Transcript

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to this meeting of the London Borough of Newham's Education, Children and Young People's Scrutiny Commission. This evening's meeting is being held at Newham Town Hall, East Ham. Members unable to attend in person at this location are able to join remotely, however, they will not be able to their attendance will not be officially recorded, although their virtual attendance will be noted in the minutes. I would also like to welcome any members of the public and press who are watching on YouTube. With regards to meeting etiquette, members of council, please can I ask that you indicate that you wish to speak either by raising your physical hand or by using the hand up symbol on the Zoom dashboard. On this point, may I remind everyone to introduce themselves speaking for the first time for the benefit of the recording and those watching the meeting and to keep microphones muted when not speaking. This meeting of the London Borough of Newham's Education, Children and Young People Scrutiny Commission, 23rd April 2025, is now called to order. Before we begin today's agenda, I kindly ask everyone to stand and observe a minute of silence in remembrance of His Holiness Pope Francis, who has sadly passed away. Can I ask the committee to introduce themselves starting from right? Good evening, councillor Jane Lofthouse representing Plastery South. Thank you. Alan Griffiths, councillor Kenny Downshire. Thank you. Santa Feuders, councillor for East Ham and member of this committee. Councillor Iman Hunt from East Ham. Councillor Jemaya McCarmon from Walling. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. On this side. Councillor Madeline Sali-Pontin, Forest Gate South, also Deputy Cabinet Lead for Education. Good evening, councillor Sarah Ruiz, councillor for Custom House. And for this meeting, I am the Cabinet Lead for Children and Young People's Services. Welcome. Evening, everyone. I'm Laura Eden, the Director of Children's Services. Okay. So moving on, any apologies for absence? Yes. Are there any apologies, Alan? I haven't received any apologies for absence, Chair. Okay. Is that noted? No. I think. And agenda item? It is. Okay. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. It is. And Tina Hussain says she's in a trace. She's delayed. Okay. Hope you to get along. Okay. Any... I think it's a long-term... Long-term SIG. It's a well-girl at all. Huh? I think it's a long-term... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Never comment. Okay. Declarations of interest. Is there anything to declare? No. Is that noted? And then... Minutes of the last meeting. So the next item on the agenda is to agree the minutes of our previous meeting. However, as that meeting only took place last week, draft minutes are not yet available. We will circulate them to all members as soon as they are finalized and we'll formally agree them at our next meeting. Is that okay? Is that agreed? Brilliant. Thank you. And is there a second for that? Yes. All right. Thank you. So moving on to item five, reports of any urgent safeguarding issues. I would now like to bring in Councillor Ruiz and Laura Eden to provide a verbal update on any urgent safeguarding matters affecting children in the borough. Is there anything to report to the Commission? Not from me. No. No, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. And the next item is and the next item is the work program, item number six. So at our pre-meeting, we did discuss is there anything that the committee would like to add to the current work program we have, but they're quite happy with it. but obviously it is up to the next incoming Chair to choose what the agenda is going to be. But for purpose of the agenda item, we're quite happy with the program. I think we wanted to add We decided to get the transport. Yeah. Children and and transport and special schools. Yeah. Any special schools in Newham? So we'd like to add schools for sent in Newham. Right. So we do have specialist schools in Newham. Okay. I'm not sure that we look at them in any different way. Okay. They're fine. All of our education. Okay. So there were things We say passenger transport. Yes. So So is that for next year's work plan? Next So we just Just a word of warning on that. If regulations go well, then passenger transport will be moved from children's services into environments and sustainable transport. Okay. But we're not sure when Okay. whether that will happen, but they certainly have the skill set rather than any mechanics lingering in children's services. Okay. And I was just going to say if I may chair Yeah. It should be remembered that the transport arrangements are arranged through the transport and SEM departments with individual children and their parents and the school is simply the location they've picked up or dropped off at. Okay. There's not a separate agreement or correspondence with the schools. Okay. If you don't find me interjecting Yeah, please do. It might be more relevant for this committee to scrutinise children missing education or missing out on education. Okay. Within that could be a dedicated section on are there any issues with transporting children into and from school that is affecting their education because that I think is your role as scrutineers. Okay. I agree. Thank you for that. Is that agreed? Yeah. Brilliant. Thank you. So we move on to agenda item seven. Special educational needs strategic improvement plan update. so colleagues would have read the report so I would like the officers if you can in five minutes just give a brief outline on it. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Apologies for my arrival. So this report captures well originally the intention was to capture one year into our send and inclusion strategy. In the meantime we've also had a local area send inspection. So what we've done here is we've captured progress against both of those because that's had an impact on how we're dating our strategic plan within the local area. So there's a brief summary at the front of the report which captures how we've done that and also refers to that inspection which took place in October last year. Just to flag that this was a local area send inspection. So although it inspected the send service that I'm responsible for, that we're responsible for, and other elements of children services, it also looked at the delivery of support for children with special educational needs via health partners and some other partners. So it's the whole local area offer for children with educational needs. The report focuses around the key areas of priority that we're working on this year in our strategic action plan. we have as is always the case following an inspection shared this report with the Department for Education as our regulator. They're satisfied, they've said that they're happy with the quality of the report and the detail of the key performance indicators and they've, as a result, they only want to monitor progress twice a year which is a significant reduction. So there's definitely some progress in terms of the scrutiny of our external regulators. As we've captured here, there's always more for us to do and while we support the outcome of the inspection, we agreed with the outcome of the inspection. In fact, inspectors agreed with our own self-evaluation of where we were as a local area. There are key five areas outlined in the action plan which were both raised at the inspection and then also endorsed by our own analysis of where we've got to as a local area. I'm conscious as you said, Chair, that everyone will have read the reports. I won't read through each of those but I'm more than happy to take questions on any or all of them. Brilliant. Thank you. We'll open it up for questions. Any questions? Councillor Thank you, Chair. So I'm on page on the 16 3.1 bullet point file of engagement. So as mentioned relationship with parent you see have enhanced to co-produce strategies. So what are the strategies? So the main strategy that they co-produced with us was the send and inclusion strategy that was launched at the end of 2023, there was around 18 months leading up to the launch of that strategy closely with parents, carers and also children and young people to listen to the progress of the children and families but also how they're progressing in schools and education settings and also progress being made within their health service providers too. So that strategy is the biggest strategy that we've co-produced with parents and carers. Since then we've been meeting regularly with the Newham Parent Care Forum which is a body that every local area has. They are a representative group of parents and carers predominantly of children with special education needs or who've had children with special education needs who are now adults who meet with us. They invite members of our teams to their coffee mornings. Also I know Council Rose has been various people go along to talk about specific areas but also So we have mic I think is there no? There's no mic sorry. Do you mind to briefly put it out? Which piece sorry? Shall we? It's been loud. Thank you. Oh geez it's been a long day. It's hard for us to hear you too. Because we don't have the mic it's a problem. So just keep going. Is there a specific part you want me to repeat? No we've got it. Okay. Go on. Sorry. I've heard what you're saying. Obviously it has enhanced the way of working and the strategy but are there any strategies that has helped? So I mean two things. The strategy itself has helped in terms of feedback from parents and carers. They say the strategy has helped because it's given us clarity on what we need to do with them to support improvement for their children. I would say my experience in Newham so far the other thing that's helped is improving communication with parents and carers through for example the coffee mornings through the various so what the chair of our parent care forum attends the SEND executive board she's the co-chair with Laura and so there is much more strategic involvement now parents and carers. They are the first to tell you as I'm sure you will hear the first to tell us that there's more to do and they will always raise that directly with us but one of the I think one of the biggest I'm sure others will have a view on this that one of the biggest improvements has been around building our relationship with groups of parents and carers so that we can be ready to respond to the particular issues. There are some things that happen more often than others for those parents and we need to look at the themes and we do that as a system but we also need to be able to help individual parents when we can if there are specific issues. It tends to be around making sure they have the right, what's written in an education health and care plan is fully available for example and so we look at the quality of those plans. Supporting parents and carers sometimes to build the relationship with the school is really important because sometimes some families have had a less positive experience and so we can help build that relationship but also working as a system so an education health and care plan there are three parts there the education which is service and school, health which could be a whole range of services depending on the needs of the child and care is any needs around social care and that can be familial as well and so it's very bespoke to the child so we need to be quite flexible as a system and I think certainly inspectors felt that that had massively improved. I've heard what you have said and in terms of enhancing strategies so what I can understand is that there is more encouragement for the parents to give the feedback on the basis of that feedback the communication has got better but what I was looking to also hear is that has it played any role in improvement of and I'll give you an example as well for example the waiting time. has it come down because of the feedback we have heard and have you added any results any strategies related to those? there are a number of aspects in here including a need to continue to improve waiting times so some times have improved for example the waiting times for plans has improved however at the same time the need has increased so it's like we're chasing an increase in need so although there has been an improvement in the amount of time it takes deduction for plans to be produced there are some specific areas in the system that are outlined in the report for example assessments for autism there has been a longer waiting time because of the increase of needs so more and more families are waiting for assessments so we as a whole system and just to be clear many of those assessments are health assessments there's they now need to find more services to do those assessments because the need is increased so yes there has been an improvement in waiting times but we are still chasing this increase and trying to work as a local area to address that as best we can yeah thank you go on so children are not only waiting for assessment but also we are hearing from schools and from parents that many children have been refused assessment for the medical conditions so they haven't had any assessment because they have been refused by local authority at least local they should allow the child to be diagnosed if parents or school do not know what clinical or neurological condition the child has they can apply for ESCP with an assessment could you could we know how many children have been refused for assessment so a refusal for medical assessment would come from the health service not the local authority so if there are children who have haven't had a medical assessment which was part of the question that wouldn't be our decision as a local authority we can ask the question of our health partners but we don't look at those assessments because they're medical assessments if there are children being put forward for education health care plans who don't meet threshold that could be for a number of reasons so the case officers who work in the SEND service would capture that information yeah so my I'm coming to your second point yes I'm asking for neurological assessment not a health neurological is brain so I'm asking if a neurological assessment neurological disorder is autism neurological disorder there are many things so the local authority sometimes doesn't allow parent to have an education health care plan because they say the child doesn't need any assessment they refuse in first aid assessment second stage is if they are diagnosed they have a condition then they're eligible or then they can apply for ESCP if I'm fine I don't need education health and care plan so we are hearing from many many parents and I'm because I've been working with the parents group such a long time the parent always saying they've been refused for assessment so we always in order to determine whether a child has an education health care plan there has to be an assessment yes if a school doesn't carry out the assessment because the school is the first point normally if a child is at school some children aren't at school and so it would be a health provider or a different different provider could do the assessment normally the school decides to put a child forward for assessment it's normally coordinated by the SENCO and it's only at that point that an education health care plan might not be granted if they don't meet the threshold but in order to decide that an assessment always has to take place yeah assessment always reject by local authority not by school the assessment is put forward by the school who does the assessment depends apply for it but who does the assessment authority it's put forward by the school because they they identify the child and then there's a SENCO sitting next to me who may who may have a I'm also a school governor I heard it I mean just to I think it it will be helpful yeah to let us know the process yes so if a child is identified I'll bring you in that they need an assessment how how does it start and how does it end so school identifies if a child needs an assessment in partnership with the family because the child is asked their their thoughts the family's asked their thoughts how that takes place is very dependent on the age of the child the needs of the child we have some children who are non-verbal so they're the school will use different approaches to to find out that information with the approval of the family which is important with their consent the school will then put forward the child for an assessment there is then a discussion with professionals and about what assessment that includes there's nearly always an assessment with an educational psychologist because they're specialists in child development and they can often help to identify other assessments the child might need in terms of where they are in their development there are frequently all partners are consulted so education health and care all consulted some aren't required to be part of the assessment because for example we have some children with quite complex medical needs and that's the main focus of the assessment and so there will be an education assessment and a health assessment but it's very much specific to the child's needs which assessments take place there isn't a blanket approach to assessment because it depends on the needs of the child and that's very much the SEND code of conduct we have to follow that code of practice that it's around the needs of the child and not a blanket assessment approach thank you is there anything that you want to add Mads that Annabelle didn't say is there anything you want to add it's just to give us a little bit more school side information because I am myself I'm a SENCO and I've been doing that job for a long time and so within school there are two you have children that may need short-term support because maybe they've been off they've been poorly maybe they've just missed out on some information they might need some short-term support with something we wouldn't turn them as having a school and an SEN they just need a short amount of support it's for the school working with the parents to work out if a child is at that level whether they need support that can be offered within school some children need to go through the process of needing support in school maybe for two terms to see whether the school school-based intervention that's delivered by people that have been trained in a particular either a speech and language program or maybe a physiotherapy program or something like a reading it specialist reading intervention to see if the child has a short-term need that again can be overcome with school-based provision they would be called school action okay or school support now school support so those are SEN children but their school support there will be some children who don't make that progress after they've had a really good high fidelity intervention and there'll be some children that might come in and to school either nursery or as children are learning more intensive tasks or may join a school who have more obvious need at that point the head teacher working with the SENCO and the senior leadership team usually also with the educational psychologist will work out the priority order like a triage because it would be lovely if every school in the country every time a child arrives and parent had a concern could send them straight for an expensive and well it's expense isn't a problem it's more the fact that you don't want to be testing kids for things they may not have okay it's bad ethics in terms of education and psychologists are concerned if a child's needs cannot be met in the day to day running of the school even with specialist interventions they may need an ASD assessment they may need an ADHD assessment they may need an assessment for dyspraxia dyslexia speaks speech language a range of issues those assessments have undertaken by the national health service a local authority if the child's needs is high enough can use the assessment from an educational psychologist based in the school to undertake the educational health and care plan there has to be an assessment by a specialist working at at least level seven so it could be a speech language therapist it could be an occupational therapist it could be the educational psychologist in the school or the educational psychologist in the school but as we know there are long waiting lists for people in the NHS and also everybody who gets an autism diagnosis needs an educational health and care plan and that should be remembered by parents thank you so my initial question was for not for yes I was just going to ask the initial question was local authority do refuse plan and do refuse assessment sometime the school doesn't have an qualified therapist school local authority have to have to have to make this arrangement sometimes local authority don't do that and they refuse we are hearing that a lot secondly some what the parents think maybe some children even hasn't started a school they they need assessment so school cannot even refer them so are you saying that the local authority is refusing assessments to children who need to be assessed is that what you're saying yeah no just come in there yes please if you it sounds like you're in post i mean the parents and parents and also i'm a i'm a doctor yes and that's what they're telling you so specifics around that need to come into the local authority i am coming from the agenda also some agenda no no i'm just saying if you would like to share specifics so we can look into because that's that's serious what you're saying to me is children's needs are not being met it's our role to ensure that the system is working where children's needs so if we've got parents out there there's a system and we need to understand what those parents are going through i understand what parents have said through the parent and carer forum us and what's commented on in in the improvement um journey is that an assessment from for um to for autism um for a neurodiverse condition for example or social emotional mental health condition is a point in time that child's um presentation behavior needs don't actually change the day before the assessment and the day after it doesn't so what parents and carers have told us is that it's actually the support while waiting we call it waiting well what what um support do you have as a multi-agency partnership while we have all these parents waiting to be seen or waiting for their uh child to be assessed and so we you know going back to your point about enhanced strategies we've worked with them to develop pathways which we we need to develop more of um to support children to wait well so such as the new mac which is the new and multi-agency collaboration of all voluntary sector agencies for children with social and emotional mental health difficulties um so think things like that but in terms of specifically if if we have parents who are stating they have been a refused an assessment and then i will come back to you those data i will come back to laura with the data yes together thank you okay that's that would be more helpful many things we can't actually act i will come back to the data outside this meeting okay yeah okay all right okay i'm going to close that right any other questions yes report not laura's answered part of my question which was about the upskilling staff and the waiting well but i just wondered about the piloting new ways of undertaking robust diagnosis i wonder if you could possibly expand on that is that in part in area improvement one counselor yes reduction of wait times so um one thing to state on each of these within the detail of the report you'll see there are areas of improvement with specific actions one of which you've referred to these particular actions so these were agreed with the parent care forum in terms of what would be most helpful to address this these particular actions are being are are being led by our colleagues in the health partner partnerships and we are so we have ascend executive board that laura chair co-chairs with the chair of the parent care forum i then um chair ascend an ap development board which is an operational group of partners from across the system and the health part members of that group are developing tools which they're going to bring to us to see how we can improve the process because as laura says it's about not just reaching the point of assessment but while a family is waiting to have an assessment there is ongoing support for them to access education for them to access other therapeutic services it's very much in its pilot stage at the moment as you can imagine but we're fortunate to have a number of schools and other settings including earlier settings um who volunteered to be part of that and so they're working with our health partners to to work with families who are willing to to to be part of a pilot um to see how that might help the process and if it improves the the waiting file and improves the waiting time then we'll be able to roll it out more broadly across the system right thank you any other follow-ups or your point i think that was i think i'm going to let bring lester jemima and then shanto again um first question have any of the banks slipped at all no they haven't it's a great question we are in the process of of doing our analysis i did i think i may have uh apologies if i didn't in the summary mention that we're on track with all of them we've just reviewed progress and we're on track in in all five areas so far there are two risks that have been highlighted by services in terms of potential slipping later in the year which i can flag one is an ongoing challenge around recruitment of educational psychologists which is a london-wide challenge it's to do with numbers of educational psychologists in the system and unfortunately the fact that they can earn a lot more in the private sector than they can in a local authority role and that's a london-wide challenge we're working with partners across london to see how we might address that so that's a risk in terms of later slippage we haven't slipped yet the other one is around you'll be aware of some of the funding challenges that the nhs is facing now and the reduction in funding to the icb and so there is some concern and it hasn't materialized yet but this is what we're monitoring that there may be an impact on some of the diagnostics if that um feeds into some of these areas thank you to my mom thank you jen um it's regarding the same issue it's quite clear that there are some who are rejected but what i want to understand it even if they are rejected is there any support for them so the majority of children who and this is very general general general generalization um rather than on specific cases the majority of children who don't meet the threshold for education health and care plan will be um called children who require send support so that's the category that's not in statute a health and care plan is a statutory plan um send support means that needs have been identified that don't um qualify for a plan at least at this stage because developmentally some children then assessed a few years later then do qualify because some needs actually are harder to identify at some ages particularly younger ages um where children are less verbal or maybe communication skills haven't fully developed and so we ensure that children are supported um by making sure that the school still calls those children send support because it's not doesn't have the same um the word it's not as formal as education health and care plan but it does mean that the school has a responsibility to track progress more they um when we report on things like attendance and attainment they are grouped together to demonstrate whether there's a particular issue for those children so if schools have lots of children send support not attending then what are they doing clearly those needs are not being met or the family don't feel supported and so there is that category which enables a school to still identify that the child has needs um but also to track their progress in case other needs appear later and that's particularly important if a family's mobile and they move school because you won't necessarily know what what the challenges are for family and so we we really encourage schools to make sure they're they're appropriately using that category when they talk about groups of children who may have needs a follow-up okay go on is it only in the school that they can get to stay obviously something is somewhere but is it only in the school in case a child is not ready to go to school so no our so if if we're talking about age um there are a number of services that offer support to children before school age and that's why the the partnership is really important we have a lot of um information that comes to our send service from health visitors for example and a number of our teams in in our within early help as well because um often a child a family won't know what the what the needs are they just know that their child needs some help and so where do i go for help it's really important that and we've done a huge piece of work over the past year to try and spread the word across all services that might work with families and to welcome families in so for example some of the those early help services working the libraries being available having um when i went to one of the parent care forum meetings we talked some of the local church asked me if we could give them some leaflets so that when families go to church they know who to ask for help we have um we've had a number of local offer live events which brings all sorts of partners together families can come along whether they have a child with send or not and ask questions how do we get support if we need it another big focus for us is we have an inclusion inclusion service that's non for non-statutory support and for areas that are less well covered now in the system like dyslexia because most schools have good support for dyslexia but some families need a bit more particularly families that are multilingual and so we that team that are based in the tummarsh center next to the pru they have a lot of members of staff who are multilingual because sometimes accessing some of these resources if you don't speak english can be really challenging so we try to be proactive as much as we can so that families know where to go for help thank you shanto uh from patients with 36 uh cindia's capacity cindia's run by local authority and really give impartial advice to parents and run by the local authority okay at the moment really the cindia service waiting time is really longer and how can you minimize the waiting time as a local authority is there any you have any channel or you working with them as a partnership or can i start on that yes so firstly cindia's is not run by the local authority it's a independent organization and at our last send executive um we looked at the cindia service and we are going to carry out a review um because we recognize that there are waiting times i think there's an issue with cindia's that not everybody knows who they are or where they are you're right um i think there was also another issue in my mind that they don't have an office space they used to be not anymore but they they gave it up which means that their address is actually the top and much lane side and for a lot of parents they see that as being the council so therefore they don't see that as being independent yes so we are looking very seriously at cindia's yeah because for all sorts of reasons we need to review how that service works okay thank you any other questions okay look thanks for me don't start so if colleagues don't have questions i have few questions if that's okay so um um due to the progress made um with the dfe interventions when it was stopped um you stopped the local area improvement plan it says and then continued with the send strategic improvement what what what's the difference that's a good question so um really it's a building on the old plan we have a new plan there's not a huge amount of difference in terms of what we need to focus on because as i said the areas we identified that needed to improve they agree with us so we've really just created a new plan what it's helped us to do is identify across the system how to prioritize our resources so as i mentioned health have meant i've raised a couple of concerns about some of their resources so how do we now work as a system to make sure we stay on track it's given some um i guess it's validated our plan in terms of them saying yes you're on track there's still work to do there's still these areas of improvement so it has a new name for us it's business as usual we don't okay do things yeah we don't do things based on what inspectors say we should we do things because we want to do the best job we can for children however it's helpful to have that response from inspectors and the dfe because they've helped to say well you're on track you're doing well you've self-evaluated appropriately your data is good quality which as some of you'll remember was not was a problem in the past in terms of a previous send inspection so it's helped us to say okay we've done this well let's build on that but also these are some new things we now need to add in order to move forward so it's a new phase based on where we are in the regular okay brilliant thank you so on page 16 under key identified strengths due to targeted service delivery waiting times for therapies have reduced yes which is really great um what was it before and was it like because some colleagues are saying some therapies are not people are not getting it yes here it says we are getting it well some we are and this is always the challenge so they the the feedback was and we agree with this that speech and language waiting times have improved considerably occupational therapy have has improved considerably because of the redesign of those services which again are health services but some other therapeutic um service some of the mental health support from health from the nhs that hasn't improved enough some of the autism diagnosis services haven't improved enough while it's while there's praise for something strengthening that all of them have yeah thank you just add to that yeah and it is it is connected i saw today i think that the new and parents forum's next meeting actually matt marion and i don't know what her other name is marion levine head of therapies head of therapies is going to be their guest speaker and marion is one of life's really helpful people so um shantu will probably be there but you know those that those are the things that are making a difference because before the parent carers forum would not have had access to marion okay even though they could but they didn't so when we start when people who are actually delivering these services have those conversations with the parent carers from which i of of course as parents then actually we can see where where there are gaps marion can't be everywhere and i'm sure there are gaps but you know it's worth it is worth noting that we are going out there and the parent carers forum actually are an integral part of our improvement journey thank you so another strand which is on early health and social care integration it says about timely and strong social work practice what has changed well considerable um work within our social care teams but also as identified here was the the multi-agency work between our early help and social social care teams and the early years team because as i said earlier sometimes a family might need help before a child reaches school age and there were a number of cases um so for that particular example inspectors worked with our various teams and looked at a number of cases of children at that age group and they identified really good practice in how professionals talk to other historically not just in newham but in various other local areas um services have worked separately and that doesn't always help uh meet the needs of children and so this was found as an example of good practice how different professionals work together and the needs of a child thank you it's good time a few more great time praising your team so um they're on board sorry did you i sit here on board did you want to come in okay okay so let me ask one and then you can come in i got a few questions so on page 17 alternative provision and post 16 pathways mentions that young people have limited access to post 16 employment training opportunities yes um children and young people which send the local authority is responsible for education employment training until they are 25 if there is a gap after 16 yes what are we doing and does it help the needs figures all excellent questions chair thank you so the first part of that the first part that you've raised there is around our statutory duty so we do have um robust processes for children young people with education health and care plans um because as you quite rightly said we have a statutory duty from the age of birth up into the age of 25 but children with identified needs um so if a young person is 16 through to 25 and has an education health and care plan we work with the family and the education provider we have a number of good examples of that for example newham college have expanded through working with the local authority their specialist offer for young people post 16 and they have pathways there's also the department for education's supported internships program which is a funded model which has been really successful in newham a number of young people have gone through college into employment who have patient health and care plans so that's a real and actually during the inspection inspectors visited newham college and met some of those young people and and we're really um you know really impressed with those young people as should be where we have gaps and we identified this ourselves immediately is if a young person from the age of 16 doesn't have an education health and care plan but they do have sense support that other group i mentioned earlier there are gaps in the system and there aren't pathways there aren't some of those funded opportunities for young people um and if a young person the reason ap's mentioned which i talked about last week is if a young person's also had a history of exclusion then their opportunities are even fewer and they are the young people most at risk of becoming not in education employment and training and not just in newham it's it's a well-known statistic so we have an action plan now we're working with i think we mentioned last week that at the last meeting that post 16 education newham aside from children with education health and care plans post 16 education newham doesn't sit in children's services it sits in a different part of the council however those colleagues are in this action plan and they're now meeting with us monthly and we're looking at um what does the data tell us around young people who are at risk of becoming neat or who are neat um how many of them have had special educational needs how can we work as a partnership to intervene so for example i was meeting with colleagues yesterday about reaching out to some of the local employers and other providers where young people might benefit from a an in-college mentor from a work-based you know um employer so they can gain work experience because some young people find it harder to have those opportunities than than their peers who maybe have are more confident or who are in the social skills to negotiate um there's a lot of work to do in that space because of the gaps in the system it's a cohort that nationally is not well supported there's no additional funding unfortunately for young people post 16 if they have set if they are sent support if they if they have an education health and care plan we can support them there's a gap there so we're trying to work as a system to address address those gaps i'm going to bring you in sarah just really on the political area i think that what this has shown is that there has been almost a total disconnect between post-16 education that sits in one directorate and education that sits in another directorate and we have have now started well a little while ago this is a far more of a um getting together whereas before it would be like well the only time that we would ever i mean i'll be honest the only time i ever had to deal with post-16 is when there was an issue yeah and then it would come to me if it was anything great it wouldn't come to me it would go to somebody else but actually we we've been trying really hard to actually work better together because we recognize that young people from the age of 19 that there actually is just like an edge of a cliff and and we need to do far better on that and i think that by working collegiately with the post-16 education that sits in another directorate it can only benefit the young people yeah i have a i'm just going to follow up elementary to you yeah in relation to your question yeah i'm just i have come back so what you mentioned is annabelle that uh sarah did as well so after 16 it's the education uh post 16 sits somewhere else is that the way the council is working because in um terminology has changed all the responsibilities um have changed for local authorities because under 18 yeah they are children they they are the um the post-16 education used to sit in children's services it was moved into 2019 to a different part of the council um you're right to say that since then the statutory responsibility for education now goes up to 18 yeah for children who don't have send so we have got a bit of a disconnect we work we are working more and more with our colleagues but it's not set up in the same way as our education services and that is on the review oh good that was my we want to bring you in mads just supplementary yeah to your question uh you mentioned about employment uh service and training service for post 16 and post 16 up to 18 or my question is what service you have available for uh for uh above 19 because some children still have education health and care plan even though they're 19 plus you want to seek you want an advanced answer to your question you put to council don't you now what what training or employment support you have for them the the services themselves don't sit with us regardless of who the young person is the responsibility within our team is to support the child and family with their education health and care plan so if let's say a 20 year old in newham has an education health and care plan our team and actually health and you know all the partners are responsible for monitoring the plan working with the young person working with the family but the the provision of the service in employment services vision of any employment any training would sit within adult education which sits elsewhere in the council so any of the provisions around education doesn't sit in our three to 25 years only your service but not only for this i'm talking about scent yes but the send service doesn't run our schools or our or our colleges the send service oversees the statutory requirements we have to support children with scent um so if a child is you know of any age the education is provided by whichever setting they're in so if it's an adult a post post 16 year old young person then that adult education piece will will be monitored elsewhere in the council it's a part of your department not not post 16 education no just up to post 16 that's all i'm going to bring inclusive economy and strategic housing councillor madeline i'll show you you can shake your head but it's the truth yeah doesn't sit with us yeah um if you want i can talk to you about it afterwards yeah but no point it is it doesn't sit with you as sarah said but that's our advice sorry i don't think we need advice i think it's the fact that as i explained before there is a disconnect that we're trying really hard to work with but until it or until it comes under one directorate and actually if we're reviewing it we are reviewing it because we recognize that actually young people over the age of 16 are in some cases not all in some cases missing out and that needs to change the standard process okay yeah because it there is a review imam i'm going to bring you in so communication and the local offer mentions that young people with sent who do not speak english will receive translation services do we have an in-house translation service and is it available for families at all times and just to add another question to that please explain how the service works and how much does it enforce the council and where does the family come from so we don't have an in-house translation service we are blessed with many colleagues within the inclusion service who do speak a number of languages and um they have built very strong community relationships they all live within the community um and we were fortunate that most of the main the the most of the languages that large groups of families speak we have people so we're just very fortunate um so therefore it doesn't cost anything additional to the services however there are occasions when we don't have someone who speaks a language and at that point as with any member of a council team we need to reach out and buy in support which we will of course do because we want families to access that's on very much an ad hoc basis we don't have to pay up pay for we used to have we did yeah the language shop we don't have that and i think it certainly it hasn't been in existence in my second time on the council yeah um it was a traded service i will add that we are fortunate in newham to have such a vibrant sector and there are many volunteers particularly i mentioned some of the churches that absolutely you volunteer to help families understand um and i know when i was run running a school as a head teacher we often our volunteers were brilliant at helping families to understand what services they needed thank you i'm going to bring you in jamaama thank you chair um it's regarding what's and that is i did a review um this is possible for the council to like and partner up in practice with private sector so they they how to employ it really help them with that i suppose we may have a different definition of the private sector okay so when it comes to employment and and employment opportunities then our young people and our council services will go to anyone who can offer a a a proper placement or employment and it would be monitored at at the same as anywhere so if if a young person was wanting to go and work in morrisons or they wanted to work work in wherever there are pathways in so if that's what you mean by working with the private sector then that already happens okay um yeah yeah go on it's more of what to do with you know we are in the front right now so the council can afford a lot of things um depending on the funding depending on the funding whilst in the private sector they have this debt but we wouldn't pay for a we wouldn't be so if one of our young people went to work or to work placement we wouldn't the it wouldn't the the host organization wouldn't be charging the council that would be something that they do so so it doesn't it it's cost it doesn't cost us anything does it no no my point in making it and the council right now with process test school have a broad base and the council approach test school example oh i think we do already can i bring annabelle just just to clarify and this i i need to be brief because this doesn't sit with that post-16 education sits elsewhere in the council but the people who do that for all for young people in new when they're 16 and above are careers advisors and our adult education providers six forms colleges and all other post-16 providers all have careers teams some of the targets within the action plan are actually for us to work with those careers advisors to make sure they're prioritizing our young people with special educational needs and that's where the link is so we we wouldn't have capacity to go out and link with tescos but they will they do and we want them to prioritize our young people with send thank you okay very briefly because it's add on to that from about the year nine in a child with education health and care plans annual review they is actually a part of the form that refers to towards independence and towards adulthood and as part of that it will in each year with the parents the school and anyone that comes from any of the outside agencies will discuss with the parents and the child what their needs are with with regards to towards independence so depending on the level of need of the child if they're a child who needs some community type of work experience and they're working at a particular level and they're at east town college they may work in the sem cafe for example and that's been set up and that's that's quite a um a normal nationwide uh way of working with um young people at a particular level that need work experience with a lot of support young people that that could actually go out and have work experience and undertake some kind of pre-apprenticeship type model there about as annabelle has stated in newham college and other colleges around east london there are actually uh one-year apprenticeship schemes which are funded by through and the government which have been running now for a few few years and are very successful so they actually teach as part of the course that the young people undertake not only the maybe the time released to go and do and work experience in the community or in as you say private organizations but they'll also undertake a range of skills-based classes based on confidence and communication and actually getting to and from and planning journeys on all that level of things above that you've got young people that may need specific help who are undertaking particular mainstream courses within colleges or um sixth forms and they will be working very closely with the career services at the colleges or at the schools and also with their specific teachers so if they're doing motor mechanics level one or if they're doing health and social care level two then their tutors will be helping them to find work experience as some as part of their practical jobs that they're doing if they're not doing a practical um subjects if they're doing something like business studies or something like that it may be a more general type of career path they may be looking at with the careers teacher sorry the careers support person from the college or the school and many have access to specialist SEN and people who cover the SEN cohort as within their responsibility young people that are maybe taking more public examinations will be assisted through other means and will also have access to things like um access arrangements for taking public examinations which will be undertaken by the SEN department thank you but this is it's usually done within the college or the university i'm just gonna anymore i'm gonna bring lorraine just to say the youth empowerment service to a huge amount in this okay in terms of employment and you'll hear more about that at full council thank you imam is it related to the time so i'll pass okay so i've got a question um so when you're looking at the area of improvements um reduction of waiting time mentions that low level of mental health is not accessing the service in a timely way young people if they if they're with camps and then it's fine but if they have low levels of mental health issues obviously they don't get any support this can worsen their condition they can have an impact on education self-harm suicide so socialized isolation substance misuse and the list goes on how can we help these young people as a local authority can we approach alternative um provisions organizations the volunteer section uh volunteer communities where or organizations where they can help the young people have you looked into that sort of that's exactly what we have been doing what what that pointed to is children who are waiting who have low level needs always seem to get overtaken by children with higher level needs understandably because of the escalation but what are the pathways for those children and that's when i talked about the integrated front door which is a pilot in east ham and plasto which we're looking to roll out for the whole borough and with the collaboration the new map of multi-agency collaboration voluntary sector agencies and i just chaired the children and young persons mental health board this afternoon which you know heard the evaluation it's extremely positive and that's what the inspectors found we need more of that okay and and it needs to be borough wide rather than limited to certain areas east ham and plasto east ham and plasto so we have a list of people who deliver that sort of service can i just say yeah for some unknown reason i think laura and i well all of us well probably annabelle not that our report on the send that only goes up to page three scroll down i have scrolled down and all i've got numbers yeah we've just got the power they're in the bottom right the numbers yeah but we've then only got the strategy you know we haven't got anything further than that not even the action plan apologies yeah that's so i don't know what so if i'm looking a bit i don't when i've gone to the page that you've said i haven't got that page so it uh i think my question was from page 23 um can i add a point on mental health support yeah just the the other thing just to flag is that many schools have done a lot of work in the recent years to try and have practitioners within the school to support those low-level needs so increasingly so for example the child is has mental health needs due to trauma there are a number of trauma-informed practitioners working in schools now many schools have mental health first aiders who are fully trained to to support some of those children families so it's a real approach which has helped lots of young people while they're waiting for assessments as well thank you does colleagues have any questions because i've got three more questions you have this line go ahead yeah um so again um area of improvement it says um on transition and preparing for adulthood uh producing a pfa toolkit that children with um send needs will have a clearer roadmap yes what does that mean so this comes under area of improvement um and is overseen by the preparation for adulthood board so that's a board that's co-chaired by by laura and by jason strell it's the corporate director of adults because we recognized the transition from being school aged into adulthood for many young people is a point which could be where young people feel less supported and so the toolkit is being designed to support uh young people to have to be empowered to have some ownership over decision making not just in terms of education access but also access to support from social care access access to support from health because we want part of the send code of practice focuses on how we help young people to become independent young people um with send can often find it harder to become independent as they move into adulthood and so the focus here is giving young people tools to make decisions around their own um support whether that's um some of the things we discussed on education experience employment but it could also be access to health care of various sorts and the toolkits designed for them to to make some of those decisions still with our support but without um things needed to be decided for them were explained in too much detail thank you so if these young people were 18 yes they're no more children but had send needs yes but if their parents were subjected to no recourse to public funds does it work do we still support them good question so the education health and care plan is funded up until the age of the plan so young a young person can have an education health care plan up to the age of 25 not all plans run to that age because some needs are age specific you know some young people the plan ends when they're 18 20 it depends very much and the young person's involved in that decision making so i can think of a number of cases of young people who i've supported who have had a diagnosis of asd they've gone on to achieve they've gone into employment and they've no longer sought the support a person could choose not to have a plan it's their right not to have a plan if a young person is entitled to and wants an education care health care plan up to the age of 25 that will be fully funded regardless of their family's status oh right okay that's good thank you uh so children um and young people with send having access to information about short breaks yes um so that they can have respite options do we pay for these short breaks how does it work anyone want to talk about short breaks well it comes under our local offer doesn't it yes um so short breaks for what we used to commonly known as respite yeah so yes so that's short breaks can be either overnight or it can be a day or whatever and it's there on our local offer website okay um and people more you can ask if you you get additional support uh financial support children have their own budget and it's it's really it's up to parents i think that we don't so i once was asked why we didn't why we wouldn't pay for a child to go horse riding okay and my answer was would you would you be paying for your other child to go horse riding and the answer was yes and i said well why wouldn't you pay for your other child so you know i think i think that's quite yeah interesting but certainly about short breaks yeah yeah it's available and and yeah sometimes they go to fair play house or dead you know so the service sits in mass area okay would you say a bit yeah yeah maybe yeah so in terms of short break we we've developed uh our short break offer uh so we have now a number of uh uh saturday clubs and weekend clubs for for our children uh uh with with additional needs um so now we've uh created an offer where a parent can just call up and if their child sort of meets the threshold then they'll automatically get the offer without requiring coming to a mash or social services uh to request that service so they can automatically get it because if they've got a child and they should have that we are also uh developing a short break a coordinator in the early help service to really work with volunteer sector organization because there's so many agencies out there that can offer services to our children so what we're trying to do is connect and build a portfolio of sort of services for our for our kids um and and what the local of uh the strawberry coordinator will also do is that um rather than families so at this moment we sort of refer families to our local offer which is a website which could be quite complex to navigate and and difficult so uh the actual recording that will take them through the short break offer in terms of what they're entitled so that a family can sort of access the right short break of their choice thank you my last question are there many young people which send needs in homeschooling and if so how does that process work so there are some children young people who um where the family has decided to electively home educate and the child has special educational needs we have um i think i've touched on this in previous meetings we have a a group called the children missing in education strategic boards that meets regularly i chair the group we have two um elective home education teachers who visit the families so they do home visits they look at the education provision we always urge families wherever we can to keep their children in school even if they're waiting for an assessment because um that school has more resources than a than a family would and of course um we know that families um will need additional support you know it's very difficult for a family to cover all the aspects that school can cover but we do we also understand that it's um parents have a right to electively home educate if a child has any special educational needs however we will intervene more often we'll be in contact with the family more often and um if we feel that the education is not good quality we will continue to to work with that family and try to support them but the majority of the time we're really working with the family to find a school place that they're happy with and they take the off the majority of the time yes and any missed school of course is is something that we we're not happy about but we also understand the stress that families are under when when they think a child may have needs particularly if they're not yet diagnosed and so we try to with the family to find a school place all right thank you so jemima last question from this segment yes okay yeah please do are you did say that if the present is meets the special what about those what is what is what is there for them what support is for them as to your answer the person is not excited what is there for them how are we helping them so in terms of children who don't qualify for the education health and care plan every child has an edge an entitlement to education regardless of need and the school that they're in um is responsible for providing that education so they're entitled to access the broad and balanced curriculum that that every child under the education act is entitled to if there are needs that the child and the family has raised with the school the school is expected to accommodate those um it's uh it's more challenging but if a child doesn't meet threshold for education health care plan it means that the professionals involved feel that that child can learn within a normal setting so they can learn within the classroom whether it's not to say that every classroom isn't full of children with different needs there are multiple needs some some are special educational needs some are language needs you know there are many many different needs that we all have as humans and um we would expect our teachers and teaching assistants and others to work with the child and differentiate for them it's worth saying that the majority of schools do that extremely well in newham newham has a strong history of being a very very inclusive borough for children there are of course exceptions to that but um as i've said in previous scrutiny meetings we have so many examples of good practice and schools learn from one another and how to bring classrooms learning together so in the majority of cases um we would we would just be working with the school to support them to build on that good practice we also have a senco forum that meets regularly so that's a forum of all of the same with the special educational needs coordinators and that's a meeting that our our team coordinates and senco share strategies and support because their responsibility in schools to train teachers and how to be inclusive as well as to support children and families so they have a role in helping helping teachers think okay i have let's say four or five children with dyslexia in my classroom dyslexia is not normally a need that would have a child removed from a classroom setting it would just be about how do we adapt our materials to help that child access the curriculum thank you do you have a follow-up yes okay regarding the employment if the person is not entitled from the 18 to 25 the person is not entitled do we have any support for them that's entitled to employment support or yeah you said they they always have a plan and the plan depends on what about age yes if a person does not qualify for a plan and yes yes so if a young person's attending a post-16 for sixth form etc they will have an entitlement to access the career service so they would be they would be given time normally it's a set number of hours over a period of time where they can access a careers advisor can access normally their careers fairs work experience opportunities as a student in the in the establishment they'll be able to access that along with no no okay i'm gonna bring this um agenda item item to a close and moving on to um agenda item eight new and virtual school annual report and um colleagues i've read it i've read it uh if you can sorry chair yeah sorry fill me okay five minutes i'll be brief this is the annual report of the virtual school which is um shared with the department for education every year it's a statutory requirement that we report on the work of the virtual school and um it's as i've said in the introduction it's ratified by our corporate parenting board this year the corporate parenting board will be verifying and approving the report next week the first of may so you're that's why you're seeing a version that says draft because until they've approved it but there there will be no changes between now and and the version they they hopefully approve next week this is a statutory requirement it covers in quite a lot of detail yeah the work of the virtual school how we meet our statutory requirements the virtual school um and also it's it's reported the department for education uh we also have other things that we track internally which i've mentioned in my introduction point three that the reason they're not in the report is we don't need to publish those so for example we're looking now at how um how those some of those groups that we've identified previously being disproportionately disadvantaged in newham how did they how are they supported for the virtual school so if a group um isn't achieving as well in in main in in the rest of the school system how are they achieving in the virtual school that's something we're analyzing internally we're not publishing that to the dfe because we're not required to and we don't want to go kind of into further regulation um if we don't need to but we can share that in future years with scrutiny if that's of interest we're now doing that analysis in terms of this report this time it goes through i mean i i'll let um everyone just ask me questions rather than outline everything that's in it goes into quite a lot of detail in both the outcomes but also some of the practice and the case studies of the virtual school and just the final point chair because we have to report this retrospectively this refers to last school year so all of the data is up to last summer because we have to use verified data yes thank you for that so it's nine eight 25 now so i was hoping that we could have finished by nine so if we keep our questions and answers very brief you'll be able to do it right so brief questions so in regards to thank you in regards to the virtual school is there any good practices that we can i know it's not you know but is there any good practices that we can employ that into the normal um mainstream school mainstream school so yes our virtual school has achieved as hopefully comes across the report um some extremely good outcomes for our young people and um a number of ways that we are sharing that with our other with all of our schools in order to for them to learn our virtual school has been established for a while in newham it's a um they're a well integrated team within our services and therefore they're well known to our schools and so one of the things we're doing is some team members go out into schools almost like an outreach model and they work with teachers to understand better understand the the experiences of our care experience children young people better understand how the school might be able to support that young person to succeed um i was recently fortunate enough to sit in on a um a meeting about a young person who's in care uh it was chaired by a member of the virtual school team the social worker was there the the forum tutor was there the um the the carer was there the young person chose not to come to that meeting she she didn't want to be there but she'd given her feedback in writing and we talked about each kind of person in the meeting talked about the progress the virtual school was able to give suggestions not only to the school but actually also to the social worker maybe you want to talk about this with her so the virtual school is very much a a team of people that helps bring all of the professionals together around the child and helps the the child's voice be heard i think there's a lot we could continue to share but they're already in practice being thank you shanto hi just in relation to jameima's question or in relation to your answer we we have enough social water to support uh that that we have in that thing yeah i think that's probably a question from we have enough social workers to support the children like is there any shortage because i cannot see that there is no data so if we can yeah in terms of i mean our in terms of caseload per social workers are quite average compared to the london boroughs uh and um so we are in terms of the social worker per child i think yeah yeah we have enough social workers uh to support our children um most all our social workers attend uh our pet meetings which is the personal educational plan meeting to support our children to ensure that they're achieving and they're developing um so in terms of capacity wise yeah it's fine thank you our children would they would have one social worker because they the virtual school is working with children in care and yeah children in care and children in need so it's like you know they don't have more than one social worker and good so just um sorry uh if you can introduce yourself your name and this sorry yeah sorry i should have asked no no of course and i should have uh so it's mafcon acting director mafcon i'm the acting director of early health and safeguarding and uh so our caseload is 14 in um children care so 14 children a social worker a social worker something thank you any other questions i just think the some of the achievements that show in these that's tremendous thank you thank you everybody involved everybody involved yeah you should be very proud because they're your children yeah but i do took my line i'm sorry for the chair the um can i just add to that but i think laura raised it not only last week but as well is that the data we have is compare comparing to london wide and and what we want to be drilling down into is are our children who come through the virtual school attaining the the same levels as children in those same schools no no yeah and empty and that's annabelle's we won't be put that won't go in a report to the gme but it's something that we are very conscious yeah can i just care just respond to uh the council's point yes and full uh just to commend our young people in the virtual school because they work extremely hard they do and it's really um testament to their hard work we are fortunate to be invited maf and i were invited to the annual celebration event in fact we gave out certificates this year um and it was a joyous event of young young people really celebrating their education achievements yeah something that um that wash off okay so i've got a few questions of course um so it mentions that educational outcomes of children in kinship care arrangements um that's the new thing that's come to um the virtual school yes um the the responsibilities of the virtual school team seem to grow quite regularly okay it's um every time though there's more need in the system for young people in various care arrangements often it's highlighted as as the virtual schools responsibility and that's partly because nationally the impact of virtual schools has been very positive local authorities having to have a virtual school has highlighted the importance of good education for children and care all sorts of care and in this case kinship care is a relatively recent addition to to the virtual school responsibility which as we have a strong virtual school we're fortunate to be able to incorporate in our approach thank you so um on page 56 it talks about children with a social worker yes um it says about divert ed team uh is is that something new that exists that they've worked with 95 children but we've got more children in care so the 95 cohort who are they yes and what what does that team do so the diversity the divert ed team is a team within the virtual school that specifically that do a lot of outreach work with young people with a social worker who aren't you know who are within the care system but they're not in care in the same way so they this was an initiative that was set up um it was piloted by the department for education a few years ago newham was approached as a local authority to be asked if we would be willing to take part we said yes please and um we set up the divert ed team the divert ed team are and they often do some of the outreach work i mentioned earlier in terms of showcasing good practice with schools they work across all of our teams as we've said on this page here that you've highlighted um they work within our people referral units they work within many of our children with a social worker have had a mobile experience of school so they've been with that child in and out through various experiences and their role is as as the rest of the virtual school team is always to highlight the importance of and the opportunities for education for those children young people there are many other partners working with those children for other reasons but really the focus of virtual schools how do we advocate for that young person's education and help them access it in whatever way so the divert ed team are extremely creative in helping young people access tuition or helping them go to the library for the first time helping them to access the resources they need to do homework they may have been given my school they often help build relationship with the school as well sometimes when we're having other meetings with schools around young persons at risk of exclusion for example divert ed worker will come along to try and support and avoid some of that with the school they do a tremendous amount of work our divert ed team thank you on page 65 you've mentioned some school names recognizing them as virtual school role of honor yes why was it only those schools mentioned it's a competitive event every year this so at the end of the school year um our virtual school team with our young people um look through schools that we nominated to receive a role of honor and it's like an awards that they receive every year it's a different group and i'd like to mention them all right i will say as well we didn't put them in the report because we didn't think it was necessarily appropriate team within the council also received them but we didn't think we should be saying that's the df yeah i was just wondering okay lots of people receive them it's a certificate signed by laura signed by the virtual school head teacher just to celebrate and thank them for the good work they're doing exactly for the good work they're doing exactly um page 69 um it says for 118 young people in care who are in needs category how do we support them to become eat eet employment education or train those are care leavers rather than in in care okay um okay okay just to to clarify i don't know if colleagues want to contribute to this we do have some some strategies within the virtual school because they're care leavers they're i get it slightly like crossover in yes crossover they move to leaving care so do you want to know in terms of what initiative we have yeah of course um and we are um so the virtual school closely links in with the service manager in leaving care service uh and we are we have um and a colleague in education who sits in living care to really work with with our care leavers to think about different sort of opportunities uh for them um our actually eat figures are much better um compared to sort of a number of local it is obscene it's improved one of the things we are doing now and we're thinking of which laura is spreading with executive exec is thinking around the family business model really thinking around how we as a local authority and give our children opportunities and experiences so that they can get into employment and and and training yeah that's something we do so it comes it comes just to add sorry it comes from the idea so even though our eight figures apparently yes still have one in four of our children aren't doing anything now that can be because of the trauma they have suffered um and they can become dysregulated but it's also to do with the support mechanisms around them so many of us will have uh 20 year olds 25 year olds who we still need to wake up in the morning who we still look over their seats we still do everything for our kids are in a flat on their own and they may not have a family member who to say how do i call in sick how do i do this how do i do that and they need that support which they get from the staff in the leaving care team one of the things that um has has struck me is that when you grow up in your own family chances are you will have work experience in the in the shop that they have or in the business they do or where they work whereas we're a council our children could do anything they want from youth work to social work to teaching to repairs electrician finance hr legal you name it we have got that department so actually there should be more opportunities for our children not less so this is where the idea of the family but the council is the family business um or the parents and then you expand that to the police health voluntary sector agencies everyone else is their aunts and uncles who they can also have jobs with so that's the that's the that's my taking very well explained laura i'll tell you why i got two in that age category you mentioned so i know how it is okay okay so um i think i've done all my questions um um yeah it's it's done just just a supplementary so from do you monitor them from when they will come from need to or will they be over 25 then we don't have the responsibility they're still always our children so that we have to do you know what i mean it's like that i mean although technically at the age of 25 they're not but actually they still maintain a relationship with their pas good i mean i have i have care leavers or actually one care leaver who can who's who still he met when he texts me he's a he tries to swing the lead all the time he wants my address do you know what i mean but i mean benji must be he must be 28 29 yeah do you know what i mean yeah so they never stop yeah and we never turn them away that's really good to hear thank you for that so um it follows both from what you've said sarah and what laura's saying and looking at the outreach because all those services that are offered um are they all taken up or do you do you have to work very hard to get young people to really vary with that i mean we make sure we're fully available to those young people as it says a couple of points not everyone wants to access the services and some don't need to you know some you know have have found their own networks and own ways but we there's regular keeping in touch approaches so that if if anyone ever feels they need to tap back into the start whether it's parts of the virtual school or other parts of the leaving care service we make sure that we're available and easy to find at all times for young people and they respond yes very respond they love coming annual celebration event for example some that performed every year we we we can't remember when they left care but they come back every year to sing something thank you so yeah i just want to add that we have good relationship with uel and newham college the the living care service newham college in new week to really uh so we have bespoke sort of courses brown girl kids in those courses so and i think that has worked really well for our 22 and 23 and 24 year olds i'm just looking at the fresh data um last year the the young people who requested and received support who we keep in touch with so we have a duty to keep in touch annually if they don't want a full service was 83 compared to other local authorities at 55 percent that's good great thank you thank you thank you so do we note the report or do we agree the report it's just for noting it's for noticing because it then goes to the corporate parenting okay they approve it yeah and we note the more questions so as corporate parents i think all of us in this room should be really proud of we should some of the work you have done there's always uh room for improvement in anywhere we go but i think you've done a tremendous job sure annabelle and matt will pass on your so i want to thank i want to thank the officers and obviously you as the lead and uh you as the deputy madeline so i want to thank you and on behalf of my colleagues and myself okay moving on item eight sorry automate we've done yes the performance dashboard so if we can spend a minute so um um sheets or per indicator eight minutes per sheet j a a all right i was concerned here tonight yeah so so i think um you would have received so i'm going to go page by page oh you're going to go page by the good it's on that page because we've right i have a question what page should we on chair the first page page 68 68 it'll be from the last week's agenda what's it called 20 17th of um april's agenda is the performance dashboard all right i'll just say where i am um right so it was about as a supplementary chair exactly page number seven probably stop and this is page seven okay i'm not going to say the message i'll say the first page second page and so on right yeah you were on this page page number seven yeah okay i'll do that thank you so before i start this yes artemis has reminded me as corporate parenting training on 14th of may i'm hoping all colleagues will attend that yeah can can we put send the calendar in white please oh yes that's in there okay brilliant safeguarding and corporate parenting everything okay yeah okay thank you so um um so on the first page are there any questions the percentage of infants who turned 30 days a quarter who received a face-to-face new birth visit is it within 14 days from birth by a health visitor is there any questions on that if not yeah yes yes we always ask ourselves that um families don't have to have a new birth visit or a health visitor visit some some parents choose to give birth at home and they have midwifery there with them and then they decide they're not going to have a new birth visit um within two weeks they want to be left alone that's their choice if there are safeguarding concerns though that becomes less of their choice of their choice and we would assess whether we need to intervene and ensure the baby's seen that wouldn't be by this service it would be by maths so thank you um percentage of ehcps issued within 20 weeks from initial request yeah it seems we have done uh 31 plan issued within with 20 weeks on time and that means 61 person we have achieved out of 100 person i would say we are doing better we are we are we are progressing but there is always room to improve yeah and thanks for working hard we the one we have in 2022 in set of state inspection since then we really actually moved on we have indeed really did great and and i always feel still something it's always room for improvement i mean it's a question shanto my question is how can we improve further make sure we are actually tracking our plan on time i i can take that just to because this is the dashboard the answer to this is actually on page three so we've recruited um more um hang on a minute let me just make sure i've got the right as i said we're recruiting more education psychologists speech and language therapists and others to improve the number of planned assessments we can do to get plans ready um we've expanded the send case officers so prior to christmas our send case officers were each managing around 270 plans which is a huge number of plans and that's due to the increase of need in the local authorities we've expanded the case officer team so that that's more manageable because um i mean there's a later target around annual views once you have a plan you also have to make sure it's up to date so we need to manage that uh we're working hard to try and improve the system so that so that we're chasing the assessments to make sure they're coming back in time to add to the plan so it's really each stage of the assessment we need to improve some of the delays take longer like as earlier educational psychology assessments so taking longer but we're trying to improve the whole system so that that increases so that improves further thanks yeah just commentary enable we had national shortage yes of speech and language therapist and occupational therapies yes it was hard to hire even though if you have a funding available so how currently you are managing those areas is there any alternative way you trying to improve this area or you you found more extra therapists within the period so the speech and language and occupational therapists have both improved their outcomes and the way they've done that is by restructuring the service so that the therapists and this sits within our health team the therapist is spending less time on paperwork and more time on assessment and so they've streamlined the paperwork to improve the numbers so each therapist can see more children and that's had a big impact that's why it was highlighted as an improvement um we will need to continue to support them to do that because as you said it is a national problem yeah because we are working as a team it's good for us people we're hearing good good good and bad but still i know it needs to thank you suspensions from all new arm schools right moving on permanent exclusions from new arm schools secondary i have a question on it does the local authority have a say in permanent exclusions or is it just the governing body how do we support young people to get get back into education so when there's a permanent exclusion it's the decision of the school um it's the decision of the head teacher um the local authority has to be informed so the school has to inform us and we have um an inclusion team that then notify various people including myself we look at every time there's a permanent exclusion or proposed permanent exclusion i personally look at the evidence being provided to support that exclusion in every case we challenge it in every single case and we always try to avoid exclusion and our one of our inclusion officers will go and be part of the the hearing because governors hear the decision so the governors um which in an academy normally is either a governing body or a committee of the the trust the governors hear the decision to exclude the head teacher or a representative needs to present the case to the governors um this is how it normally works and certainly happy how it works in newham schools that the young person the family and sometimes an advocate have an opportunity to also present their case the governors decide whether to uphold the exclusion or to um overturn it which does happen and we offer to be part of that process sometimes this quite often the schools support it because they know that um we can help with the help the family so if an exclusion is upheld we can help the family with next steps we can help transition into alternative provision of some description or the crew but we are available to be every single exclusion hearing which is one of the reasons our exclusion figures are actually low compared to other local areas areas we also um look at every i don't know many other directors who look at every single exclusion and scrutinize it because we we see it as such an important point in a young person's life it can not be be so detrimental yes it's life changing and so we do everything and a number of occasions we have a conversation with school and say hang on there might be a different way of approaching this it's really good to know i have a supplementary in relation to your question yeah so is there is it harder for local authority to involve the school who are academicians over academy um it's a great question so we don't have with a parent exclusion we have a statutory responsibility so we can intervene with any permit exclusion regardless of the type of school with the exception of independent schools that's a different system but any state-funded school we can intervene in the permit exclusion um some academies are less open to us being involved than others um and we try we still take the same approach we still challenge the exclusion uh we're less likely to be invited to be the be part of the panel um but we still do our best to get there and we'll certainly always reach out to the family anyway thanks for sharing i know i am hearing that i'm getting excited yeah moving on suspensions for white and black caribbean ethnicity total number of suspensions as a percentage of uh pupils moving on to the next one persistent absence in primary schools okay there's two questions alan and then uh uh lester yeah i'm hearing that up and down the country this shot up after covid yes so i'm wondering how our position compares with places we could reasonably be compared to and how much what it's coming down to great great question it did it shot up for us up to covid as well it had a covid had a significant impact on attendance um in a negative way and in schools in newham we um have put in place a targeted attendance team to support schools with children who are persistently absent and so we are now um back to um pre-pandemic levels with our attendance and actually we're now better than the national average which is so we're better than pre-pandemic levels for persistent absence now partly because we've gone into the full targeted attendance team and one thing to note which is particularly positive for the attend the work of the attendance team is it's a traded service so the schools pay for our attendance team's time and they're continuing to do so so they've seen the impact of that work which is one of the best tests actually because they see it's improved the attendance of their children thank you lester are there any students pretty bad yeah that's a great question some schools manage attendance better than others as with everything there are i think last count there are four primary schools and two secondaries where we are still intervening more around persistent absence so what that means is we then more frequently as we can see trends of particular persistent absence is a trend where schools interventions are not working um that's also been a challenge within the pru so we've it's or with the pru where you would be particularly worried about a child being persistently absent because they've already had a gap in education if they've ended up in the pru so there we are intervening more um which tends to mean more frequency of visit more seniority of who goes along so the team manager will go to those meetings herself she'll escalate it to the head of service sometimes he escalates it to me it rarely happens that it has to reach me because we have such a strong system but sometimes i will need to speak to the head teacher or the governors and say we need a different flat this isn't working okay which of the schools i would be uh maybe we take it offline i could take it offline yes more than happy chair offline but i would have to remember and at this time of day i'm not sure i'd do a good job i'm moving on persistent absence in secondary schools any questions if not number of knife crime injury we take page one to 24. any questions i have um um um knife them i have to sorry and so shall i shall i say do you want do you have a question um yeah yeah go on so as we're having oh yeah oh i just finished there uh so 35 offenses where the knife crime injury victim was age 24 uh or younger so i think within the 12 months period um at the moment we are hearing everywhere the shortage of the police even though we are facing in neum we don't have enough uh officer police officer and as a uh as you're working in a cnd department are you uh requesting or are you writing to them saying that we need more police because our young children are not safe it would that would come that line of sort of communication would go from our crime and anti-social behavior the department not and we we would so we work closely with them yes this is them asking but the the line of communication to the borough commander yes go from them however we do have senior police officers who sit on both our youth justice board and our newham safeguard children's safeguarding board so they are well aware of the of the shortage okay but actually we continue to press continue to press please do but it is so from the from the crime and anti-social behavior is the line of of that but you're working with them yeah yeah yeah research will show yeah that this is what we would term in the use safety strategy as disrupt and deter and you'll know the use safety strategy in it as one of the elements that can deter knife crime yeah actually with children that isn't the element that deters knife crime it's more to do with recovering from um being the victim of domestic abuse as a child yeah solutions we discussed in last meeting and mentoring stuff be the police on the street is i know but element i know nobody like you nobody wants to hear our children are dying you know thank you just checking we don't have to extend standing orders do we i think automatically chair 9 30. 9 30. all right let's let's keep it very brief okay uh first i mentioned to youth justice system rate per 100 000 or of 10 to 17 population any questions right the next one is percentage of children becoming the subject of child protection plan for second or subsequent one time percentage of re-referrals within 12 months i can black british children percentage of re-referrals within 12 months small percentage of children coming back into care stop me if you have any questions okay care leavers in employment education or training i think we covered a lot of it in the previous um and last um and also last week yeah yeah care leavers in employment education or training again we talked about it today um yeah that's it yeah let's all go on brilliant which is we love this meeting let me see what's on done performance stats vote yeah good so anything else okay i don't think on time go on i want to say something go on i've written something so i would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the teacher oh wow thank you your excellence and your guidance thank you for that and thank you for the last one here and i would also like to extend my sincere gratitude to the cabinet of the cabinet cabinet and the council officers for their expertise and commitment to ensuring transparency and accurate accountability are truly valued thank you so much and but i'm thinking is it the last meeting of latmini thank you for your hard work and professionalism your contributions are essential to the department that we serve so thank you very much for that thank you to other members of the school community i think it was i think it was we have amazing one here no thank you thank you is it like when it's last day yes yes yes yeah okay so look colleagues now two people on our take on my lines today including alan right i wanted to thank the officers the cabinet leads wonderful work you are doing and we are really really grateful and obviously my colleagues myself we're a team we work together it's about finding solutions if we have any issues and i also want to thank this is it putting us up with us thank you aaron and we're done so this year yeah thank you i think it's too much old yes and i really think that we have embraced that we have embraced that trial of no chloe's yeah and i think that actually it's worked much better than when we have chloe's yes i feel that yeah so well you know thank you well done laura for suggesting that yeah but yeah thank you on the platform let's say brilliant have a good evening everybody