The Corporate Parenting Board of Lancashire Council met on Wednesday 2 September 2026 to review its constitution, membership, and terms of reference. The meeting also included updates from various teams and services focused on supporting children and young people in care, including those who are unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and care leavers.

Constitution, Membership and Terms of Reference

The Board was scheduled to review its constitution, membership, and terms of reference for the 2026/27 municipal year. This review was to ensure alignment with the approvals made by Full Council on 21 May 2026. The report outlined the proposed composition of the Board, which included seven county councillors from different political groups, and detailed the Board's aims and objectives. These aims included ensuring the council's commitment to excellent corporate parenting standards, setting high expectations for children in care and care leavers, and seeking improved long-term outcomes for them. The terms of reference also clarified that the Board is an advisory body without decision-making powers, meeting every two months.

Participation Team Update

Young people from LINX/CLF (Lancashire's Children in Care Council/Care Leavers Forum) were scheduled to provide an update on their recent activities. This included plans for a Care Leavers Forum art project, which aimed to enable care-experienced young people to express themselves creatively through a published book of artwork and written pieces, workshops, and public displays. A Youth Takeover Day was also planned, to be co-produced with young people, and would involve team-building activities and a reflective session on the Board's work over the past year. A proposal to recognise participation in the Care Leavers Forum as volunteering, allowing young people to access a weekly volunteering allowance, was also to be considered.

District Team Update

The District Team Manager, along with care-experienced young people from Preston, was scheduled to present an overview of services for care-experienced young people at a district level. The report highlighted the Burnley Youth Zone Hub as a drop-in service offering practical support, including budgeting advice and independence skills, with a multi-agency approach involving health, colleges, employment services, and local authority housing officers. Challenges in Burnley, such as high deprivation, below-average educational attainment, limited housing access, higher crime levels, inconsistent mental health service models, and lower wages, were to be discussed. The Board was also to consider the differences between LCAS and CAMHS¹ and ongoing developments in mental health support, including the co-location of complex risk support liaison practitioners.

Update from the Separated Children and Families Without Public Funding Team

This team, established in September 2025, was to provide an update on its work supporting unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC), children and families at risk of destitution due to No Recourse to Public Funding (NRPF), and separated migrant children under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme. The report focused on the support provided to UASC who are looked after under Section 20 of the Children's Act 1989. It detailed the team's key priorities, including recognising the impact of trauma, championing ambition and aspiration, promoting integration into the community, and supporting reunification with family. The presentation outlined the demographics of the children supported, their country of origin, and their accommodation arrangements. It also detailed the support and care provided, which is the same high standard as for all children in care, including access to social workers, IROs², PAs³, appropriate accommodation, healthcare, and education. The team's specialist approach includes supporting young people through the asylum process, conducting age assessments, and delivering PSHE⁴ sessions on topics such as sex education, consent, healthy relationships, FGM⁵, hate crime, and life in the UK. Integration events, such as an Eid celebration and a picnic in the park, were highlighted as ways to help young people build relationships outside of the professional sphere. The presentation also celebrated successes, including positive feedback from Ofsted inspections, reunification with family, volunteering opportunities, and academic achievements.

SCAYT+ Annual Presentation

SCAYT+ (Supporting Children and Young People Together) was scheduled to present an overview of its services. SCAYT+ provides specialist therapeutic support to children, young people, and their carers, aiming to promote emotional wellbeing, placement stability, and positive relationships through a trauma-informed, relationship-based approach. The service works with foster carers, adoptive parents, kinship carers, residential staff, social workers, and schools. The presentation was to highlight the service's activity and impact during 2025/26, including the number of children and young people supported, referrals accepted, and the achievement rates for emotional health, education, home stability, and relationship goals. The underlying therapeutic ideas of PACE (Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity, Empathy) and DDP (Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy) were to be explained, along with how SCAYT+ helps children feel safer, more understood, and more settled. The message to children and young people was that they matter, their feelings make sense, and the adults around them should work together to help them feel safe, cared for, and understood.