In January 2017 Bradford was awarded £3.2 million over 2 years from the DfE Innovation Fund.  There are 3 elements to the award:

1)        Reducing the need for children to come into care through stronger edge of care work.

2)        Improving our ability to provide high levels of care within our residential homes  through embedding a therapeutic “PACE” approach.

3)        Setting up two “mockingbird” hubs to improve support to foster carers working with  children with more complex needs.

After consultation with the Children in Care Council, the programme was named B Positive Pathways (BPP)

The Assistant Director (Children’s Social Care) will submit a report (Document “L”) which sets out elements of the programme and progress to date.

Recommended –

That the Corporate Parenting Panel note the content of this report and

the progress of B Positive Pathways.

(Jim Hopkinson - 01274 432904)

In January 2017 Bradford was awarded £3.2 million over 2 years from the DfE Innovation Fund.  There were 3 elements to the award:

1)        Reducing the need for children to come into care through stronger edge of care work.

2)        Improving our ability to provide high levels of care within our residential homes  through embedding a therapeutic “PACE” approach.

3)        Setting up two “mockingbird” hubs to improve support to foster carers working with children with more complex needs.

After consultation with the Children in Care Council, the programme was named B Positive Pathways (BPP)

The Assistant Director (Children’s Social Care) submitted a report (Document “L”) which set out elements of the programme and progress to date.  The following aspects of the programme were highlighted:

·         That as of 15 November 2018, the outreach staff held an active caseload of 88 “edge of care” adolescents and had already closed 102 cases, of which 91.7% of those young people did not enter the care system.

·         That the Mockingbird Programme was launched on 10 February 2018 and currently we had 26 young people in the Mockingbird Model, and since February 2018 there had been no breakdown of stability within this cohort.

·         That the Department for Education had agreed to profile funds into the 3^rd year in order to continue with the programme.

·         That we were now in a position to analyse the emerging cost savings for Police partnership. In addition the BPP had made a direct saving to the Police in its reduction of calls for service.

·         That at this current time we did not have enough data from our health partnership to be able to accurately analyse cost benefit analysis, however early indications show that the health partnership is having a positive impact.

·         That an evaluation framework of BPP had been agreed and the evaluators will concentrate on the impact of the hub homes, the outreach team and the Mockingbird constellations.

During the discussion Members asked a number of questions, the questions together with the responses are detailed below:

In response to a question regarding the timeframe for re profiling the funds, it was explained that the contract end date was March 2019 and that the re profiling was specific to the health element and this will extend this element to March 2020.  There was also a discussion to be had with the Police of the intention of utilising PCSO’s.

In relation to a question on the recruitment of the new educational specialist, it was confirmed that this specialist would be part of the virtual school team.

In relation to a question on whether the Ofsted inspectors had made any criticism of the effort to keep the number of children going into care down.  In response it was explained that no criticism had been expressed by Ofsted, in addition all care planning was done in conjunction with Social Workers and any issues were flagged up.

In response to a question on whether the Service was confident that the thresholds for closing cases was robust enough, it was explained that the team was also backed by an outreach team, a psychologist and others and that they were fully involved in the decision making, and if a young person did not need to enter the care system, appropriate support would be offered within the home setting.

A Member raised the question whether the number of children in care was increasing from a cohort not previously identified as being at the “edge of care”.  In response it was stated that thresholds in Bradford were increasing and that the Ofsted inspection outcome had been a further factor.

In response to a question on how staff skills were being developed and how the training of staff was being monitored, it was explained that Psychologist at the hub picked up any deficiencies and additional training provided if necessary.

In response to a question of what happens when the Mockingbird Programme ends, it was explained that as Authority we were trying to adopt is as a programme and at the same time argue our case for future funding, in particular as the Mockingbird Programme would be a fully evaluated programme.

The Interim Strategic Director stated that it would useful for this Panel to have information around the number of children going into external care and the unit costs, and also to gauge the views of the young people involved.

Resolved –

(1)       That the report be noted and the progress made on the B Positive        Pathways.

(2)       That a further update report be submitted at a later date to be     determined, which includes comparative data regarding the cost    of utilising external care.

(3)       That the views of our Children who are Looked After be gauged to       ascertain the difference it is making.

ACTION:       Assistant Director Children’s Services