Agenda item

Members will receive a presentation about the work of the Early Help Family Hubs regarding youth provision by Helen Hunter, Transformation Project Manager, Children’s Social Care and Tom Wheeler, Consultant, Children’s Social Care.

Tom Wheeler, Consultant, Children’s Social Care, explained he had been asked to look at bringing together disparate teams from across the Early Help Support Service, alongside Karen Frost, Head of Early Intervention, Early Help and Communities. The process involved engaging with staff to design new models and principles. This was then worked up into an Early Help Family Hub model to maximise case holding capacity and multi-disciplinary co-working with the aim of increasing high quality outcomes for children and families. The youth service had been integral to this process of re-design. Interviews had taken place during the last two days to appoint two Locality Managers who would continue to take the project forward.

As a result of discussions the following comments and questions were made:

·         Members expressed concern about the same youth worker potentially working with a youth and their parents. It was acknowledged a young person may feel able to speak to a youth worker rather than a family member and confidentiality was critical. Nikki Edwards, Executive Director, People, confirmed there would be no difference from the young person’s point of view and the new way of working should afford better understanding of the whole community for workers.

·         Members queried if the excellent work of youth workers in Bracknell schools would continue and were informed there were no plans to remove that work or any work where evidence from teams and young people showed work was improving children or young people’s life chances.

·         Members requested assurances that Children’s Centres would continue to remain open to all families in the locality and were informed this was the intention.

·         Members were keen to see how the Youth Council fit into this process and were informed there would still be outreach work in schools, particularly around topics such as mental health and sexual health.

·         There were two youth specialists whose role was specifically to strengthen the relationship between Children’s Centres and schools.

·         Members queried if the team had looked at Family Hub Models elsewhere in the country and were informed Karen Frost, Head of Early Intervention, Early Help and Communities had visited other areas and looked at what fit with the Council plan.

·         Members asked if there had been any challenge around the new model, as there had been during consultation in July on the Stay and Play model. Tom Wheeler, Consultant, Children’s Social Care, acknowledged there had been some challenge from staff, particularly about change of contracts from term time only to full year contracts. The model had been revised to take into account issues raised and it was agreed current staff would continue on term time only contracts but new staff would be appointed on full year contracts.

·         Thom Wilson, Assistant Director, Commissioning, informed members the youth team had expressed a preference to work as a single team but agreement had been reached to integrate them into a multi-disciplinary team. The change to two teams, rather than four, was a direct result of feedback from staff. This had involved numerous workshops and consultation over five months.

·         Members were pleased to note the new model included specific roles for young carers, gypsy/Roma/traveller community, Elective Home Education and Child Missing Education.

·         Members queried if caseloads would be allocated geographically. The Chair welcomed Sonia Johnson, Interim Assistant Director, Children’s Social Care, who explained caseloads would be allocated geographically unless there appeared to be capacity issues in a particular locality or if particular cases were more complex.

·         Members asked when they could expect to see the results of the changes reflected in outcomes, i.e. diminishing the difference between children in receipt of pupil premium funding and the rest of their cohort. Nikki Edwards, Executive Director, People, informed member the current QSR data would act as the baseline and data would reflect outcomes.

·         Members asked if qualitative data could also be captured in schools and Rachel Morgan, Assistant Director, Education and Learning, agreed School Standards and Effectiveness Partners (STEPs) would capture the experience of young people.

·         Members requested a visit to the Children’s Centres next year to check on progress of the new model, which was agreed.

Actions:

·         Nikki Edwards, Executive Director, People, to organise visit for CYPL O&S members to Children’s Centres next year.

·         Rachel Morgan, Assistant Director, Education and Learning, to provide a report at the CYPL O&S meeting in March 2019 updating on outcomes of this project and capturing STEPs experience of the implementation of the Early Help Hub Model for schools.