Agenda item

Agenda item

Delivering Children's Services in a Locality

Presentation of the Strategic Director (Children and Education Services)

 

This presentation provides an overview of delivering Children’s Services through a locality approach.

 

 

Minutes:

The Committee received a presentation of the Strategic Director of Children and Education Services which provided an overview of the delivery of Children’s Services through a locality approach.

 

Officers referred to the main points and themes within the presentation which included:

 

  • The Children’s Locality Model;
  • The underpinning principles;
  • The intended outcomes and impacts;
  • Locality leadership;
  • The programme outline;
  • Workstreams and milestones;
  • The emerging impact;
  • Upcoming priorities; and
  • Challenges.

 

Some of the key points and themes that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

 

  • Request for examples of how locality working in partnership with other agencies, such as health services, could address a range of issues, such as Foetal Alcohol Syndrome and safely preventing children from becoming looked after by the local authority;
  • Recognising that locality boundaries were not a straight-forward issue, for example, because children attending a school within a particular locality could live within other neighbouring localities and how this was being addressed;
  • That the findings from the Local Government Association (LGA) Peer Challenge on Child Sexual Exploitation, which were appended in full to the Overview Report, were encouraging, while recognising that they also identified areas for further development;
  • To ask for further information on the implementation of the new social care ICT system, Liquid Logic; and
  • To request that the presentation slides be shared with all Elected Members along with a covering note, explaining the context.

 

The Strategic Director of Children and Education Services informed Members about the role health services, such as midwifery, could play in enabling the identification of issues and intervention at the earliest stage.  He cited a current initiative relating to pregnant women who had had a number of children removed from their care in the past, identifying at the earliest stage that there was a potential risk of this happening again and starting to work with the mother as early as possible to reduce the risk of the new baby needing to be taken into care.

 

The Executive Member for Children and Schools emphasised that boundaries were porous, as families could live in one area while accessing services across boundary lines, and what was important was that families received the right support for them in the most appropriate place, which could be through a school or a GP’s surgery. 

 

The Strategic Director of Children and Education Services reported that all Elected Members would be briefed on the new ICT system.  He informed Members that information was being migrated to the new system and that from 22 July 2019 the new system would be live.

 

The Executive Member for Children and Schools reported that, following a session for all Elected Members on corporate parenting and Regulation 44 visitors, some Members had requested a session on wider children’s services issues.  He suggested that, when the presentation slides were shared with all Elected Members, information on this session could also be included.

 

Decision

 

To request that the presentation slides be shared with all Elected Members, along with a covering note explaining the context, and that information on the session on children’s services for all Members also be included.

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