Issue - meetings

Wirral’s Local Offer for Care Leavers

Meeting: 24/06/2019 - Cabinet (Item 8)

8 Wirral’s Local Offer for Care Leavers pdf icon PDF 228 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Councillor Pat Hackett introduced a report which informed the Cabinet that Section 2 of the Children and Social Work Act 2017 required the Council to consult on and publish a local offer for its care leavers. The local offer should provide information about all the services and support that was available to care leavers from the local authority, including information about both their statutory entitlements as well as any discretionary support that a local authority chose to provide.

 

The Cabinet was also informed that during 2018; with the involvement of the Wirral Children in Care and Care Leavers Council; a working group consisting of Wirral Leaving Care Service staff, the Young People’s Involvement Service and the Learning Skills and Education Team had met regularly to discuss Wirral’s Local Offer for Care Leavers.

 

This groundwork carried out had led to a very successful Conference in November 2018 at the Floral Pavilion, New Brighton focusing on Wirral’s Local Offer for Care Leavers. The Conference was hosted and attended by Wirral Care Leavers, staff from across the Council, its partner agencies, Health, Education, Housing, the charity sector and businesses. The emphasis had been very much on what could Wirral, as a whole community, do to support Wirral Care Leavers. The Conference included presentations from young people and other contributors; and ended with people being asked to make a pledge about how they might improve the lived experience, opportunities and support for Wirral Care Leavers.

 

Since the conference Wirral’s first Local Offer for Care Leavers had been drafted and had been shared with the Wirral Children in Care and Care Leaver’s Council; and was being presented to the Cabinet for consideration and permission to publish.

 

The Cabinet noted that decision supported the children pledges in the Wirral Plan 2020 with specific focus on supporting vulnerable children and that this matter affected all Wards within the Borough and was a Key decision.

 

Councillor Hackett informed that when OFSTED last visited Wirral in 2016 it found the Council’s support for people leaving care to be sadly lacking.  Since then officers had carried out a huge amount of work as had the former Leader, Phil Davies and this had resulted in improvement.  OFSTED was now back on the Wirral carrying out a further inspection and had found a much better services on offer for care leavers as detailed in the report. Councillor Hackett made the point that these young people were among the most vulnerable in society and deserved nothing but the best support from the Council.  He was pleased and relieved that this was now what was being provided. Better advice, better support and better opportunities were the Council’s promise to its care leavers and Councillor Hackett was fully in support of the recommendations set out in the report.

 

Councillor Anita Leech was also in support of the recommendations and considered that the report went a long way to supporting young people as they left care as it would ensure that they got a better  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8