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Corporate Parenting Committee - Wednesday 17 July 2024 2.00 pm
July 17, 2024 View on council websiteSummary
The meeting was scheduled to receive annual reports on the Southwark Council Fostering Service and the health of Children Looked After (CLA) in Southwark. In addition, the committee was scheduled to elect a vice-chair for 2024-25 and agree on their work plan for the year ahead.
Fostering Annual Report
The report pack contains the Fostering Annual Report 2023 - 2024 from Southwark's Fostering Service.
The report was scheduled to provide data on Southwark's foster carers and the children being looked after. It was also scheduled to cover:
- The service's structure and function
- Practice Framework1
- Recruitment and Retention Strategy2
- Training and development opportunities
- Staying Put arrangements3
- Performance and Quality Assurance mechanisms
- The role of the Fostering Panel4
- Complaints procedure
- Special Guardianship Orders and Connected Carers5
The report highlights several key priorities for the service that were scheduled to be discussed, including:
- The need to improve placement stability
- Improve permanence outcomes
- Increase the number and range of foster carers available locally
- Develop high quality support for connected carers
Annual Health Report for Children Looked After
The report pack includes the Southwark CLA Health Annual Report 2023-2024
The report was scheduled to provide an overview of:
- The local team structure
- Governance and accountability
- National and local priorities
- Service delivery in Southwark, including key achievements, challenges and ambitions for the year ahead
The report covers the services offered by Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, as well as:
- Primary care
- Mental Health Services, including the work of Carelink6 and the progress of the implementation of the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) assessment approach7
- Adoption Services
The report was scheduled to discuss the challenges of engaging adolescents in the health assessment process and to highlight the ambitions to improve this in the coming year.
Corporate Parenting Committee - Work Plan 2024-25
The report pack contains a CPC workplan - July 2024 for the year ahead. The committee was scheduled to agree their work plan, which included the following topics:
- Speakerbox verbal update / annual report
- Annual independent reviewing officer report
- Adoption annual report
- Quality assurance report on children homes to cabinet
- Annual virtual head teacher’s report
- Care leaver and housing protocol
- Lifelong Links8
- Corporate Parenting Committee annual report to cabinet
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A practice framework is a set of beliefs and principles that guide how social work is carried out ↩
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A retention strategy is a plan put in place to try and keep people in their current roles ↩
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Staying Put arrangements mean that children in care can continue to live with their foster carers until the age of 21. ↩
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The Fostering Panel is a group of people who review, quality assure and scrutinise the work of the fostering service ↩
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Connected Carers are people who are already known to a child who then become their foster carer. ↩
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Carelink is the name of the specialist CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) service for children looked after in Southwark, Lambeth, Lewisham and Greenwich. ↩
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CANS is a comprehensive assessment tool that helps to understand a child or young person's needs, strengths and risks, as well as the strengths in their family, community and culture. ↩
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Lifelong Links is a program that aims to help care leavers to build supportive networks of family and friends. ↩
Attendees
Topics
No topics have been identified for this meeting yet.