The Strategic Director, Children’s Services will submit Document “AN” which provides an update on the progress and development of the Fostering Service and the changes introduced since the appointment of the new Service Manager on 23 October 2017.

Recommended-

That the significant developments in the Fostering Service including areas that were not necessarily addressed in the Fostering Review, due to restrictions on time and the size of the service be noted.

                                                                        (Jim Hopkinson – 01274 432904)

The Strategic Director, Children’s Services submitted Document “AN” which provided an update on the progress and development of the Fostering Service and the changes introduced since the appointment of the new Service Manager on 23 October 2017.

The following points from the report were highlighted:

·         A full time Recruiting and Marketing Manager was appointed in early October 2017 as well as a Community Resource Worker which supported the Service with the recruitment activities undertaken to attract new foster carers.

·         The Service joined a regional campaign ‘You Can Foster’, which had been advertised widely through social media, street side posters, radio and TV adverts; to date for 2017-18, the campaign had generated 100 enquirers, of which 4 had progressed from initial enquiry.

·         There were currently 28 households still in active enquiry stage.
Bradford had shown the best return on investment in the Yorkshire and Humberside region so far with 1.9 enquiries per 10K in the population, compared to Leeds (1.4 per 10K), Kirklees (1.3 per 10K) and North Yorkshire (1.45 per 10K).

·         The Service had revised its telephone service for those interested in fostering. The “You Can Foster” campaign and website directly relayed people into the service.

·         At the start of the financial year 2017/18 the target was to recruit 50 new fostering households; the figure to date had now exceeded this with 71 new households; this improvement was significant and was a direct impact of the marketing activity and management direction.

·         Additionally, to meet future demand, the service had now shortlisted 9 social workers from the wider Children’s Service  who would be ‘casual workers’ for the Fostering Service. The target although ambitious, for the next financial year was to double the mainstream provision to 42.

·         The Service had done some drop in information sessions for Council workers across the District. This had provided an opportunity for council staff to pick up leaflets about Fostering and more were planned in the year.

·         A Fostering event took place on the 14^th September 2017 to launch the revised foster carers’ handbook. 

·         The Fostering Service had now set a date for the first annual carer conference taking place 23^rd May 2018 which would be joined by the Director and Founder of Foster Focus, who himself was brought up in care to deliver a Keynote speech.

·         Worry Monsters had picked up in pace and the community in the Bradford district had got behind their production. The pace and size of knitting groups had supported social workers being able to put an order in for a worry monster for children they were supporting. The monsters supported direct work with children and young people. The children were reassured that it was ok to have worries, they wrote them down and pop their worries into the worry monster’s mouth and the worries could stay there until they were ready to talk to a trusted adult.

·         A significant development within the service was the launch of the Fostering Service’s Standards of Practice in January 2018.  It was a 15 page document which set out timescales and expectations in relation to practice. It was a significant development as the service was in a much better position to challenge poor practice when the standards were not being met.

·         Over the last 2 years as part of the Journey to Excellence and the New Model of Care for Looked After Children in Bradford, the Service had worked hard to train, develop and support PACE practitioners in order to help embed the Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy (PACE approach). 

·         To balance  workloads across the full Fostering Service, the Service Manager had now reviewed staffing and resources and made a significant change by joining the Support/Shared Care Team with the Special Guardianship (SGO) Support Team, which was under resourced.  This change had also provided further opportunity to resource other pressured areas.

·         As part of the successful innovation bid by Children’s Services, the fostering service had now launched  the first  2 Mockingbird hubs in February 2018. The model was proven to achieve greater resilience in placements and reduce the number of placement breakdowns. 

In response to Members questions it was reported that the reasons behind so many initial contacts not converting in to enquiries were mainly due to the enquirer:

·         not having a spare room to foster

·         actually wanting adoption not fostering

·         language barriers (not having a good enough level of English to be able to support a child in education, record children’s activities and work with the teams around looked after children)

·         expressing an interest but not able to foster at this time (life circumstances)

·         initially interested because of financial reasons

The Chair suggested that knitting of Worry Monsters could be promoted on the Council’s Bradnet site.

In response to a Member’s question it was reported that changes in Foster Care Allowances had only resulted in one foster carer leaving the system.

There was a short discussion on the ethnicity of foster carers and it was highlighted that there was a shortage of foster carers from the Eastern European Community.

A suggestion was made that Information Sessions on recruiting Foster Carers should be held in Community Centres. In response it was reported that  outreach work was undertaken to recruit Foster Carers including events in Community Centres.

There was a discussion on the need for the temporary posts of Recruitment and Marketing Manager and a Community Resource Worker to continue beyond the contract date.

Resolved-

(1)       The Committee recognises and welcomes the significant developments in the Fostering Service and requests a further report in 12 months.

Action:           Strategic Director, Children’s Services