The meeting covered several key topics, focusing on the challenges and initiatives related to children's services, particularly around fostering and career guidance for young people.

Fostering Challenges and Initiatives

The council discussed the significant challenges in providing family care experiences for children in need. They highlighted a shortage of foster carers, particularly for children with complex needs due to abuse, trauma, and separation. Over the past two years, there has been an increase in children under 12 requiring residential care due to a lack of available family carers. The council outlined three options for family care: connected persons (relatives or friends), mainstream foster care, and independent external foster care. Despite efforts, the recruitment of new foster carers has not kept pace with the loss of existing ones, primarily due to retirements and other reasons.

To address these issues, the council has introduced specialist foster carers who can earn £1,000 a week for caring for children with challenging behaviors such as self-harm or violence. This initiative aims to recruit and convert existing foster carers into specialist roles. The council is also working with Empower, a consulting firm focused on local government, to identify opportunities for children in residential settings to transition to family placements and to strengthen foster care recruitment and retention.

Career Guidance and Education

The council's Inspiring Worcestershire program, led by Jude Ditz and Matt, aims to provide structured career guidance to students in high schools. The program is not about giving individual career advice but about guiding schools to implement a structured framework and providing resources and events to connect students with employers. The program has been successful, with Worcestershire moving from the bottom three to the top three in terms of career guidance effectiveness.

The program includes various initiatives, such as the Worcestershire Skills Show, which had 3,000 young people from 28 schools attend this year. The council also runs a primary school careers program and a teacher encounter program to help teachers understand the importance of embedding career guidance into their curriculum.

Social Work and Future Workforce

Daniel Gray discussed the council's efforts to engage with potential future social workers. The council has partnered with Worcester Sixth Form College to run pilot engagement events, providing students with a window into the world of social work. These events have been successful, with positive feedback from students and the college. The council plans to expand these engagement opportunities to other sixth forms and colleges across Worcestershire.

Financial and Policy Considerations

The council acknowledged the financial constraints and the need for continued funding to support these initiatives. They highlighted the importance of demonstrating the impact of their work to secure future funding. The council also discussed the challenges of retaining careers advisors and the potential need for a more structured approach to career guidance within schools.

Future Agenda Items

The council plans to discuss the impacts of bringing children's services back in-house and the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Ofsted inspection at the next meeting. They also plan to explore the impact of screen time on young people's mental health and the pressures on schools to meet various educational and pastoral needs.

Overall, the meeting highlighted the council's proactive approach to addressing the challenges in fostering and career guidance, while also acknowledging the financial and policy constraints that need to be managed.