need to be in other types of provision. So the biggest and most important probably two strategies that are linked to that came through our kind of work around delivering better value. So one of them is around better equipping mainstream schools to be able to support children and young people. So the more we can do the workforce development work that has been talked about, the more we can work on our inclusion charter and the work related to that, that actually gives mainstream schools the opportunity to support children, the more children are able to stay in mainstream schools. Where that's still not possible, the next step very often is around some kind of specialist resource provision in schools. And we are rapidly expanding the number of specialist resource provision places that are available. Some of them are just about, some of them are on stream and come on stream over the last couple of years, there are quite a few that start in September, and over the next three to four years there will be a significant increase every year. So those children are able to stay in mainstream schools, but actually get specialist help from people who are especially trained to support them during the part of the day. And that kind of provision is a mainstream provision. So they spend their time in mainstream classroom. This isn't, you know, it's not a unit set up to the side somewhere. It is about children who are going into classrooms, and we have schools willing to open specialist resource provisions all around the county and in both primary and secondary phases at the moment. Thank you. Again, it explains it really well for me. So we're actually getting better at supporting schools to support children where that's appropriate. That's why the percentage increases, that's brilliant. So it's really nice. Sorry to always focus on what might be a negative because I know it's great stuff. And especially that going down from what down to only 10 in a couple of months with the 10th brilliant. Thank you. Thank just following up on the resource provision plan within schools. Do we have any numbers against the quantity of schools that will be have that by September, and which ones are being prioritized and why. And. So, so the second question is, at the moment, there's a kind of two pronged approach, I suppose, because we're in the very early stages, we want to get as many up and running as quickly as we can. And because we feel we've got gaps all over the county, at the moment, it is very much that the very first ones are the ones that we can do quickly. So they're the schools coming forward now saying, actually, we would like a resource provision, we check that there is a need in that area. And if it's deliverable, then they would be the first one. So, so a number of the ones that are coming on stream in September are ones that there was an opportunity to refurbish a piece of space in the school, to do something and the school was keen for it to happen. So that's the first stage. The next stage, obviously, there is a careful plan, which I'm sure we could probably share which sets out how many places we need all around the county in different areas, how many primary, how many special secondary and what the kind of specialisms are in those areas as well. So I'm sure we can share that. Can I just ask a question about that? It's not an algorithm. No, it's where we know where demand is, because obviously we deliver the assessment. I'm talking to myself because I can't find what I'm looking for. And although Rachel has sent me, and I know she sent to me, it's not appearing on my screen. So we'll ask Rachel to give you the number. Thank you. Okay, so in 2023, there are a total of 195 places resource provisions available. And the target for 2024 25 is that we have a total of 231 resource provisions available. Sorry, and then the final figure, Rachel, it's 500 and something is not for the bear with me. My problem is I've got a 78 page slide PowerPoint in front of me with the data in, and I can't find which slide is on. Let me check my notes and I'll come back to you if that's okay. Anybody else want to ask any questions, or shall we. Do you want us to wait for you because otherwise we're going to the next section. If you go into the next section, I can send an update afterwards if that's okay. Right, we're going on to item six, which is child exploitation, but before we actually start. I want to read out something before I hand over to George Shipman, head of families first. I would like to remind Councillors that bearing in mind of the subject of this item, it would not be appropriate to discuss any details relating to a live investigation. So I'd like to hand over to George Shipman, please. Thank you, Chair. I haven't got a presentation, so I was going to highlight a number of areas from the briefing. I first wanted to thank, and then remember this committee. We had a member development session on this area a few weeks ago, and again, that will help me think about those items to draw out this morning. So the briefing is looking at both our approach in Warwickshire and providing you with some of the data around child exploitation and knife crime that's currently taking place. We've adopted a number of new approaches, and hopefully they've been highlighted within the briefing over the last 18 months. And it's a particular focus around partnership, particularly when we think about adolescent safeguarding, when we're thinking about crime reduction, actually it's a partnership approach, particularly with colleagues in police and health and others. And again, hopefully that's a consistent theme between some of the developments that are highlighted within the briefing. A big focus moving forward is on the development of a exploitation strategy, so our current one ends this year, and there's been lots of progress and development around that. And they haven't continued to have an all-age exploitation strategy, but acknowledging that there are different approaches required, whether that's for children being exploited, the importance of thinking about transitional safeguarding. So those older young people to young adults and thinking about that approach to that cohort, as well as adult safeguarding, so have some common themes that are consistent with our approach throughout, but recognizing there are different needs for those groups and how we support them. I guess just to start thinking about the culture and how we want to work with young people is that we see young people as children first, and that's really important about the lens that we look, and we're thinking about supporting them in a number of different ways. We always try and frame it as children first, making sure we understand their development needs. So again, that's been a theme through some of the topics that have been discussed this morning, and that can be a number of areas, but such as speech and language, their physical, emotional development, and thinking about how we target and individualize our support. I guess understanding some of the changes around children as they get older, some of the decision-making that they make, how their brain develops, and thinking about that risk-taking behavior. So as we get older, the choices we can make, the decisions we do, consistent across all young people, but thinking about that. We're talking about exploitation, so we're thinking about constrained choices, so some of the children we talk about will feel they have no choice, will feel there'll be significant repercussions to them, and making sure that we understand that and thinking about that when we're either supporting them, or supporting their families, or thinking about that wider support that we can do, and working through that contextual lens. So at the session previously we talked about contextual safeguarding, and that's really understanding the context that those children sit within, so not only their family home, but thinking about their wider community, their school or education setting, and clearly a more developing one is the impact on the internet and social media as a key influence impacting on our young people. Within the report, I shared some information from the Youth Endowment Fund looking at some of the characteristics of 13 to 17-year-olds that are both victims or have gone on to perpetrate violence. And I guess the reason I wanted to highlight that is I'm sure many of the areas will be ones that members of the committee will be aware of that we link to this, such as contact with police, maybe involved in a gang, may have had contact with children, social care, education, attendance issues, and a number of others. But the real reason I wanted to highlight it was actually the similarities between those young people that are victims and those young people that are perpetrators in those factors. So most offenses where there's a knife involved by a young person is against another young person, so it's thinking about how we work and really think about those factors and how we work with young people. And I guess it's thinking about how we respond to some of those needs and some of those conversations we have as partners. So one I particularly have when we think about the police is a really high percentage of both perpetrators and victims of violence that are young people have had contact with the police. I'm really thinking about the importance of every contact young people will have the place, how that views them, and really making sure that that's the best that can be. But again, that's a message that's similar across all services that support young people, thinking about that very, you know, every contact is an opportunity to intervene, offer support, and think differently. Looking at some of the data. So the last year, the number of offenses and the number of the children offending has reduced compared to the previous year. So the number of children that were offending and work share has reduced from 147 in the year 22, 23 to 120 in the last year, so 23, 24. We've also seen a reduction in weapon related offenses by young people, which have come down from 54 offenses in 22, 23 to 44 offenses in 23, 24. And the report, again, was pulled up to show that in regards to districts and boroughs to give you an idea of where some of those offenses are taking place. Again, linking to some of the characteristics within worry share, all those offenses were committed by males, and predominantly by males 15 to 16 years of age. But one young person was 11 years of age, so there is a spectrum of age, but predominantly, well, it's all males last year and predominantly older age young people. So I guess some of the things that we've looked to do in response to this. So interestingly, the person mentioned this morning around the exploitation support that they've received, we've really developed how we offer that support. So previously, we had a county-wide team that offered additional support to a worker that was already leading the support for the family. We've now moved to a North East South approach, so we have three teams across the county. That that will be the lead worker, so it's not a secondary worker, it's the lead worker. It's really important when we think about young people around relationships and that relational approach. And again, that's really listening to some of the feedback from young people, but also some of the evidence around research around the best way to work with this cohort of young people. So as well as exploitation, it's thinking about other harm and also around mental health support that kind of fits in well with this cohort. The team is a multi-agency and multi-disciplinary and co-located with a number of agencies, and again, that brings back to the importance of that partnership work. So our adolescent service is called FAR, so our family and adolescent support team is co-located with our youth justice service. It's co-located with colleagues from Warwick Ship Police and Bernardo's, a commission service from the office of the police and crime commissioner in Warwick Ship. It has a number of different workers with a number of different focuses. I guess what's really important is the level of interventions needed to develop that relationship. And so we have a number of family support workers that are able to have maybe multiple opportunities to meet with young people. And again, link to that is we have a speech and language therapist, we know and recognize, and this is nationally as well, that many of these young people will have a number of challenges around speech and language. And actually, us having a much better understanding means that we're better able to target our support. So for the youth justice lens, a number of those sessions might last an hour, might be focused on the topic, but actually you'll get much more headway if we know for that young person. Actually, a really focused 20-minute discussion is much more powerful and useful than an hour of session. Or thinking about, is it use of paper slides? Is it use of videos? Is it talking? Is it talking directly to them? Is it the environment? Is it doing it at home? Is it doing somewhere else? I'm really making sure we individualize our approach. Again, substance misuse was one of the other characteristics, and the service has a jokes worker again to be able to support both staff. So increase the knowledge within the staff group around these areas. Really keep track of new developments that happen, and again, share that knowledge within the service. But also target resource on those young people that need additional support. There are then missing workers within the team, again, focused on young people that are going missing, that are due responsibility around return home interviews, and again, having a real focus specialism around that cohort that can build those relationships with some young people or have a small cohort of young people that regularly go missing, and the opportunity to develop those relationships and have dedicated workers that can respond quickly, I guess is one of the purposes of that. And again, we obviously have a number of social workers within the team to think about some of the statutory role of the service. And one of our developments that we're hoping to do as part of the Pathfinder is really think about some of the physical health needs of some of the young people. Some of them might not be fully accessing education or find it difficult to access a number of universal services. So how do we think opportunities to do that differently? So some of the issues they might have or could be around emotional well-being, sexual health, but other things such as sleeping and the impact that I can have on their behaviour and other areas around that. At the end of the report, it talks about some of our other developments. Another key one is thinking about within our youth justice service. So positively, we've talked about a reduction in crimes committed by young people and a reduction in a number of young people committing those crimes. Alongside that, we've invested in our prevention offer. So thinking about how we can be involved earlier for those young people that are a risk of being first-time offenders within the criminal justice system. And using our experience and our partnership working with partners to really think about how we can support those. So that team has a small team of youth workers and practitioners with their health and well-being focus as well as education colleagues, again, to really target that resource. So we have seen a reduction. And again, it's always difficult to say we were invested in prevention and we've seen a reduction. But we have done that and that's something that's seen nationally where areas are invested in prevention, preventative services have gone on to see a reduction. And I guess that we want to maintain that as a focus moving forward. Just a couple more I wanted to pick out. We've invested in a loud mouthful, I know a couple of members of this committee have attended with me to see some of those. So this is an education and training support session through theatre that we've delivered in a number of schools across the county. So just within the last year, over 13,000 children through about 140 sessions. What saw our theatre production and then workshops or question and answer following that on a number of areas that included looking at child exploitation, knife crime, county lines, harmful sexual behaviour and internet safety. And again, that's for a range of ages. And that's continuing into this financial year. And finally is thinking about that contextual approach. So we really want to think about communities and how we drill down. So instead of that countywide approach, how do we get involved earlier and understand those local needs and work with partnerships to think about collectively. So whether it's colleagues from the county council, children's social care, education, if it's health colleagues, if it's colleagues from districts and boroughs, community and community safety, local policing, specialist policing around this area. As well as education colleagues from such as safeguarding leads from schools and other partners really drill down on local issues and how we can think about how we respond collectively. And who is the best agency or who are the best agencies to respond. And again, it's an earlier opportunity for us to collectively identify concerns and think about how we can respond on a local way and have a system and a mechanism to draw that information information together. I'm more than happy to answer any questions. And it comes to the calculator or recording the offending. Is there any repeat offending mentioned, do you have any numbers for that? Yes, so our reoffending rate is in here. We're currently just about to meet our annual youth justice plan, which will follow into the council schools processes over the next few months. What we found with our reoffending is that overall the reoffending rate is reducing. But what we're seeing is less young people, but that smaller group reoffending more, if that makes sense. So we're reducing the number of people that are going on to reoffend, but they're going on to, you know, the more persistent offenders. Lovely, thank you. It was a great report, great work. Just one little thing for me, it's acronyms and things. On the fast bit, you mentioned SWs and FSWs, which I picked up from your report. You actually mentioned what those were, I think support workers and family support workers. So if this is for anyone except you guys, then don't use those. And just for my interest on the serious violence background characteristics, the bar graph. I think the top one, boys, is this the wrong way round? It says 18% victimization rate and 17% perpetration rate. Page 78, the very top bar looks to be the wrong way round. That would suggest that most offenders and victims are female. It's a useful point, it's when I reflected on just before I presented this morning. I think it may be wrong. What we know, particularly from a Warwickshire perspective, is all our serious violence events over the last year. Our males, if we think about the youth population and custody, the vast majority are males. So yeah, I think it's perhaps a mistake. It's about the gender of the victim. Is that what you want? Yeah, so the other thing is obviously the figures are so similar. The numbers are similar, the percentages are similar. Are they the same people, or are they different people? Yeah, and I guess I probably didn't expect anyone. So often they are within the same group. They have similar needs. So many young people will be, some young people will be both a perpetrator and a victim. And that's what you'll see. So we talk about the most violence involved in life by a young person. The vast majority of victims are another young person. So it's those similar factors, such as drug use, earlier involvement in crime, not attending school, that also increases your likelihood to be a victim, as well as potentially to commit a crime. So just to just ask one of the questions that links to the second one, and similarly, I couldn't make sense of those figures because you would expect 82% to be male, 83% to be male based on what you've just said. But cutting down into the Warrockshire scenario where you describe 100% being male and picking back on your last answer where you said very often perpetrators and victims are within the same cohort. This implies to me, this is a national picture that we're picking holes in, if you like, and you're describing a local picture, but it suggests that through in understanding their characteristics, the gender, their age, their behaviors, we should be able to spot them in Warrockshire, find them, and then intervene. Is that true? Do we do that? And is that where we see results, or is there more that we could do in that regard? There are a few bits there. So we are much better able to understand those at risk of going on to offend all to be commit serious violence. So as well as some of these measures, we know, and we recently reviewed this within our own cohort of young people within the Youth Justice Service, as that many of them have been present in homes where domestic abuse has been present and a number of other factors. And I guess when we've thought about how we develop our teams or investment in prevention, we've thought about what are the professional skills that develop those needs that we need to best respond to to young people. So we've got youth workers because we want people skilled in engaging what can be hard for us to, you know, it will be more difficult for us to engage with some of the young people in this cohort, a comment that kind of shouldn't picked up this morning with around. So having youth workers that are skilled within that area to do that. We also highlight when we think about our contact with schools around the support we offer them, we highlight a number of areas that we think that we would best be able to support in. So again, it's hard to say, because these factors will definitely mean that you're gone, but actually it's those kind of highlights that we think actually, if we can come in and do some earlier intervention that we will make a positive difference. So it's having a really good understanding of this and thinking about how we make sure that our support and intervention at the earliest possible is available. But I wouldn't say we're targeting groups within the county, but we're making sure that our services and our support and our education training to partners kind of highlights and recognize those opportunities. Okay, thank you. And I understand the clarification. Thank you. Yeah, just just to clear up the issue on the data, 51% of respondents were boys of those 18% identified themselves as victims and 17% identified themselves as perpetrators of violence. The equivalent figures for girls are 15% as victims and 13% as perpetrators. Thank you mind is linked to gender actually. So my question is, are many of the victims at what's the percentage. I think more clearly sorry what's the gender percentage in terms of victims. I personally don't hold a percentage, but I'm sure we could find that anecdotally from being involved for a number of years in this area is the majority of victims are also males. I just wondered if it would be a different if your approach would be different because the nature of the attack might be different. I don't know how significant that is. Obviously it can't be that significant if you've not got the details. But it's just a question that I thought might have an interesting answer. More generally we work with females within the service very differently. We know from research and from experience that the support and areas need a very different to the cohort of males within the service. So example we have developing a girls group within the service to think about actually it's often around identity and the earlier support and how we can kind of support and develop that. This is, again, although it's a really small number of young girls that we're working with actually working in a very different way to meet those needs. Thanks, that's helpful, thank you. I was just looking at the numbers here, North Waritzer. I wonder if it's to do with the ball game on Shrove Truesboot because you can knock each other about for free there and a place of watch and let you do it. And that's making a bit of a joke there. But my impression of living in North Waritzer that the number would normally be the same as an average of all the others. It seemed a lot lower than I personally anticipated. Thank you very much presentation, so moving on to number seven, Waritzer Education Strategy for 2024-2029 presented by Rachel Jackson Head of Education Strategy and Transformation. This report will be considered by Council in July. Thank you, Chair. Okay, so the report you've got in front of you is an update on the development of our education strategy. As the Chair has said, the strategy will run from 2024 to 2025. It's included in Appendix A of your papers, and it also includes a strategic pipeline of an outline and a range of additional support and strategies. So the strategy has been in development for just over a year. It's been informed by a wide range of consultation with children and young people, parents and carers, schools, professionals that work within the County Council and external colleagues. It outlines four priorities, and I'll take you through those very quickly. So the first one is best start that is focused on early years, which is early years entitlements, and the sufficiency of early years places, both making sure that parents and carers are aware of them and are aware of their entitlements, but also working with the market around early years providers to ensure that they're aware of what they are required to do, and there are a sufficient number of places within Waritzer to fill the need. The second priority is around send an inclusion. We've obviously heard a lot about that this morning. This is around ensuring that we've got the most appropriate provision. Can you hear me? I'm not so long. Sorry. I thought I cut out. It's around the inclusion of children and young people within that send space, but it's also ensuring that we're meeting our statutory duties. The third priority is around sufficiency and admissions, so this is the sufficiency of school places, ensuring that we've got the right number of school places within Waritzer in the right places, and also ensuring that our admissions process continues to be streamlined and fit for purpose and meets the needs of our families within Waritzer. And then the final priority is around the strong system, so recognizing that we are a systems leader within the education service. Our position has changed over the years in terms of statutory duties. Obviously, we've talked about the wide range of education provision within the county, but we still wish to place ourselves as a strong strategic leader within the county. And not forgetting that whilst we are working with education providers, we also need to work across the broader system. So this is health and social care, recognizing the challenges that our young people face within Waritzer, around mental health and school avoidance. In addition to that, it's looking at where we can link in with the council's corporate approach to create opportunities, looking at educational disparities, and working in those areas, the lower super top areas where we know that there are challenges there as well. And then in addition to that, it's working with economy and skills in terms of our post-16 provision. So they're the four priorities. In terms of the overall strategy, it's bolstered by what we've called a strategic pipeline. So the strategic pipeline outlines a number of supporting strategies that will go into kind of a bit more granular detail around those particular areas, and you'll see them outlined in Appendix B for your information. It will be supported by a delivery plan for 2024-25. We'd like to be able to bring an update back to this committee, maybe in six months time in terms of what that looks like, and keep you posted on that. So in terms of our next steps, as we've said, it's already gone to cabinet. They've endorsed it. It's going forward to four council on the 23rd of July, and then following that, we'll be looking at launching that and implementing the strategy moving forward. Thank you. Anybody got any questions? Thank you. Again, really, really positive stuff. Very good results. Some questions. So one, okay, so some comments. First comment is that we get the stats on how many of our schools are good or outstanding, which looked fantastic, but I'd like to see that in relation to sort of our regional competitors or whatever. As well, if we're ahead, and especially on our special schools, because that was a lower number, and I'm just wondering if that's across the border, if there's a reason for that, or if actually that's quite good too. That's it, actually. Thanks. So in terms of performance, we are also implementing a wide performance management framework within education to be able to look at all the different performance indicators of which where we have the ability to, we will be doing comparisons against our statistical and our regional neighbours. In terms of attainment and kind of offstead rating, that will be reflected in more detail in our emerging school effectiveness strategy that my colleague Lea Radons is doing, and I think at some point she'll be coming to this committee to share more information on that as well. I mean, do you have any sort of figures or knowledge about that 80% figure on the special schools being good and why that's 80 and everything else is 92? Oh, so those are the offstead judgments that have gone in. I think the majority of the academies, and so we'll be working closely with the Region Schools Office about how we can support them to get back to where they need to get. So each offstead outcome has specific reasons for why they didn't get to get to good or better and we work closely with the schools on a bespoke basis. Tim? Yeah, a couple of points of a note. I might have missed it. I keep flicking through to see if I can spot it. Within the strategy, we talked a lot today about including young people's perspectives, views, ideas. I can't see that expressly stated unless I'm missing it. So forgive me if I am. That is what we strategically do. Do you mind answering that point first and perhaps I'll come to my second which is more specific? Yeah, sure. So one of the priorities that we've outlined in there is standing inclusion. So the inclusion framework will bring together some of that activity. In addition to that, what you haven't got is an outline of our delivery plan. Within our delivery plan, what we are working towards is ensuring that where we commission services for education and where we are delivering services for education. We have to be very keen on hearing children, young people's voices within that. So moving out of just the send and inclusion space, we'll be looking at the broader kind of feedback from children and young people around some of the services that they receive. So for example, we commission alternative provision. As an example, we'll be looking to glean the kind of experiences of children and young people as they use them that and kind of really embed that approach throughout all of our commissioning work. Thank you. If I come back professionally, I write strategies. So forgive me if I'm being slightly critical. I can see to a degree where what you've said is included within priority to send an inclusion. But the inclusion of children's voices, as you've just said, is actually a broader strategic point that covers everything and it doesn't explicitly say so within this high level strategy. That's my own observation. But let me leave that with you because points made. Second point, which is perhaps at the next level, down if I mind. And we heard from the young people earlier, I'm looking at priority one and priority two, which is where we say best start and send considerations, let's say. I picked up earlier that the young one young person said that the earlier and I think I'm writing saying that the earlier an understanding of the child's situation and needs is understood in their life. And the earlier any HCP is is provided. And so the earlier they get those interventions that can make the positive difference to them, the better. I have personal experience of this as a father of an autistic child, and she received the ex statement as it was in four and the ex statement as CPA stayed with her through to now 20 and so personal experience and says, yes, such a thing is true. As soon as you get in, as soon as you can make a difference, it is my anecdote reflective of your experience and is it possible for us to understand going forward whether you are able to make those interventions, particularly with regards to send early and whether that has a beneficial outcome. Of course. So as I mentioned, the within the you've got the first priority, which is around best start and within the strategic pipeline, you'll see in there, there's an early years integrated plan. So that integrated plan is just is exactly about that. It's about working with our partner agencies to be able to identify those children and people and families who might need that earlier level of development at an earlier period in time. So looking at the good level of development at particular ages, it will be reflected within this within this plan moving forward. So that is due to come online. I think towards the latter part of this year, but that will pull together a range of different kind of elements from health and social care and from early years, education kind of outcomes as well. Thank you. Following on from Council Sinclair's point, early years is a focus, but only 2% of county owned provision is early years is our ambition to invest further into that. So I think we've probably be opting for a mixed economy. We've got a range of early years providers that we work with. I'm not sure that there are any plans for us to build our own or create our own spaces. I'm not sure you want to add to that. So the strategy is so we've got over 600 providers at the moment that we work with. We will continue to play our facilitative and statutory role with those providers, but no plans to expand our own provision, but we work with our five no series across the county as well that play a key role in early years. Anybody else before I move on, no. Now we're going on to the Pathfinder delivery plan, which is John Coleman. Thanks, Chair. Afraid it's me again. I've got a couple of slides, hopefully coming up. No worries. No worries. Perfect. Thank you. So here this morning, well, it's afternoon, you know, here this afternoon to talk about the family's first for children, Pathfinder, if we could just go on to the next slide. So the Pathfinder is based around stable homes built on love. So in May 2022, an independent review of children's social care nationally was published, looking at and proposing a number of reforms for children's social care nationally. Alongside that there are a number of other reports that have been considered, including the child safeguarding practice review that looked to child protection, in particular, the matters of Alpha Labenia-Hoke use and Star-Pobson. So following that in February, 2023, the government published their response to both this review and others through their stable homes built on love strategy. And again, they consulted on how they could deliver that and to test and learn that that area, they developed a Pathfinder as a core element of their commitment to that strategy. So initially, there were three local authorities that were what we now call wave one, Pathfinder local authorities, the most local being Wolverhampton, but Dorset and Lincolnshire as well, were asked to take on the to be Pathfinder's at wave one and really to test and learn some of those reforms. And alongside that, there have been a number of other changes to how we look to develop and how we work as a system. So changes to working together. So our statutory guidance around safeguarding children, a national framework for children's social care and what collectively our outcomes should be working in this area and thinking about a kinship strategy and that approach moving forward. Next slide, please. So what the strategy was saying was to invest over two years to really lay the foundations to understand how these reforms could be delivered and what that scale would look like on a national basis by testing, testing the reforms in a few different local authorities. And it's based around six key pillars. So unlocking the potential of family networks are thinking about that wider support to families and how we can unlock and support and think differently around how we do that as a system. A significant changes to how our child protection system works, probably the biggest change to child protection in 30 years thinking about how how we work together, how we ensure that child protection is more multi agency when we get in the right resources and focus on the area. And having a real focus on support rather than the investigation and making sure that that child protection system is only used when it needs to be used, and we have that focus on support. A real focus on how we support social workers and think about that career framework to support that development of social workers and how we kind of recruit and retain social workers, and again thinking about that on a national footing. And a focus on family help so that's really thinking about again that vote that lens on support, rather than assessment or investigation, and how we can become involved earlier and make sure the system is relational with focus on strengths and really working on that. And I guess positively we've made some progress within where it's here by having that focus on restorative working by having lower numbers within our chart protection system, and a number of the areas we've started to make progress on the number of the areas the national reforms were asking for. And next slide please. So, as a pathfinder, there are a number of things that we are asked to commit to. And as part of the pathfinder process for those in wave one, we're selected and asked to be involved. We bid as a partnership so alongside the county council, police and health signed up to bid for us to have the opportunity to be involved at the earliest opportunity to better inform how this practice works to better inform how this will work within war it should, and that opportunity to access funding for us to deliver that often fundings greater at the beginning, and when it gets spread nationally, it might look slightly, slightly different. There are a real opportunity for us to test and learn and to inform those reforms, which will go on to impact all local authorities if planned over the next, over the next couple of years. So real focus on co-design and co-producing those reforms, and Shin briefly touched on this morning around how we're doing that so with some of our funding for this we've invested some additional resources within Shin's part of the service, have a real focus as well on those who have experienced within the child protection system, a focus on parents and carers and their experiences, again, to better inform how we make these reforms locally, thinking about how we make sure that we're more relational, so thinking about our system and perhaps the change of workers that may happen, the different assessments that might happen both in the community, and then if supports needed by the local authority, and how we can better improve that, so looking at how we minimize changes in workers, looking at having a lead worker that supports the family, and trying to have one assessment that moves with the family, so again reducing some of those system challenges that either nationally are in place or we've developed locally. And that's really about a focus of being able to tell the story once, that we have a welcoming system, and it's a real focus on support and thinking about protection only when we need to. So children's social care effectively have two functions, it's that support and how can we intervene when needed, but only getting that protection investigation space when we really need to. And then finally thinking about how we really improve that multi-agency safeguarding arrangements, so we have strong partnerships within where it's here, but actually how we go on to develop that and move that forward as we go on as part of this program. And next slide please. So the four key strands that we're focused in on are one multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. So that's really embedding some of those changes from working together and thinking about those opportunities for us to work differently collectively. So thinking about multi-agency learning, multi-agency training, how we better and effectively information share with partners that we have a county wide approach to some of those things around how we support families, and how we can kind of agree and move that forward. And it also strengthens the role of education at a strategic level. So traditionally the main partners have been police, health and social care as those lead safeguarding partners, but recognizing education more formally at that strategic level. Family help being a second pillar, so having a real focus on the right support at the right time, thinking about how we get that support locally and focused around communities that we develop. So we touched on some earlier, but a whole system approach to having a multi-agency multi-disciplinary teams, so we ensure we have the right support at the earliest opportunity that best needs the needs of children, young people or those families to make a difference. And that support is seamless, and I guess a real focus on support. In regards to child protection, it will be the developer of multi-agency child protection teams, which will have colleagues from police, health and education within them, and thinking about how we really think about what significant harm is so that decision making for whether it's child protection, how we intervene when we need to intervene, but look at other opportunities to divert from the system as needed. One of the other big changes is thinking about parental representation, and as looking at an advocacy approach in regards to the child protection system, so there is independent support for parents that are going through that child protection process. And finally, as family networks, a greater use of families, so we have a family group conference approach, but how do we expand that family group decision making to really help children and families that are within that family help child protection area. And as part of being a power finder, as part of our funding, we've got £600,000 to think about how we can work with families around their needs, their plan to support the engagement of that wider family. So thinking about what that looks like, and those opportunities to think about how children can live safely at home rather than coming into our care, and those are other opportunities to utilize that money. So they're the key areas of reform that we'll be doing over this financial year. Next slide, please. So we will be one of six local authorities that are wave two, we have just submitted our delivery plan. And that's currently with colleagues with the Department for Education, and we receive informal feedback this week, and then formal feedback by the end of this month about how we progress, but the feedback so far has been really positive on what we've put forward. And then over the rest of this period is implementing implementing those reforms. So we've got a high level delivery plan, but now thinking about listening to children or people listening to families, listening to our partners. We have a program team that has representatives from shinservice, a seconded police superintendent, colleagues from health, a head teacher, all within that service so it's a multi agency program team. So we can really think about how we go on to deliver this and make this the best approach we can. We have this year to utilize funding, and we are really focused with our partners that we make best use of the funding, and then think about how we ensure that that new approach is sustainable moving forward beyond that guaranteed funding that we have for this. So this financial year, hopefully that gives a an overview of where we are over the next two weeks we'll have confirmation on our delivery plan, and we'll move into implementation. And I'm sure that later stage will come back to this committee with more information about what some of those things that we're looking to do, and some of those timescales around around changes. Again, I'm more happy to answer any questions. Justin. It's so positive. It's a lovely day all around, actually. But just on one specific issue of, I think you mentioned parental support and having sort of like an independent parental voice as we have in other areas, I suppose. And I know it's incredibly difficult, probably always. But when you're dealing with a family and there's at least two sides, probably many more, and we, you have to make decisions, which someone is not going to be happy with. And I don't know how you can, how you can have a support group that that can deal with with that. Essential two two points of view, but I mean, obviously it would be useful, because, you know, it's so painful for everybody. I don't know. It's the sum work that you can do to support both, or whatever, both parents or all those involved in a situation, and it could be friends and grandparents and uncles, neighbors. I don't know how you offer that impartial support to every party, no matter what their role in the situation. So, I think it's a really interesting point, and goes with what I guess parents were talking about this morning as well, and I guess a couple of things really in what George has said, and then to answer your question specifically, I think the idea of this is that the family team that when a family come to children's services and need our support, then the idea is the family help team will have a family help practitioner, and that person will remain involved with that family throughout the time that they need our involvement effectively. Whereas at the moment, the experience of parents is very much and children, is that they will come into our service and, theoretically, because of the way that, not just in Warwick should, but actually across the country, children's services works, as it tends to be, you go to an assessment team, then you go to a support team, then if you child needs some early help support, you might go to the early help team, and if you go, if it's child protection, you'll go to the child protection team, you get my point, it kind of goes on like that. And so what ends up happening is that parents have to repeat their story multiple times, children have to repeat their story multiple times. So the idea of this approach that Josh McAllister sort of advocated from the national review is that the family help team should be where it should keep hold of that family, no matter what level of intervention they need. And effectively what you do is then bring together the other multi-agency workers, so domestic abuse workers, substance misuse workers, whatever that is needed to support that family. But you've still got the same person who's got a relationship with the family who's keeping hold of that family and holding that support. And that's really the fundamental principle of how this is going to work in the future, which is significantly different. So that means we need to move our teams around, about 500 staff in total in the County Council will impact upon in terms of there's no job losses or anything like that, but it will mean that we'll need to restructure ourselves very differently. So the experience should be that when you contact our front door, they won't just be looking at safeguarding issues, that will be a priority for them. Of course it will, it's not something we're going to lose, but actually it's about the support element. So it is about then how we can make sure we get you to the right team and your locality with the right support much quicker. So for example, thinking about outcomes at the moment, most of our assessments take 45 days to complete. We want to move that towards 10 days to complete. We want to, we need to reduce the number of strategy meetings that occur nationally. The amount of child protection investigations is significantly rising. But majority of those don't lead to a child becoming subject to a child protection plan. So it's thinking about how can we divert appropriately those families to get the support rather than investigation assessment. So it's a significant challenge and, you know, where it should effectively will be, will be testing and learning these new areas and these new approaches, which I think is going to be helpful. Because we don't get it right all the time, we really don't. And so this will help us to try and build a better system, I think, for our children. And then just in specifically the example that you gave, where there are perhaps significant disagreements between parents. We have a family group conference team, a family decision making team and effectively kind of actors, a facilitator to family meetings. Because families know the situation best. So we will have 17 practitioners who are just focused on that, which will help, I think, those, that team are also trained in mediation. So where there is disagreements between parents, they'll be trained mediators. So they'll be able to offer parents the ability to try to sit down and try to resolve the situation if there's disagreements. But those are the most difficult situations as well. So some of these changes, you know, such a significant change like this will create, it's not going to solve all the problems. And it won't, and it will probably create some new problems that we haven't thought about yet. But it will help, I think, in terms of families getting a better experience and feeling and stop them even around the system. Thank you. It's very reassuring. And I suppose I would like to hear more maybe in the future about how we can reduce the number of people who come into contact us with us in that situation, feeling alienated. So how family support or whatever can support individuals when they feel they're hard done by us as a council? Ten. Thank you. So, John, you mentioned there if I'm right in saying that it's a sort of single point of contact that then coordinates all the other points so that there's a almost a one stop shot kind of concept. A couple of questions then, in relation to that, if that point of contact is failing the parent in the parent size, how do they escalate and go beyond that single point. And if there's a person leaves, they now retain all that knowledge. How do we make sure they hand on to another person who's going to become that single point of contact in an effective way? So, absolutely, no system is ever perfect at all. I mean, I think in terms of some of the changes is that war structures have always had about a vacancy of about 50 social workers. There aren't enough social workers in England to fill all the roles that are required. And so, in war, actually, we've struggled to recruit to some of the roles that we need. In working together, what the statutory changes mean is that some tasks, not all, but some tasks that were only used to be able to be completed by a social worker can be completed by what we're calling, especially as qualified workers. So, someone who's got experience in working with families, but doesn't necessarily have to be a qualified social worker. They have to have a social worker to oversee their assessment. They have to have a social worker to oversee the plan for the child. But that will help us significantly in terms of retention and recruitment. So, we, just piloting this already, we've already looking to recruit 15, what we're calling, family support workers who will hold children in need and do some assessments with an oversight of a social worker. In the new structure, we're working on numbers and things, but we will significantly increase those numbers. So, we'll be able to recruit, when we've recruited to these types of roles before, as a family support worker, we've had teachers, police officers, housing officers, there's all sorts of people from different backgrounds, which are relevant, but they will work together and have to be overseen by a social worker. So, in terms of, you know, we can never stop everyone leaving, people will, there will be some churn, there will be some changes, but it will help us in terms of recruitment, retention to open up and open up the workforce, if you like, of who can complete some of the things that the County Council and have to do around children services, statutory basis. In terms of, a lot of this is about information sharing, if you go back to what George said right at the beginning, around the tragic situations that have occurred in other areas, is that, and actually some of the things we talked about this morning about communication, it is about people make agencies holding on to different pieces of information and how you bring that together in a really efficient, timely way, so that we get a full picture of what's happening for children, not just kind of the social workers got some information from the County Council, school have got some other police, you know, other agencies having a multi-agency team that are co-located together, working together have access to the same information on their multiple systems that might exist. That is what the objective is, is to try and pull this together, so that, and actually that group, just by putting people together doesn't mean to say that it's going to work, you know, it will work better, but actually it's also then about how we challenge each other, about hypotheses of need, hypotheses of risk that we have, and making sure that we're building that into that system as well, and that was one of the key recommendations from the reviews, rather than the agencies working in silo, actually bringing them together in multi-agency locality teams so they understand what's happening and can share information and work together to support children in the best possible way. Thank you, that's all interesting, it doesn't quite answer for me, I'm sorry, either of my questions, can I just repeat them so that's clear, if a parent is unhappy with the support they're getting from that focal point, how do they escalate, that's the first question, the second question is when that person retires after 50 years working with us, whatever, when they leave, how do we ensure an effective handover to their next person that's going to take over, thank you. Yeah, thank you, answer some of the points but I missed the first bit, in terms of escalation, you know, there is an escalation process, so parents absolutely can be speaking to the team manager for the social worker, if they don't feel that they're getting the right support, that can escalate up to the service manager and further if it's needed to be, and if they don't feel that, you know, there's a resolution of course there's a complaints process around that as well, which also has various different stages. So there are escalations in place around that, and we will also review some of those things ourselves, you know, as we talked about earlier on some of the young people talked about, some of the relationships don't always work, there's not necessarily a click between the parents or the young people and the practitioner, we're open to that, so we will, if it's, you know, in the best interest of everyone, look to change a social worker or a family support worker, so there is that option as well, it's not, we're not just saying, you know, you're stuck with the same person forever, we will absolutely review and consider that in both parts, one for our workforce and their wellbeing and also for the family. And then in terms of transfers of information, it is about having the same system, so we've got our Mosaic case recording system, the objective is that the multi-agency teams will all be recording on that system, so it's on the same computer system, because at the moment we've got different systems in different places, and one of the things that we've recently done, which seems a really simple thing but actually has had an impact as well, is to make sure that we've really clear transfer summaries in place, so make sure that if one person does leave or retire, that there is very clear transfer of information about what we're doing, why we're involved and what's happened. Chronology is something that we hold, so one of the things that there's been a big kind of focusing this in Warwick should put a nationally about how do we rather than families repeat information, how do we draw together a chronology of the work that we've done with the family, what we know about the family, and what does that tell us and that analysing that chronology about the experiences with the child, what we've tried before, what's worked, what hasn't worked and then that might indicate about actually what we can do in the future to support a family. So the use of transfers, chronologies, and that multi-agency teams is critical to that sharing of information. So John, I talk about multi-agents in it, do you ever use an externally, and I'm thinking of social side of things for example, and I'll go back to Avison, you've got Avison Rangers for example, 23 teams, police, sadly Sunday, it's 500 kids involved with other, and the one which I never thought would happen, and it's anecdotal, there's a couple of families, quite with violent issues, and they sign up for the boxing club, run by the police, so there's these kids from a violent family working with the police who have then turned into actually mentors for other children. So you take children and come from a violent family, not the teaching to defend yourself, just the discipline of boxing and things like that, so it's outside the organisation, but it may be that these other groups become a family and some respect. And in just Avison area alone, you're talking hundreds of kids involved in all sorts of other things that takes them away from pressure to the family, so how does the week you work with them? I'll start and George can come in, I'm really glad you raised that, one of the things that I think sets us apart in our application to the DFEs, that we wanted a work stream about community and voluntary organised. We wanted a work stream that was very much about community and voluntary organisations, about how we can utilise those types of links, as you say, actually the solutions don't all come from the counter-cance or within the family, utilising those local links, those community, the opportunity for young people to volunteer, the opportunity for them to engage in extracurricular activities is really critical, and that is one of the work streams about social prescribing, for example, is something that's very well defined in adult services in particular, but it's not so much in children's services about what are the other things that you could do in your local community to help you with some of those things. I don't know if there's anything you want to add, George? I think the only thing I'll add is, I guess that's the reason why we want to focus the changes on localities, communities, so we have the greatest understanding of what's happening within those areas, what are the resources and how we can work better with the third sector than perhaps we do currently, less handoffs, more warm handovers and support with people that have got a better understanding perhaps on what's happening in that local area, so I guess that's our ambition with the change. Can I just add one more thing, I mean one of the things we've also heard about the youth fund earlier on, it's over, I think it's 120,000 pounds of a youth fund, and it's trying to target particular youth organisations to apply for particular funding, and one of the things that we've been using that for is actually how do we support groups like that, one to keep going, how do we, because funding is often an issue, but also how do we support them to target particular issues, like how do we train them in mental health issues, support, rather than going to rise or comes, and those types of services, how do some of those voluntary organisations address some of the issues around exploitation or domestic abuse and how they understand that, so how we can utilise those coaches, those youth workers in a different way as well, I think that's a really important area we'd like to develop further. Thank you. Right, I'm going to wind you up before one o'clock comes, so thank you very much for that presentation, we're going to just go through the plan, we've got our plan for the 16th of July, so we've got to do the approval update of the local code of conduct in relation to school attendance, school efficiency strategy, commissioning arrangements for children in care, and children's short breaks and respite approval tender, so that's a July the 16th. I think that's enough. So, just in quickly. Yeah, I just like something added at some point as soon as as soon as possible. What email? Yeah, yeah. I've spoken about that and that's sort of going through the channels that I said. Okay. Okay. So instead of bringing it out here, it's got to go through the channels that I said. Okay, cool. All right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. So, is there, that's great because I that if it goes through that way, I get there quicker. You'll get the answer quicker. Any other business? Any other business, any other business, any other business, any other business. No, the date of the next meeting is the, well, that says July and then that's cabinet. Oh, that's cabinet. Sorry. 17th of September. 17th of September is the date of the next meeting 10 o'clock here. Thank you, everybody. And your presentations were fantastic. You