Transcript

[BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] Good morning and welcome to this meeting of the Kirkley's corporate parenting board held on Tuesday the 23rd of April in Huddersfield Town Hall. So can we start off the meeting please with apologies for absence? So apologies received from Councillor Andrew Cooper, Councillor Karen Allison, Vicki Meathering, Keith Fielding and Georgine from the Kirkley's Foster Network.

Thank you very much. Minutes of the previous meeting, are people with contempt with those? Do you want to thank you? I'm neither down as attending or apologies. I was present so if the minutes could reflect that chair please. Indeed, we'll have those amended. Subject to that amendment of people, we content that they're a proper record. Is anybody willing to propose? Councillor Lawson, second that. Okay, John Sanders, thank you very much. Declaration of Interest is the standard thing that if anybody has a pecuniary interest that requires to be declared, please complete the form in the pack and make sure that Georgie has it by the end of the meeting. This meeting is held in public, there are no items that are not available to the public meeting. Deputations and petitions? No, I'm received. Thank you very much. So we then move swiftly on to item six, which is Head of Service Update. And I believe that's over to you, Joel, for that. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. I'll just bring up a short presentation that I've done as always for this item. A bit of a like, sorry. Okay, it's just a short update because there's a further agenda item that will also set out some of the progress that's been made on some of the work in our corporate parenting services. Just trying to move forward, there we go. So, yeah, as always, I update the board. This is a shorter turnaround board. We only met last month, so much of the work that I reported on there is still ongoing. For the purposes of updating this board, in between the last corporate parenting board and today, we've had a return visit from Mark Riddell, who the board will remember visited the services for our caliving services to review those. We've got a little bit more work going on in relation to protected characteristics, and we had quite a longer agenda item at the last board to discuss what that means and how we can realize some of that. And then we've been furthering our work with housing. So, just on each of those points, and as always, I'll send out the slides so that people can have the detail on those updates. But in short, Mark Riddell, the board will remember, came to visit our services and do an assessment on invite, I have to say. We asked him to, as you'd expect, we're really keen to learn from best practice and Mark's role within the Department for Education, is to advise ministers on policy changes in the centre, but also to go out and advise services on areas of best practice and improved practice. Visits a lot of authorities across the country and is therefore able to share other people's experiences and best practice as well. And we're, like many others, borrow with pride and also are prepared to share what we do. When he came to the services, he reviewed, did a desktop review at first, so he received all our policies and processes. He then undertook a two day visit, meeting groups of managers, partners, care leavers, care experience, young adults, and our services. And then gave us an appraise of some of his observations and some of our areas where he felt that we could strengthen and improve things on. And that's been the feature of those past six months of conversation at these boards, specifically around governance and within a gender item, further to look at the result of us turning some of his recommendations, as well as our own observations and our own assessment into some recommendations for this board. It was extremely complimentary of the work that's been done, which was really positive to note. He has said that he will follow this up in a formal letter. So we got, as after his first visit, he wrote formally to us to set out his areas that he felt that we could strengthen. He's had the areas that he's acknowledged that we've progressed quite rapidly in his view and put swift actions in place to address. He said he'll write formally to us to acknowledge those as well. We keen to get that quite quickly, so we've asked him to send that letter preferably before our visit from Offstead, because actually it's really important that we're able to demonstrate that work at having been assessed and considered outside ourselves as well. But it was really positive feedback. Key areas that he highlighted, and there's just a few here, because it was quite a long conversation, and then I chased him down to the bus. So I walked him back to the train station to bend his ear a bit more about what we want from the centre, essentially. And he bent mine about buying his book for every care lever that we've got in Kekley's. But he was really impressed by the morale of the workforce that he met six months ago. He said that caseloads were reported to him to be high. Staff were feeling under a lot of pressure because they felt like they were battling for an advocate for care levers, and he sensed a shift in that. And I met yesterday with the team managers from the service just to have a conversation with them about how it's really useful to take that feedback over a period of time, because we don't notice it because it's incrementally day by day. And it's good when somebody comes back and says, Oh, you've lost weight, or whatever it might be. And his comments were really positive in that respect. Really impressed by the way that the council has prioritised this agenda following, not because of his visit, but in sequence with the work that we're doing, supported by his visit. And obviously, a key symbol for that was the protected characteristics that the council adopted in February, so that was really positive. So, yeah, a good visit, I think. Tom, you were in the feedback, I don't know if you want to add anything. Thanks, Joel. Yeah, just to say, I mean, it was a really positive visit from Mark, I didn't introduce myself. Tom Brels with Kirkley's DCS. And I think, overwhelmingly, he was just really impressed with the amount of change and the scale of change we'd managed in seven, with its seven months, Joel, I think, six months. Obviously, still more to do, but actually the philosophy and everything we're doing is going in the right direction, also really impressed with the corporate support, you know, the protected characteristics through full council, but also executive leadership team, taking a really active role. We also discussed some individual cases where we'd been able to unblock things on a corporate level and move things forward for our children and young people. So, overall, really positive. And I also think the thing that we potted out to Mark, and I'll say formally for the board, is thanks to Joel, Lauren and the team, really, because they're working night and day, I think it's fair to say, to really improve things for our care leaders. So, a big thank you to Joel and the team, as well. Thanks. And so, the next update is just on protected characteristics, and we've had some conversation around this. And nationally, there's an ongoing conversation in local authorities as to how you realise it. So, there's a momentum built after the Josh McAllister's review of children's services, and in that Josh made a recommendation that that position was put forward and asserted by government. It wasn't adopted by government, and since then, I think over 90 local authorities have now moved to recognise that. There's a difference in that that Josh recommended, in that that would have given equality under legislative route through the bringing in care experienced adults to the Qualities Act as legislation. So, there is a limit to what local authorities can do in terms of that part, but we have acknowledged that we will care proof our policies and procedures, decisions that we make in the council. We will weave into our officers reporting in for decisions from executives that there is a recognition under our equality impact assessment, part of those reports for care leave specifically. And I guess one of the things that I've definitely seen that we've benefited from is it's raised the profile and the conversation, and that was critical because the conversation is really about, I think, showcasing and highlighting the disadvantage and stigma of adults that grow up in care still today in 2024. And that's now a conversation that I'm certainly seeing a lot of incur clays, corporate parenting is being discussed more and more. And as we move on to the papers later in the agenda, we'll see the range of not just people accepting invites, but the people actually inquiring to see what they can do and how they can support this work. And lastly, there's a national conversation that Terry Galloway, who's a campaigner, and if you googled Terry and the Careleavers website, you can see he ranks all the local authorities in the Careleaver offer in terms of which local authority offers which. And it's quite a useful website, actually, to self-reference, because you can compare yourself to any council in the country and see whether you've got things like Council Tax Wave till 25, which we have, whether you've got protected characteristics for Careleavers, which we have, whether you have access to housing support, or all of those things, and benchmark. But Terry's been a campaigner for protected characteristics, and he's hosting this national conference, it's an online conference. We've got representatives going to that conference from Careleaver, so this Lauren, who's in the board meeting today is going to that meeting. And one of their guest speakers is Josh McAllister, so they're aiming to further the conversation to say, How can we make protected characteristics go even further? So that's a really positive for us as well. We're glad to be part of it. And then the last update from me, and as I said, they've limited this report because you're going to receive some information from colleagues around other work that's going on in under corporate parenting, but we have now signed off between ourselves and housing. Our joint working protocol that advances the ability for care experienced young people to start to plan and seek independent living through the priority letting arrangements earlier. And although we might want to go further than 12 weeks, we have to recognise that actually the preparedness for young people moving into independent accommodation is something that we need to focus on, and we're doing a lot of work with that in the service and with our partners. So we've got a program of independent living skills alongside our tenancy ready program that's been developed by the Care Living Service with support from Huddersfield Town Foundation Trust. And also there is a really significant challenge ahead for Kirkley's in relation to the volume of appropriate voids in our accommodation that we have available for single or dual letting for care levers. So in recognition of that, we're working with third sector social landlords and charity status housing associations to see if we can work directly with them in identifying appropriate accommodation so that the Care Living Service can identify accommodation early and appropriate for care levers to move into and we can support them to move into that in a timely way from wherever they might be coming from. Our other efforts, of course, are where we've got care levers, children in care that are living in foster care is to support the continuation of those arrangements through staying pot arrangements. And that's sometimes the right thing to do for young people, but it isn't always. And of course, in some ways, it's a perversed double-edged sword for us because when we do that, we then lose a foster care as well and we are in desperate need of foster care. But if a young person has lived with a foster career and they wish to remain in the foster careers, sees that in person's part of the family and extends that into staying pot, then we would always move to support that. That's the update, as I said, there's more to follow from others, so. Thank you very much, Joel. Anybody got any questions or comments on that? No, at heartening to hear the response, you know, from that second visit, that's really good. And I did see the online conference, and if I hadn't been busy with other things this week and next week, I would have been joining that, but I decided not. But it's good that we've got somebody joining in with that and feeding back at home, I'm sure they will. Thank you very much for that, Joel. Can we therefore move to item seven, please, the independent digital scheme update? And I believe that's Lucy Fernway and Sarah Miles. Over to you. Hi, Lucy Fernley, team manager for curating and safeguarding, and I currently oversee the independent visitor service. I'm not going to read through the full report because it's in the papers, but I'll just pull out some of the main points if I may. So our independent visitor scheme is also known as care-to-listen. It provides independent adult volunteers to defend children and young people in the care of the local authority, and they undertake activities to support the development of a positive relationship with a trusted and responsible independent adult. We currently have 22 active volunteers, of which three have availability for new matches, and we've got five volunteer applicants in the recruitment process. Of our current cohort, most independent visitors are female in the living care clays and their age ranges from 31 to 70. We've got quite a wide variety. We have 21 young people matched with independent visitors, and they're aged between 12 years old and 20 years old, and again, the majority are female. The large majority of our current young people matched, 19 of those, have been matched successfully with their independent visitor for over a year, and I think our longest match is about 10 years. There's currently 23 young people and children on our waiting list to be matched with the volunteer, and they're aged between the age of 9 and 16 years old. 11 of those young people live out of area, and some live a significant distance away, which is one of our complicating factors when we're looking at matching. A third of the children and young people on our waiting list have additional needs, such as ADHD, autism, communication difficulties, and/or physical disability, and for other young people waiting to be matched, it's recognised they would benefit from a cultural match for their independent visitor, and a small number of children and young people have shared a preference in relation to age and gender of the independent visitor who they wish to be matched with, and again, that's a further complicating factor when we're looking at our cohort of volunteers. So, in terms of recruitment, we have actively advertised for volunteers for the scheme in January this year, and as a result, we've got five applicants in the recruitment process at the minute. Our plan's in the short term. We're looking to progress the matches for the children that are ready. In the longer term, we need to review our advertising and marketing strategies so that we can do some targeted recruitment for the service. So thank you, if you've got any questions, happy to answer them. Thank you very much for that. Any questions or comments? Council Lawson. Thank you, Chair. It just occurs to me looking at the age range of the children in care in the report that, is it the situation that we have at the moment that people go kind of through the experiencing care, inter-care leaving, without having an independent visitor? Our children are matched from a young age, and some of them will go through their care experience and into them being a care-leaver. So for some young people and children, their match may be for a shorter period of time, because it's also young person-led. For some young people, it goes right through into care-leaving and up until 21, 25 years old. So it can span their range of experience. Oh, thanks for the explanation. That's really useful. I'm just trying to pluck at straws here about the different targets we could target. We had a lot of Councillors this year, stepped down. Perhaps that's something that we could approach, but I'd be very interested to hear more about the marketing approach when that comes forward. We could update with regard to the marketing approach later in the year once we've worked with the volunteer in the equipment service. Yes, thank you. Sorry, you went to Quinn. Just when Zoe shares the fostering diagnostic visit report, she'll be sharing that it's foster care a fortnight. In a few weeks' time, and one of the plans is not just to recruit foster careers, but we're also including the independent visitors in some of those plans as well, so we're trying to double up in our approach. Thank you for that. Yes, Councillor CANDRIK. Thank you, Councillor CANDRIK. Councillor CANDRIK, a current law service director for resources, improvements and partnerships. Thank you, Anna. I was going to just highlight foster care of Fortnite and the kind of the joint commitment to recruitment. I think it's important to mention as well that we've got colleagues that work very closely with the two services in relation to our emotional well-being services as well. And as Lucy identified, we've got a number of young people that have additional needs such as ADHD, autism, for example. And I think it's really important that we make sure that we include within our recruitment and also with those that are currently supporting us with those independent visits, that they have the right skills and that we utilize some of that cross kind of service, skill and training or orientation to some of that skill. Thank you very much for that. It just struck me while you were talking, it's great to advertise and it's brilliant that you've got positive responses. It's very obvious that we're short of male volunteers, as well as shorter volunteers in general. It just struck me whether there's a connection with some of the work that's being done around care leavers and those partnerships, you know, those wider partnerships about being corporate parents, whether, you know, Council Lawson's coming to about, Council's stepping down that are always in every year, officers of the Council who retire. But there will also be that in other organisations that we're linking with throughout for care leavers. So perhaps, you know, part of the strategy might include that targeted approach and how that can be developed. I think that might be a positive thing. Thank you very much. Are we all happy with that one? Thank you very much for that report, then. We move there for onto item eight, please, which is a meteor item, I think. And I'm going to hand over to Joel Hannah to do the terms of reference for the board. This is looking at future terms of reference, draft terms of reference. For the future of the board. So over to you, Joel. Thank you, Councillor Kendrick. So I'm aware that people will have had the papers that were circulated and I don't plan to read through either the headline report that's planned for the corporate governance and audit committee pending the outcome of this discussion and decision, nor the terms of reference that you've got that are attached. Say to say that the revision of the terms of reference is something that we've been discussing at the board for quite a while in order to ensure that we can broaden the partnership primarily from us. I think that the terms of reference, the draft terms of reference that you have proposed, we're also shared with Mark Rodell following his specific feedback around governance arrangements for the board to ensure that they chan with his observations from good practice from local authorities in terms of corporate parenting boards and corporate parenting arrangements. And therefore, they've, I'm assured that what we're proposing is consistent with what he regards as good practice from other areas. It is a different arrangement for the board. There is a proposal within the terms of reference that we move to providing a more structured supportive board as well as our scrutiny role. But the addition, and I think at the last board meeting in last month, the comments from both Tom, the director of children services, but also from Steve Morrison, the chief executive for the authority who attended the board, both identified the need for the board to retain a scrutiny function, but also identified that we have children scrutiny that provides that function. And therefore, a role for the board would be to galvanise and bring forward partners to help us in our efforts to improve the services and resources and the intention of delivering outstanding services for children looked after in care levers. So that's what the terms of reference are proposed to do. Fundamentally, I think the big shift for the board is to take it out of the constitutional structure in that it's no longer a public meeting, because essential to the board's membership, I would propose is the inclusion of care levers, children and young people able to attend and engage in the board and have a direct conversation. You'd be aware that since November, since I came into role, I'd be meeting with children and young people on a weekly basis in term time, and then feeling back the conversations to and from. We remember that the board did a big wave through the, because we're recorded and we're on YouTube that we could share back with the young people. So through that conduit, that's useful, but actually to the next level would be to have young people's voice and attendance and engagement at the board. And the other recommendation and embedded within the terms of reference is the graph that I will come on to later and a general item of the strategy, which identifies how the priorities are driven and reported to the board. And that in that strategy seek to assure the board that the terms of reference are still able to afford clear oversight of performance, distance traveled and any areas that we might want to draw attention to by exception. So other than that, I think it's open to comment and conversation for the report, if that's OK, Chair. Thank you very much, Joe. Anybody got any comments or questions about it? Tom and then Councillor LOS. Thanks, Chair, and I think, you know, obviously we're really mindful about taking the new board into a more private arrangement, but it's worth just pointing out as well as part of the terms of reference. We're suggesting a full report to our new old Council once a year to make sure that there's public scrutiny and public accountability of that route as well, Chair. It would still allow the Chair of Stroupley to come along and observe as well, wouldn't it, as such? Councillor Lawson. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, having read the report, the shift offers work on top of it. It offers us a chance to expand into a different space, which is very welcome, I think, and perhaps offers us a chance to sort of increase our productivity, if you want, just to pick up the pace a little bit on some of the changes we want to make, and that is very welcome also. I'm reminded that there are a lot of partners in the room when we're having these meetings. One of the risks is that it can get quite unwieldy when there are a lot of voices in the room, and I think the struggle will be to have the voice of the children kind of represented in a way that's meaningful for them as well, because it's one of those things, isn't it, with death by jargon in a room full of professionals can be very intimidating to anybody who's not familiar with it, never mind somebody who's young. Thank you for that. I know Councillor Smith's got his hand up, Joel, do you want us to hear him and then you'll come back with comments. So, over to you, good morning, Councillor Smith. Good morning, thank you. Yeah, I'm a little bit uneasy about taking this into a non-public facing session. Although, you know, we talked about sensitive people, if we're going to bring the children into the meeting, I absolutely recognise that it has to be considered. I just suppose that I'm just a little bit worried that this has always been, although we don't often see members of the public interacting with it, so, you know, have to recognise that as well. I just wondered whether, you know, this appears to be, you know, Kirkley's, Mark, and his own homeworks are an extent, and not being open and transparent. I could be wrong, but it's just a little bit worrying. Okay, I think that's a fair comment question, Councillor Smith. Tom, do you want to come back on that bit? Yeah, thanks, and thanks, Councillor Smith. I think it's worth noting for members, really, that our arrangement of holding our corporate parenting board in public is fairly out of kilter with lots of other local authorities. It's more normal to have a private arrangement. So, I do recognise your uncomfortableness with it, Councillor Smith, but I do think in terms of being able to have, particularly the child's voice and us represent that in a meaningful way. It's absolutely the right way forward, and as Councillor Kendrick said, you know, the chair of scrutiny, another observer can be invited to ward against, you know, any feeling that there isn't public scrutiny there as well. Also, as Joel's alluded to, a lot of the data that comes here, we're not going to stop that data coming, but actually, that is seen at children's scrutiny as well. So, there are other public forums where we will scrutinise the data, certainly. Thank you for that. Joanne, you wanted to come in. Thank you. Joanne Sanders, service director for learning and early support. I just think somebody who's been a board member, I think this will allow an evolution. We have to start somewhere, you know, we look 2015, I think the report says it's nearly a decade, and I suppose we've got very high ambitions for our youngsters, their outcomes, how, you know, progressing to care levers, attractions happened, how can, you know, we utilise the opportunity for that now to be shaped by the people who are receiving the service. I do think we are very open and transparent. I think we can use the children's scrutiny function to complement the data. The data is really important because that's about how much we have to invest in terms of services, but I do think, I mean, I'm really interested to see the opportunities for the wider partnership. We talk about trying to solve all our own problems at times, thinking about things like foster care as independent visitors. If we widen that partnership, actually, I think collectively, we can do better for our youngsters. So I'm really supportive of the approach. Thanks. Thank you for that. I'm just, is that a new hand comes to space or is it, have you left your hand hanging? I raised it again just to respond. I think that I'm pretty OK with what's just being said. And I think it was talking about the scrutiny panel. I'd be more worried, but I think I'm pretty, probably OK now. So that's all, thanks. Thank you. That's good to hear. So are we coming back to you, Joel, then, to pick up some other points? Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to go back to Council Lawson's point, because it's a really, really, it's a really astute observation and a really important point. And one I've got in my past experience, it takes some time to create an environment and a space where young people can engage meaningfully and not tokenistically. And actually, that's work for us to do as a board, but also work for me and others in the room to do with the young people in order to ensure that they know what it is that they're engaging with. I have seen it work well, and it works extremely well, and I may take six months to a year to get to that functionality, but actually having the ground laid is really important. The other point that you make around, because of the overwhelming size of the partnership, which is actually to our credit, because we've got so many people that want to engage, and such a broad range of partners. One of the conversations that we've been having with prospective partners in lieu of these changes may be coming and being adopted has been to what effect those partners might best play. And is that attending every board meeting, or is that coming in to be specific? So if you think we've got the Huddersfield University, you're very keen to be partners and to support the work of the board, and things like independent visitors and mentoring, they've already been offering mentoring, so linking those things up are acute spots, and there may be some other things that aren't naturally associated with the university that they could offer. But by and large, their conversation will be about our lifelong learning aspirations for our care levers, and it may be that when we have focused board meetings on that, those partners will come in, but work in the background in other areas as well. So I think there's some work to do to manage the administration of the board, so that what we haven't got is running out of time all the time, because everybody wants to have a conversation about an item, but actually the people with weight to shift that item are drowned out by volume. So I think that that's a really important point to raise. The second, just in addition to the points that have already been made about transparency, there is nothing wrong with having open minutes, and I think under, I'd be guided by governance experts, but under our obligations as a public authority, for freedom of information, our minutes will be collatable, as Tom has said, the intention is to report back to full council with an annual report on the work and progress of the board. Obviously that's a, you know, in a public space as well. So there are other opportunities. I am always conscious that when you propose something that removes something from the public domain, there's a degree of scepticism or concern as to why that might be. But on balance, in terms of drafting these terms of reference, I think having this as a meeting, as again as Tom said, as the majority of other local authorities do in a closed space, enables partners to have very difficult and sensitive conversations around how we engage and maximise the resource. So that's the point. Thank you for that, Councillor Lawson. No, that sounds, it's actually, when it comes off the paper like that, it sounds very exciting actually. I'm very, very worthwhile doing. Just a couple of points, really, one is about when would be an appropriate time to pause and reflect about how successful we're being, and how do we measure that, and what do we think is the measure of success, quite literally. You know what, how do we assess that? And I think the other one is not on a more flippant note. Can we have a jargon bust and buzzer or something like that? Which I wish I had had when I started Council, but if it was that, explain yourself, put that in plain English, please. I like the idea of the buzzer, do you want to comment further, Joel, on that? I think some of those points will be referred to in the next agenda item. Okay, thank you very much. For me, I absolutely understand that moving this meeting into a private meeting, and my expectation is that minutes would be available publicly and published on the website. Obviously, with anything that identifies children and young people being redacted, but their participation being seen, because people are right to know what young people and children are saying that they need and want, and that's the measure of whether we get it right as a board then, isn't it? So I welcome that. So, yeah, these are draft terms of reference that everybody's had and seen, and it is, we do need to know whether we are accepting them as a board so they can go to the next corporate governance and audit committee on the 10th of May. So now is the positive time that we need to take that forward. So I'm looking for board members. Are you happy for these draft minutes to be forwarded for potentially adoption? And we'll do it with the time old. Raise your hand, please, if you are happy to take them forward. Okay, is anybody abstaining? Is anybody against? Therefore, that vote is taken, and we recommend these to the corporate governance and audit committee. Thank you very much for that, thank you. So we now move on to item 9, which is the corporate parenting strategy update, yet again, Joel Hannah, the floor is yours. Thank you, hopefully. Yes, it's not the Joel show. There's more and better to come, but I will take you through. I can find it, a corporate parenting strategy update. We've very much linked to the agenda item that we've just passed. So in terms of the measure, I think you mentioned Councillor Lawson of the board, the focus of the board should be to drive its strategy. And I've been working on the draft strategy for the past few months, because our existing corporate parenting strategy expires this year. It's a 2024, to 2024. And we've done such a lot of work and such a lot of service change in the time since that was confirmed by the board, that it's right that we have a new strategy. And I'm proposing that we set out a three-year strategy with the priorities that are identified within the terms of reference that the board has just agreed. And in order to do that, I'll remind the board members of this visual, and again, to seek to just provide that reassurance about transparency and how the work of this board is overseen and shared. The corporate parenting, and we may move to chase some of the language in this in terms of jargon-busting and clarifying, but the six priorities that are to be confirmed in the strategy. And I have been working with both the Children in Care Council and the Care Leave Us Forum to have their views and input onto these priorities, and making sure that we are not just hearing their voice, but actually putting some of their views in relation to the detail on these points forward. Those six priorities will be driven by individual and identified leads who will chair the subgroups, leading those particular areas of work. They'll report into an operational board that I'll chair on a bi-monthly basis. And the purpose of that is to track and oversee progress on each of those priorities, but also to ensure that for the cycle of corporate parenting boards, one of those six priorities comes to the board in full for a full report back on the plan and the work and the progress that's been made in that specific area, with a highlight of the other five at each board meeting. And then there's always the ability for reports by exception, and we've got to deliver some sequencing to some of this, because there'll be some logical sequencing on things like annual reports for education and out-turn and health, and fostering the annual sequenced reports, we'll make sure that we bring those in as well for the board. I've put the dotted lines there to the annual report to the full council that we've just talked about, children scrutiny as always, but also the children in care council and the Calivers Forum. And just to say that we're doing a lot of work within those two groups, to broaden their reach and their purpose, that they are very strong support groups for the young people that attend, and they've been increasingly doing some more work that has a reach and an impact on the cohorts that they actually represent, you know, children in care and caregivers, but we aim to strengthen that even further. So very quickly, and by way of example, because this will come back to the board for formal sign-off, but the draft strategy and those six priorities will be driven by the operational group and reported to this board and supported by this board. I've put in here some proposed measures, but they're to be confirmed by the subject experts for each of the themes. So it is by way of example, I'm not saying that this is the final strategy, but it gives you an example of what we're hoping to achieve for the board and the outcomes that we're hoping to be able to measure. And I think that was part of Councillor Lawson's direct point really about the so what effect. So in relation to achieving lifelong learning, making sure that our children in care and care experience young adults are successful and engaged in learning throughout their life, there are some clear outcome statements and some clear measures that we propose. As I said, you don't need to take all this in our share the slide pack. And if people want to come back with additional suggestions or anything, then I'm more than happy to receive those, but I will be working with the subject experts. So Louise, the head of virtual school and adult learning colleagues will be informing these as well as our new board members from the University and the College. For children in care levers to have somewhere safe and stable to live in, there are some clear measures that we can pull against that in our priorities as well. So ensuring that our young people don't end up having repeated moves. So some of this is the data that you already receive in the data pack, but actually having a focus plan on driving this data and then reporting back to the board on impact and distance travels is the proposal. So as our outcome statements develop for those subgroups, they'll be clear reporting measures that are drawn out of what is now the data booklet, but they'll be the responsibility for those subgroups to drive and to hold themselves to account to and then obviously to report into this board. And seek support from showing that children and people have positive relationships and have fun. So this was a really good conversation with the Children in Care Council. Have fun means many different things to many different people. Interestingly, they didn't agree with my definition of fun, but that's because I'm 54 and they're not, I guess. But I think that measuring this one is at no mean feet really, but there are some things that the board I think can drive and some support here. So I'll work with our partners specifically in how they can develop and embed enrichment opportunities for young people is key. So we will build these measures. So listening and responding to voice, well clearly, our aspiration to get children and young people's engagement directly in the board, whether that be by takeover events or whether that be by direct attendance at the board. And in terms of reference that we've just moved to pass, you'll notice that there's a proposal about the administration of the board being that 50% of them are held at times that we make sure that young people can attend once we're at that stage and that may take some time to get to. But by making sure that we're not meeting in school time in a council chamber, but by meeting in different venues that are accessible and able to support attendance. But also making sure that we've got young people who are currently working on revising the pledge that we've got as corporate parents to our young people, making sure that we can identify and monitor where that isn't received or understood, so that all of our social workers are carrying pledge cards and they're aware of how they can provide that pledge, but also make sure that they share that with young people. So there are some measures there as well. Health priorities have been a keen focus of the board for some time and working in the extended membership of the board. We're proposing to bring in public health who have a clear role in terms of some of our prevention and diversion and lifelong health targets, but also our commissioners directly as well as our providers. So I think the new board is exciting in that regard that we've got everybody there that is responsible for children and young people's health and therefore where we see performance challenges as a board we can have a conversation about which bit needs to fix that and what do we need to do in order to make that count. So we've put some targets in there around some of our own work, specifically around the strengths and difficulties questionnaire and I haven't lost the jargon busting, it's gone in and as well as providing the crib sheet it's some work that we'll do in the training for corporate parenting, board members and partners around just respectful engagement and conversation because children and young people we don't need to make acronyms of everything although we like doing it in the council it's better to use four words and explain so. And then lastly but by no means least is another measure of success overall is our outcomes for our care levers. It is a in some regards a bellwether for how children have grown up in care for those that have been in for long periods of time, how they succeed as care levers but actually developing that service and a later agenda item around the event that we had to engage partners in that very much focused on a village to raise a child kind of narrative and conversation but in thinking around that we know that care levers is not just well it's not just the council's responsibility and it's certainly not just children's services responsibility it's a broad partnership and as we establish that partnership and move to a broader ownership of that we'll be building in our measures around outcome measures to see how we measure success there. So the next steps for the strategy as a document for this board to receive is I've got to develop further success measures by speaking to subject experts in them also looking at our data analysis because we want to know where our performance challenges are at the moment and make sure that we drag them into light and put them front and centre in the strategy going forward we need then to confirm that those priorities are agreed by the board and that they're the right ones or the other additional ones that people feel we need to focus on having received that report to a future board and then sign those off and publicize and promote and drive them so that's it. Thank you very much for that. I'm glad you're bearing your mind, Councillor Austen's jargon buzzer. I really like that idea. I'd love it in council it would never stop, would it? Anybody got any questions or comments? No? Can I just confer? Yes, Joe. Sorry, thank you. On the priority five, Joe, I was just wondering the initial health assessments I mentioned which strategy but so are the review health assessments of statutory they are extremely comprehensive and I just noticed that they weren't in that and I you're perhaps going to talk to us more about the the intricacies of that but that is one of our good news stories that actually we put a tremendous amount of effort into those and they are running at really high levels and it needs recognising to us that. Thanks, Jill. Just in terms of the presentation those are draft and proposed measures but there are others that will add to them. I think that they don't want to decry the good news stories of course. I think the focus of the strategy in the board will be to drive the stubborn areas really but we also need to acknowledge those positive stories as well so I think when we've got the subgroups running those will be a lot broader than just those outcome measures there'll be other stuff in there as well. In terms of health, the measures for emotional health and well-being, the numbers of self-reported substance use, there's a whole raft of measures that we may want to include and see how we monitor progress but yeah we'll let those. I think that was possibly the voice of an expert helping to add to the information. Can I just clarify and I'm pretty sure I do know the answer to this. The priorities numbered one to six aren't in priority order. They all are as equal of value. I think we just need to be clear on that. Yeah absolutely absolutely and I just don't know how to do it any other than priority order and where I've delivered this model previously there's been a hierarchy of signal importance because we got priority one group but it just happened to be that one and not the others but there's no priority to them. It could be alphabetic instead of number. Number inclined people to think we're the best we're number one doesn't it but there we are. Yeah so we're all happy with that. No questions no further comments. Thank you very much for that draw. I absolutely understand that you have to go. I'm really welcome your attendance council off and it's been most helpful. So if we move to item 10 which is an update from the fostering diagnostic visit and I understand Zoe Prince and Anna Gledhill are going to do this for us over to you. Thank you. Zoe Prince Service Manager for the fostering service. In February this year we were delighted to welcome Representative from FosterLink to come perform a diagnostic visit in relation to primarily our recruitment assessment and approval of foster carers. So I won't go through the whole report because it's included in the pack but there were some real strengths that were identified from the visits. So one of them being that our team is well staffed as a dedicated resource to the recruitment and assessment of foster carers and we received some really positive feedback from the foster carers that met with a foster link advisor who had recently been through the application process and who gave really positive feedback on how timely the process was so there was no delay in that for them becoming approved foster carers and it was highlighted that the process was a really strong from the point of initial inquiry into becoming a foster carer all the way through to our foster panel. There were a number of recommendations made just to note a couple of them were to complete some quality assurance into foster carers who either withdraw from the process or cease to progress to becoming approved to also complete a competitive analysis of our other local authorities and the independent fostering agencies who are active in our area to make sure that we are offering a competitive offer to our foster carers and also to work closely with the Kirtley's fostering network to include our foster carers in recruitment and marketing training and support to our current carers. I'm pleased to say that we've taken on board a lot of the recommendations already we've updated our recruitment and marketing plan and we've also included a lot of the recommendations in the proposal that's been presented to SLT today in relation to foster care fortnight which starts on the 13th of May so we've got quite a comprehensive package of events happening over that fortnight and as we mentioned earlier to include recruitment for independent visitors in that as well some people who make an initial inquiry might not quite be ready for fostering but could we could divert them to the independent visitors service instead. The recommendations have also informed our updated fostering strategy which we're prepared to bring back to a future board as well. Very much any questions or comments? Can I just say before somebody else gets in I absolutely love it when we ask others to come and look at us and give an independent view it means the service is confident and healthy and welcomes you know comments and recommendations from others who have a different view you get a bit tunnel vision don't you inside of it so I think that's a really healthy thing. I noticed one of the recommendations was to have somebody with an education background on fostering panel and that's absolutely right the problem is foster panel members come and go don't they and they all have different strengths and backgrounds I mean I remember that from when I sat on fostering panels so you know but that loads of positive things anybody else with a comment or question Tom. Thanks Chair yeah and absolutely agree with you in terms of one of the things I'm really proud about culture wise for us is our culture of openness transparency and learning and if you think about it this year we've had a front door health check we've had Mark Riddell in you know we continually working with the DFE around Sandham we've had Fosterlink and I think we've really welcomed what we get from those visits and those comments really and I think the other thing is I just wanted to update on is actually we are seeing a real improvement in terms of our fostering recruitment and the diversity of our foster carers as well which I think has been happening before the Fosterlink visits so what whenever conversations with Zoe about that I want to understand why that is I want to understand what the magic ingredient is and I think we'll look at that and try and understand why we've seen that increase over the past few months and bring that back to a future board chair. Thank you very much for that I have to say that yet again that broader partnership opens the potential door so we'll be foster carers as well it's another opportunity we should grab with both hands every chance we get but thank you very much for that thank you. So if we move on to a report of Carely the Carely was Ambassador's event sadly oh no no voice of young people and care experiencing young people sadly it's Joel again I don't mean that really Joel. While you're finding the part on your laptop to say I attended this event and it was a very positive and interesting experience. You ready Joel? Can't find the slideshow to do the agenda item for the voice of children and young people I apologise but what that slideshow would have shown you and I will forward it out in any event was continuing to meet with children and young people as agreed by the board and feeding back and from the board to them. We've actually started a piece of work now with the Carely Vus Forum to develop the training and we've made quite a lot of progress on that. I'm aiming that that training will be available to all board members co-delivered by the Carely Vus Forum members that are engaged in it by the end of May beginning of June so that we cover the any new members that elected to office and obviously board members as well so we've been doing that work ongoing. As I mentioned earlier on in terms of the the strategy of also being receiving input to the strategy directly from children and young people at those groups. In terms of their desire to be part of the board as I mentioned earlier as well some of that conversation is around really A) setting expectations and clarifying what it is and what it isn't but B) also welcoming their enthusiasm to say that they would like to understand more about what corporate and every single week it's a conversation about what does corporate mean again and one of the things that we we've discussed is actually calling ourselves the Carely's Parenting Board and just removing corporate because they feel that that's very depersonal and that was a conversation and an echo actually I think at ELT as well so so they're already using having a having an impact on the on the conversation and yeah I'll circulate the presentation of the update following the meeting. That's fine thank you very much anybody got any other comments about the voice of children young people so we move then swiftly onto item 12 it's not your whole Stephanie Hill and Lauren Stevenson who's going to take it for. Yep good morning Stephanie Hill project manager supporting work around corporate parenting so as part of the Careleaver service we've been working towards establishing a Careleaver's Ambassadors network that being support for Careleavers including partners organization and organizations and businesses to develop enrichment opportunities raised funds for events and activities and enhance our local offer for Careleavers so on the 7th of March we held our first Careleavers Ambassadors Networking event which was sponsored by Kirkley's College and to that we invited a range of colleagues within the council but also partners organizations and businesses to strengthen our relationship with them and start building this network of support. Good morning Lauren Stevenson interim service manager within the Careleaver's service so at the event we invited a number of different different partners Councillor Kendrick was there herself as you've just heard and we had speakers at the event including one of our peers and from the Careleaver's service to talk about what it's like to support our care experienced young people through their journey we had a very own social worker of the year to talk about his own experience and journey through his care experience and the support he needed and what he would have benefited from. We had Jamie from the Huddersfield Town Foundation who talked about the work he does with us what it's like to work with us as a service to try and encourage others to work alongside us and support our young people. We also had Andy Briely present who was able to talk about his journey and his experience as being a care experienced young person but also how he sees support networks and the ambassadors networks working alongside Careleaver's services to continue to benefit young people. We had a number of attendees so we had virtual schools, we had the Huddersfield University, we had Kirkley's College, we had representatives from charity organisations from third sector, we had housing representatives Kirkley's local TV and that's just to mention a few that were in attendance. We were able to build and begin new relationships with partners to begin to develop the offer that we've got and it was to be fair it was a fantastic attendance for the first event that we've had and we were really proud of that and what it led to. We had multiple offers of support following that in fact we couldn't quite keep up with the number of emails we were receiving at one point and so we had Milton from Kirkley's local TV who was always being a supporter of the service, he's been in attendance at various events taken photographs for us but he was able to offer other opportunities for our care experienced young people, he was able to talk about giving them opportunities in shadowing, working alongside him, various work experience opportunities supporting us to look at civil service apprenticeships and getting young people through courses that will help them in the future to look towards future employment. He is currently meeting or he met a couple of weeks ago with Andy Brielle to make a video to support Andy Brielle talking about how you can support our care levers, what it's like to be an ambassador and what we need moving forward to continue to support them which is amazing and I'm really excited to see what that brings for us. Huddersfield University were there and we've managed to continue to develop our work in relationship with them as you've heard from Joel earlier, they are keen to join the board and be part of the corporate parenting board as our Kirkley's College which is just fantastic and will help us moving forward looking at the offers that we have available. They did talk a lot about their mentoring schemes that they have particularly in university for young people so it would be really good to tap into that for the independent visitors and might be something that we can explore moving forward. Again Kirkley's College already offer opportunities such as we've got vouchers for haircuts that we're willing to provide spaces for young people to meet for any events that we might need to run there to support with that and that is just to name a few of the offers that we did get following that event. So we also had Kirkley's active leisure in attendance at the event and following that we've been in discussions with them around a gym membership plus one scheme for care leavers across their gyms. Further discussions are required around that just to confirm details of the offer and arrangement and linked into that we've then also been in discussions with Julian Hobson head of welfare and and ex-jacker around progressing a process for care leavers to be able to apply for a Kirkley's passport which would allow them a discount scheme for different discount services across a range of activities activities and services and we've been able to progress that following the care leavers now being recognised as a protected characteristic. We also had from Perry Foundation members in attendance and from that we have been in discussions with them around funding for potential activities for our care leavers such as theatre trips so for those of you that aren't familiar with the Fran Perry Foundation this was created in memory of Fran who gave a lifelong contribution to her local community and was previously had teacher at Fatown High School so we're just looking at working a proposal around that that links in with with their priorities. So obviously all these offers that myself and Lauren have just covered is amazing but another thing that we were also working towards is fundraising for activities and events which is what our our young people enjoy so with that in mind we've been exploring different fundraising options and the first fundraising event that we are currently in the process of organising and working towards is a park run fundraiser at Greenhead Park which will be taking place on the on Saturday the 11th of May and it will be the care leavers and children in care services taking part in that but we have opened that up to the members of the who attended the ambassadors event partners and colleagues to attend and become involved in that. The fostering service also having members of their service involved and we're working towards hopefully having a stall at the park run fundraiser to advertise fostering and work on that recruitment as well. So linked in with that we have also been working with Huddersfield Town Foundation trust who we've we've already mentioned around having a charity pot and so there will will hold a charity pot for any funds to be held in and there'll be a memorandum of understanding that informs that that can only be accessed for the purposes of enrichment opportunities events and activities for our care experience young people. The Huddersfield Town Foundation are also creating an online fundraising platform which will make it easier for anyone who who can to make donations and sponsors through so that should hopefully fingers cross go live today we're just in the final final stages of finalising that platform. So the herpes from this that will continue to build us as ongoing networks we've already got meetings planned with and meeting with the our voice team to look at how we can work more closely with them this week in obtaining the voice of our care experience young people and we've got a meeting with Elevate to look at future employment opportunities and education and training coming up as well but what we want from the fundraisers to continue to be able to offer our young people the types of events and ongoing sessions that they want so we had our each celebration last week which was fabulous we had a number of young people in attendance and all the piers we had the some of the social work team coming down and it's just building building that network for them building that network amongst each other and we want to continue to be able to do that there obviously we have our our Christmas lunch which everybody is aware of that the our ambassadors network is always part of supporting that's whether it be offering opportunities for building care packages for our young people obtaining gifts for our young people or anything within that that will continue to be offered through our fundraising events we are also trying to develop networks for young people within our hubs and we talk about a lot of the things and the sessions that we've got going on in number 11 and number 12 so currently we're running brunch sessions where we have young people come down they get a bit of food they get to meet the whole peer team that's in that hub on that occasion and they build that network so it's not just one peer that they've got it's a full peer support it's all of us and we almost it's that family environment that we're trying to give within there we have got stay-and-play sessions for our parents and young babies running they generally bring in them up to the edge of about five at the minute and we're offering lots of different sessions within that whether that be we have singing we have painting activities we just generally support them in whatever it is that they need while they're there we have got one of our partners and one of our ambassadors is the mouth and quilters we've got three sessions coming up where they're going to be working with our young people to give them the opportunity to do some sewing sessions and and look at how building that network again it's all about that for me it's that network we have got our partner droppings and we are trying really hard to develop them with offers of support within there so we've got real employment that come regular we want to have things like health regular health droppings one of the young people at the same play asked if we could have weigh-in sessions so they weren't having to go and see a health visitor for that and these are all things that we hope through continuing to develop our networks that we'll be able to continue to to build on that and offer them on a regular ongoing basis right there when they need it Joel talked earlier about our independent living skill and we've developed that even further following the ambassador event in fact the first one the first practical session of six that we've got planned ran yesterday within number 11 and went really well we had a number of young people attend that so we're hoping to continue that and that ongoing work throughout that yeah so just to expand on the the Christmas lunch that Lauren's already touched on and it's obviously an important event because we don't want any of our caregivers spending Christmas alone so we do continue to link in with the volunteers who have previously assisted with the Christmas lunch that's just gone and we do already have a number of volunteers already agreed to support with that at the Huddersfield town foundation trust again have said that they will assist with applying for funding such as through gold from the stone to help us secure some further funding for that and the head of venues have put out and ask for a cook and and put out and ask for donations of gifts from their service and potential that's something that we can do council-wide so in terms of next steps from this we don't just want it to be this this one ambassador's networking event we do plan to hold further events moving forwards continue to build on these relationships build on existing relationships and and create new ones with new businesses and organizations yeah so if anybody has any ideas wants to share any thoughts with us please feel free to just get in touch with us pew that was a a whistle stop tour of an awful lot of things can I just start by thanking you for organizing such a good event that the ambassador's event was it was really good and very well attended and it seems to me I know a lot of the things that the care living services doing were already in the pipeline but it just seemed like you've also been inspired and even more motivated by the ambassador's event I'm really pleased about the fran perry foundation fran was elected as a counselor last year and sadly um as her illness progress was was only able to attend council for a very short time um the park run really welcome that I will not be running much as I would like so I won't even be walking I will have done my fair share of walking by the time we get to the 11th of May but I will put out the first five people who are doing it who come to me I will sponsor that will be my contribution um when you talked about the platform for fundraising potentially going live today when it when it does go live and these things often change don't they it will be really helpful if a link to that platform could be sent to duty and I think we should put that out with with every set of papers the minutes this next time but with every set of paper so all partners are clear on it and I look forward hopefully helping out with the next Christmas lunch I went to the preparatory day before and I thoroughly enjoyed it and met a lot of interesting people I would recommend it to anybody anybody got any questions or comments on that wealth of information with being given Tom thanks chair I think it's probably just to echo your sentiments I mean it's a big thank you to to Lauren and the team I think um what you've just gone through is really clear that we've got a range of partners who really want to help and are really serious about their um Kirkley's parenting responsibility instead of corporate parenting responsibility and I just think it's really energizing do you know it feels really energizing it feels really positive um so just well done and if there's anything you need from executive team and and as you know we'll we'll we'll do that um I have got a bit of a dodgy knee with no car to the gym so if I'm doing it over definitely walking rather than running oh he'll be sponsoring a number of people one of the other Tom thank you very much for that item 13 is updates from Bob members on interaction with services I'll just kick off with a little bit I met with the send that team last week I went and saw where they hide out upstairs and I also had a really useful meeting with Michelle Lister and Jenny helped me with the surname sign thank you um you know which uh hopefully that's going to be first of many interactions I with them because you know I've been busy with other bits of the service and I really want to work with them now um and the only other item I have to report is last week as you well know Tom we met at Kid Led Tim Ledby to MP's office last week with a number of heads of service from schools yourself Joanne and myself and we had a very useful I think discussion about send both a national level and also what developments we can make um we send it in curtles and I think Jo was telling me she's had a lot of comments and interactions from some of the same course and what have you in a positive way since then and that's about it for that unless there's anything anybody else needs to say no thank you very much so the last item I think according to my agenda is a corporate parenting board agenda for the future the plan for 20 it says 23 24 that review and where we've got so I'm going to try and do it with so what things have we got outstanding I enjoy this and so I don't really think there's anything in particular outstanding I think what um um the board will need to do is consider which items that are regular brought to this board are going to be taken forward into the new arrangements and so that could be a conversation far and sort of over the next couple of months yeah okay Jo yeah just just to add out having having agreed the the new terms of reference and structure for the meeting obviously there's an onward process default to to council to to ratify and endorse that position if it if it chooses to but in lieu of that I'd propose that we will meet separately to set the the the year ahead agenda based on the new terms of reference and scheme of priorities that we've discussed yeah I think that's fine yeah we're happy with that so ladies and gentlemen I think we are at the conclusion of this meeting can I thank you all for your attendance thank you all for your contributions and your voting thank you that's the end of this meeting you you [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO]