The Corporate Parenting Committee was scheduled to meet on 16 July 2025 to discuss several issues relating to children in care, including employability pathways for care leavers, the annual health report for looked after children, and the Southwark Homes for Southwark Children programme. The committee was also scheduled to elect a vice-chair and review its work plan for the year.

Care Leavers Employability Pathway

The committee was scheduled to consider a report on the Care Leavers Employability Pathway, a programme designed to support care leavers in their transition to employment.

The report noted that care leavers often face difficulties in moving into sustainable employment and training, and that these difficulties are exacerbated by challenges faced earlier in life, including in education.

The report stated that Southwark Council was committed to improving outcomes for children who face disadvantage, and that the council's People Plan was key to ensuring that the council has a workforce that is ready to deliver the organisation's vision and goals.

The report also noted that care experienced young people are more likely to be in education, employment or training than their peers in all parts of the country, but that those who are not in such circumstances face significant barriers.

The report outlined a number of proposals to tackle the practical barriers to employability for many young people, as well as begin to address policy and process barriers to increase accessibility and inclusion. These proposals included:

• Skills workshops and career conversations
• Work experience
• Supported internships
• Ring-fenced apprenticeships
• Ring-fenced entry level positions

The report stated that the employability pathway would be a progressive pathway, meaning that children would be fully supported and equipped at each stage to meet any essential criteria required to move onto the next phase of the pathway in a timely and well-supported way.

The report also stated that it was crucial for wraparound support to be available for young people before, during and following their participation in employability initiatives.

The report outlined the following measures of the pathway's impact:

• Achieving a 25% reduction in existing NEET¹ care leavers
• A reduction in the incidence of children transitioning from care becoming NEET
• An increase in ring-fenced education, employment and training opportunities across the local area public and private sector.

The report included a table outlining the minimum figures which had been agreed for each department to commit to supporting the employability pathway over the next financial year.

Appendix A of the report included slides from care experienced young people employability activities from Summer-Winter 2024, including a careers and wellbeing event, exploring careers in the construction industry with Berkeley Homes, interactive sessions with the Southwark Contact Centre and Southwark Housing Needs, an interactive managers event with Southwark managers, a growing talent event visiting PwC, a civil service internship session, and a health and social care careers event with Agincare.

Draft Annual Health Report for Looked After Children

The committee was scheduled to review the draft annual health report for children looked after. The report provides an overview of the provision of health services across the health economy for Children Looked After and Care Leavers including Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC).

The report was intended to inform and advise the Corporate Parenting Committee of the annual evaluation of health services by the Senior Health Leads for Children Looked After. It outlines the effectiveness of health care planning and describes the progression of services to fulfill relevant performance indicators including statutory timescales within the current commissioned services.

The report highlights the Children Looked After Health service delivery to children and young people in care to London Borough of Southwark during the reporting period of April 2024-March 2025, and recognises plans for the year ahead.

The report reflects both national and local policies that aim to improve the health and well-being of Southwark Children Looked After and to support those that care for them.

The report notes that improving health outcomes for CLA and Young People remains a priority, and aims to reflect the progression of work, key achievements and future plans to continue to highlight and improve the health needs and outcomes of the CLA population across the health economy.

The report outlines the delivery of health services to all Children and young people in care to Southwark Local Authority, and states that health services are committed to delivering health services to everyone and consider individual need and accessibility with all areas of health service provision.

The report includes contributions from Dr Rachel Massey, Named Doctor Looked After Children and Young People GSTT, Sarah O'Connor, Named Nurse Looked After Children and Young People GSTT, Dr Jenny Taylor, Virtual Mental Health Lead, Southwark, and Dr Luca Molinari, Medical Advisor Adoption, Adopt South London.

The report highlights the current picture of commissioned specialist health arrangements for Looked After Children and Care Leavers, reflecting the statutory requirements and additional priorities within health, aiming to achieve optimum positive health outcomes for children and young people.

The report outlines five areas of strategic focus for 2025/2026:

• Neurodiversity
• Gender Identity
• SEND²
• Southwark Children's Homes
• Improving mental health access and outcomes

The report notes that 79% of Southwark looked after children are placed out of borough, and 19% are placed >20 miles from home. It also notes that Southwark has on average 10% more young people aged 16 and over in care compared to London and statistical neighbours, and almost 20% more than the average for England.

The report includes a trend of statutory returns, including data on CLA at 31st March, CLA looked after for 12 months continuously as of March 31st, health assessments up to date, immunisations up to date, dental assessments up to date, developmental assessments up to date (under 5's), substance abuse problem, SDQ % completed, and SDQ average score.

The report notes that completion of immunisation schedules remains an area of focus, and that children in care can access immunisations from a variety of places, with some challenges regarding coordination, opportunity and consent.

The report also includes data on the cohort of looked after children, including ethnicity.

The report notes that specialist Gender transitioning services have a complex and lengthy waiting list for referral and treatment, and that over the past twelve months there have been significant changes in how these services are to be delivered, including the cessation of puberty blockers for under 18 years.

The report states that in line with current NHSE guidance, the Designated Professionals in partnership with specialist services, plan to develop and progress an individual 'wrap around' care pathway for Looked After young people who are requesting support to explore gender transitioning services, whilst on a referral waiting list.

The report notes that a joint Local Authority & GSTT ASD clinic for looked after children now runs fortnightly, providing expedited access to assessments and a holistic trauma-informed approach to ASD diagnosis, and that there is a dedicated senior mental health clinician for children in residential care, a dedicated mental health clinician for 18+ careleavers, and continuation agreed for the Lifelong Links team with embedded mental health clinician.

The report includes data on the number of under 18s whose mental health was a 'cause for concern' who received mental health treatment in 2024-5, and the number of over 18 year old Careleavers recorded as receiving mental health services by service in 2024-5.

The report also includes data on equity of access to mental health services for under 18s and careleavers, broken down by ethnicity and age.

The report includes a summary of annual data and key performance, including data on initial health assessments for children looked after 20+ days, new accommodations of looked after children 20+ days, % IHAs on time (or not yet due), review health assessments (RHA), and care leavers health summaries.

The report also includes data on identified health needs of the Southwark CLA population.

The report includes information on quality improvement projects, including engagement work with CYP – care leavers and Speaker box cohort, and an audit of quality of health assessments for children.

The report also includes information on adoption, including the health services supporting adoption, adoption activity, and a panel chairs' report for the period 1st October 2024 – 31st March 2025.

The report includes an action plan for 2025-2026, including actions related to completion and return of IHAs within statutory timescale, audit of access to health services for children placed in residential care, relative increase in substance misuse noted – review with commissioned provider : CGL, learning from partnership Safeguarding reviews, and accessibility of mental health services to looked after children and careleavers 16plus.

The report includes CLA Health Service feedback for 2024-2025, and initial feedback from the CP/CLA ARD clinic.

The report concludes that Looked After Children, Young People and Care Leavers continue to require distinct health care support from relevant health professional services, thus ensuring that any identified health needs are met in a timely manner, and that Southwark Health Professionals continue to work in partnership with all relevant partners to achieve best possible health outcomes for children.

Southwark Homes for Southwark Children

The committee was scheduled to receive an update on the Southwark Homes for Southwark Children programme, the council's corporate parenting improvement programme.

The programme aims to deliver the priorities of the Corporate Parenting Strategy and associated activity to ensure a high quality and sufficiency of care for children looked after by the local authority and care leavers.

The programme includes projects and workstreams across the full breadth of support and opportunity for children and young people.

The programme is overseen by the Southwark Homes for Southwark Children Board, chaired by Helen Woolgar, Assistant Director for Safeguarding & Corporate Parenting.

The programme currently has 20 individual projects or improvement activities being delivered across the following areas, matched to the Corporate Parenting Strategy priorities:

• Developing the Kinship Care local offer
• Children's Residential Development
• The whole council approach to corporate parenting
• Foster carer sufficiency

The report notes that Kinship Care: Statutory guidance for local authorities (October 2024) sets out a requirement for each local authority to publish information about the services in their area for children in kinship care and their families, and their approach towards meeting the needs of children in these arrangements.

The report states that work has been undertaken with the council's web team to map new content for the council's website that goes beyond the previous arrangements which were largely confined to the hosting of the policy document, and that the new page is modelled on the Local Offer for SEND and Start for Life webpages and acts as a single point of reference for Kinship Carers, ensuring that there is easy links through to relevant other content for carers to navigate to in an accessible manner.

The report notes that in the last 6-months there has been a range of engagement with kinship carers, primarily focussed on our priority to further strengthen our special guardianship offer, but with thematic findings that speak to the wider development needs of our kinship care local offer.

The report states that the main themes from that engagement were:

• The importance of continuous, consistent support
• The positive impact just one good worker can make
• Drift and delay in the review of support plans
• Lack of information and confusion about rights and entitlements
• Worries surrounding adolescence and SEND

The report notes that the first phase of this project has been the immediate updating and repurposing of the existing Family and Friend policy as the Kinship Local Offer, followed by a further work through co-production and consolidation to meet the expectations of the holistic future offer, and that the programme team is working in partnership with carers to develop a more comprehensive kinship local offer with a view to publication by the end of the calendar year.

The report states that the council successfully secured matched capital funding from the Department for Education to invest in the redevelopment of two properties as Residential Children's Homes, and that works at the first home has been completed and the provision was successfully registered by Ofsted on 4 June 2025.

The report notes that the focus of the programme in the area of the whole council approach to corporate parenting are developing a whole council employability pathway for children in care and care leavers, and the development of the Care Leaver's Hub.

The report states that the council's chief officer team have recently committed to the delivery of a new employability pathway with a substantive update to be presented to the Corporate Parenting Committee in July.

The report notes that the Care Leaver's Hub is the open access facility providing a range of drop-in and scheduled support to care leavers, staffed by Personal Advisors and Children's Rights Officers, and that the Hub now has a rolling programme of support across a number of areas for young people, including:

• Mental health support
• Housing support
• Employment and financial support
• Life skills

The report states that the approach to foster carer sufficiency improvement is multifaceted and includes improvements in internal performance management of the foster care service, development of improved marketing materials and recruitment approaches, improving the offer to foster carers, and understanding opportunities to support foster carers housing options.

The report notes that there has been a comprehensive and cross-council approach to increasing the visibility of foster care opportunities, and that new marketing assets are now deployed throughout council buildings and across the borough.

Corporate Parenting Committee Workplan 2025-26

The committee was scheduled to agree its approach and work plan for the year. The constitution for the municipal year 2025-2026 records the corporate parenting committee's role and functions.

The committee was scheduled to discuss the national and local context for care leavers, including the government's 'Keep on Caring' strategy in 2016, increased council statutory duties to care leavers in the Children and Social Work Act in 2017, the appointment of a national Adviser for Care Leavers who produced a report in 2018, alongside the national launch of the Care Covenant.

The committee was scheduled to review how it works in relation to non-voting co-opted members, committee approach, and work plan and suggested agenda items.

The following items were scheduled for discussion at future meetings:

22 October 2025

• Speakerbox verbal update and report back on actions
• Exclusions report back
• Update on mental health support and CAMHS³
• Foster annual report (including focus on recruitment)
• Southwark homes for Southwark children update
• Update on corporate parenting strategy 2025-30.

25 February 2026

• Speakerbox verbal update / annual report
• Annual independent reviewing officer report
• Adoption annual report
• Annual virtual head teacher's report
• Southwark homes for Southwark children update.

22 April 2026

• Speakerbox verbal update
• Southwark homes for Southwark children update
• Update on local offer on Kinship care.

To be allocated

• Exploitation, risk and harm and measures to break the cycle.

The report notes that SpeakerBox ensures that the views of looked after children and care leavers are used to influence decision making that affects their care and support particularly service planning and design, and that representing children and young people between 8 and 24 years the group also provides a peer-to-peer networking support system for looked after children.