Update no 636 22nd November 2024

If you have any news that you would like included in our Friday Update, please contact Richard Tyndall (details below)

Three children playing happily together

Newsletters

Our Regional Improvement Plan can be found here

Our Impact Report published in March 2023 can be found here

If you would like to apply to be a SESLIP consultant, please follow this link to Kent Business Portal – KentBusinessPortal and after registering on the portal, search for Ref – SC240046 – SESLIP – DPS

Updates

Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive

On 18 November DfE published Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive – breaking down barriers to opportunity

A policy statement setting out the government’s commitment to whole system reform of the children’s social care system.

The Minister’s statement is here (Hansard)

Headlines

  • Wherever possible children should remain with their families and be safely prevented from entering care in the first place, there is lots of learning to draw from here e.g. youth justice teams, SureStart, Supporting Families, Families First for Children
  • Support children to live with kinship or foster carers rather than residential care via the use of family-based decision making, rolling out kinship reforms and recruiting more foster carers
  • Fix the broken care market via a range of measures to improve competition, regulation and commissioning, as well as shining a light on the levels of profit being made
  • A focus on key enablers including better data and information sharing, spreading evidence-based programmes and the workforce.

The ADCS briefing is here

Reminders From Previous Weeks

Reminder

Future dates for network meetings

Network dates:

Lead Members Group: next meeting Expert Workshop #14 Self Assessment Triads Wednesday 4 December 3-6pm. More from Deborah Glassbrook (contact details below)

Adoption Leadership Board: More from Rebecca Eligon (contact details below)

AD Education: 10:00am Friday 7 February 2025 London in-person. More from Chris Owen (contact details below)

Principal Social Workers: More from Mark Evans (contact details below)

Kinship Care Network: More from Rebecca Eligon (contact details below)

Commissioners’ Network: More from Chris Baird (contact details below)

Network dates:

AD Safeguarding: Friday 6 December. More from Mark Evans (contact details below)

QA Network: Monday 16 December 2024 10am online. Contact Sian.fearn@kent.gov.uk for a Teams link.

Fostering Network: 10:00-11:30 Thursday 9 December. More from Rebecca Eligon (contact details below)

Data Benchmarking: SEND Data Benchmarking Thursday 5 December 10am. More from Luke Ede (contact details below)

SEND SE19: More from Sheelagh Sullivan (contact details below)

Early Help: 10:30-12:00 Monday 9 December. More from Rebecca Eligon (contact details below)

The Staff College Festival 2025 – NOW BOOKING

The Staff College Festival 2025 runs from Monday 3 – Friday 14 February 2025.

This is an opportunity to grow your network, hear from industry experts and develop your skills, all for free – it’s The Staff College’s gift to you!

Testimonials from previous years:

“It was great to meet so many people in other areas of work. I really enjoyed attending.”

“Really insightful and made me think about how little we have moved forward and has given me more reasons to take this back to my SLM.”

“The breadth of events on offer are very relevant to my own context – refreshing! Good to hear from experienced speakers with high quality information and insight.”

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to join the 2025 festival. Click here to book.

10% drop in mainstream foster care household numbers since 2021

On 7 November Ofsted published Fostering in England 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024

Headlines

Despite rising care population, the number of non-kinship foster households fell for third consecutive year in 2023-24, with sector charity citing lack of support, respect and remuneration for carers as causes.

Number of children in care drops for first time in 16 years

On 14 November DfE published Children looked after in England including adoptions 2023-2024

83,630 children in care

  • A marginal decline of 130 children in care on 31 March compared with the same time last year.
  • On 31 March this year 83,630 children were in care.
  • This marks the first year-on-year decline since 2008 when figures dropped to 60,920 from 59,960.

Artificial intelligence use cases

LGA has published a report on its survey of the whole local government sector and a series of AI use cases including children’s services in

Buckinghamshire

North Yorkshire

If your council is adopting or implementing AI and would like to be featured on our use case bank, please contact Tom Hindmarch.  

AI and Early Years: Transforming Children’s Services with Intelligent Automation

LGA has organised a series of three seminars presented by Adam Hindhaugh, strategic early help transformation lead at Halton Council explored innovative AI and digital solutions in order to enhance service delivery, streamline processes, and improve outcomes for children and families within Halton Council.

28 September and 7 November (recordings available, to arrange access please contact elizabeth.hodgman@local.gov.uk

28 November 14:00 – 15:30 Using AI and Intelligent Automation to support your waiting well strategy

Explore Perinatal and Early Years Risks of Parental Conflict

On 3 December, 9:30-4:00, The Staff College, LGA and Foundations are hosting a symposium focused on perinatal and early years risks of parental conflict

This is an exclusive opportunity for Safeguarding Children Partnerships across England to be part of a groundbreaking initiative. Be sure to nominate your partnership’s most appropriate representative to attend and secure your spot at this must-attend event!

We would be grateful if you could share this opportunity with your local Safeguarding Children Partnership link and invite them to think about who might be most appropriate to join us, and to keep a look out for the invitation when it arrives.

Your nominated safeguarding representative should use this form to register their attendance.

Venue: Edgbaston Park Hotel, Birmingham B15 2RS

Cost: free to delegates

We are working on an exciting piece of DWP Funded work with ‘Foundations’ and the ‘LGA’ to explore perinatal and early years risks of parental conflict.

We have invited each Safeguarding Children Partnerships to identify who their most appropriate representative should be, to join us on December 3rd 2024 at Edgbaston Park Hotel, Birmingham, for a learning and development symposium where we will engage in conversations about how a systems leadership approach can benefit this area. There will also be opportunities for sharing and developing strategies and approaches for progressing this nationally, regionally and locally.

We will follow this symposium in the new year with two facilitated Community Of Practice Events that will hopefully develop into systems led communities.

Tools & Templates

We have produced a Regional Improvement Plan (June 2024)

On 18 November DfE published Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive – breaking down barriers to opportunity

On 14 November DfE published Children looked after in England including adoptions 2023-2024

On 7 November Ofsted published Fostering in England 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024

On 31 October DfE published Resources to support new agency social worker guidance and employer standards

On 31 October DfE published Children in need: 2023 to 2024

On 24 October NAO published Support for children and young people with special educational needs

On 23 October IFS published The effect of Sure Start on youth misbehaviour, crime and contacts with children’s social care

On 9 October the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse launched its Data Insights Hub

On 8 October the Law Commission published a consultation on Disabled Children’s Social Care. The consultation is open until 20 January 2025

On 7 October Coram Voice published Disability, disparity and demand

On 4 October LGA published its school attendance support survey 2024

On 2 October, LGA published Listening and engaging with care experienced individuals: A good practice guide. Includes case studies from: Medway and West Sussex

On 18 September The Fostering Network published Out of Pocket: Fairer Fees for Foster Carers

On 16 September Ofsted published revised school inspection handbooks

On 12 September, Ofsted (and other inspection agencies) published Joint targeted area inspection of the multi-agency response to children who are victims of domestic abuse – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

On 12 September MoJ published a consultation on possible changes to the Health Education and Social Care Chamber Rules

On 10 September The Children’s Commissioner published Children Missing Education: The Unrolled Story

On 10 September DfE published Key stage 2 attainment for academic year 2023/24

On 4 September The Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium published a briefing on age disputes

On 3 September Ofsted published a detailed response to its ‘Big Listen’ consultation,

On 3 September Children at the Table published Struggling against the tide: children’s services spending 2022-2023

On 23 August Become published Still Too Far – Children in Care being moved miles from the people and places that matter to them

On 23 August Kinship published Forgotten, a report on support for kinship children’s education and mental health.

On 21 August Action for Children published Four things you need to know about the UK care system

On 15 August NCB published A call for change – tackling inequalities in access to mental health support for children with social work involvement and those living in poverty

In August Skills for Care published Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE) child and family Annual report to the Department for Education April 2023 – March 2024

On 31 July the Centre for Homelessness Impact published Staying put: leaving care and the risk of homelessness.

On Thursday 25 July LGA and County Councils Network published Towards an effective and financially sustainable approach to SEND in England

Contact Details

SESLIP Consultant; Commissioners’ Network, SEND Courageous Conversations: Chris Baird (South East Sector-Led Improvement Programme)

bchrisbaird@gmail.com

07855 492010

Education Network: Chris Owen (South East Sector-Led Improvement Programme)

chris@bright-spark.net

07825 862330

NHS (SE) Clinical lead for CYP mental health: Cindy Mukombegumi (NHS England (South East))

c.mukombegumi1@nhs.net

SESLIP Education Data Group Lead: Daryl Perilli (Brighton and Hove)

Daryl.Perilli@brighton-hove.gov.uk

SESLIP Consultant and LGA SEND Improvement Adviser: Deborah Glassbrook (South East Sector-Led Improvement Programme)

deborah@optimisingpotential.co.uk

07882 158959

The Staff College Assistant Operations Manager: Ellie Bevis (The Staff College)

ellie.bevis@thestaffcollege.uk

0161 729 1065

Business Manager for the South East Regional Care Cooperative: Helen Humphry (South East Sector-Led Improvement Programme)

Helen.Humphry@westsussex.gov.uk

07821 302077

LGA Children’s Improvement Adviser: Helen Watson (South East Sector-Led Improvement Programme)

helen.watson5@icloud.com

07810 011892

SESLIP Consultant: Isabelle Gregory (South East Sector-Led Improvement Programme)

isabelle@firstcareconsultancy.co.uk

07931 586784

Director of Children’s Countywide Services and convenor of QA network for SESLIP: Kevin Kasaven (Kent)

Kevin.Kasaven@kent.gov.uk

South East Grid for Learning – Consortium Manager: Krista Pickering (South East Sector-Led Improvement Programme)

krista.pickering@segfl.org.uk

07872 014083

Data Benchmarking: Luke Ede (South East Sector-Led Improvement Programme)

Luke.ede@eastsussex.gov.uk

07925 148597

CSC Workforce, PSW and AD Safeguarding Network Lead: Mark Evans (South East Sector-Led Improvement Programme)

Mark@markevansconsulting.co.uk

07803 147072

Regional Strategic Lead LA Fostering South East: Natasha Sampson (Local Authority Fostering South East)

natasha.sampson@bracknell-forest.gov.uk

07919 217185

LGA Corporate Improvement Adviser: Philip (Phil) Simpkins (LGA)

philip.simpkins@btinternet.com

Adoption; Fostering; Kinship and Early Help Regional Networks: Rebecca Eligon (South East Sector-Led Improvement Programme)

rebeccaeligon@gmail.com

07944 996219

SESLI Programme Manager: Richard Tyndall (South East Sector-Led Improvement Programme)

richard.tyndall@richardtyndall.co.uk

07880 787007

S.E. Region SEND Network Programme Co-ordinator: Sheelagh Sullivan (South East Sector-Led Improvement Programme)

sheelagh.sullivan@outlook.com