Supporting and challenging families to raise their children safely and successfully, a whole system response.

John Skinner

This was introduced by Kerry Crichlow who set the scene as this is part of the Children’s Strategy ambition for all families to be able raise their children safely and successfully.

John Skinner and Kerry Crichlow introduced the Edge of Care Strategy Document.  There was a discussion about the amount of time Social Care Staff have to spend on administrative tasks and Medwyn Jones suggested this could be improved with better technology, and better use of improved technology. John Skinner added that in some Local Authorities they have addressed this by investing heavily in staff numbers to reduce case-loads.  Wirral is still spending more on late prevention rather than reaching more children and families through early intervention.

John Skinner highlighted that care does not provide better outcomes for children and financially it is also very costly.  Much of the review of the Edge of Care Strategy is revisiting work that has been done previously, but needs pulling together into a more coherent framework. 

John Skinner raised the following points:

·  Profiling the CLA Population – more information is needed about why children and young people are in care.

·  Early Help and Intervention Activity.  What is going on?

·  Child Protection plans are for the most vulnerable children.  Partnerships could improve how CP plans are managed.  In Wirral many of the children and young people with these plans subsequently become looked after.

·  Some work is being done on Signs of Safety, Strengthening Families and Family Solutions

·  More Integrated Youth Support for the most disenfranchised and vulnerable young people is needed.

·  Some work is being done around transitions into adulthood and mental health issues but a more systematic approach is needed to these areas of work.

·  Systemic family work needs to be done in order to build resilience amongst children and their families.

·  We can only succeed if we work together with collective responsibility.

Fiona Pender said that parental mental health is an important factor in families lives where children are on the edge of care, and currently nobody represents that at this board.  It was agreed that we still need better joined up working between adult’s and children’s services.

Cllr Tony Smith raised that there was the good partnership work being done with troubled families (family intervention service) and that this should serve as the model for other areas of work within Wirral. 

John Skinner said that Wirral needs to look at appropriate representation on the edge of care strategy group to support more children and young people to remain in their families. Julia Hassall agreed that this should be treated as a priority piece of work and that a group will be set up in the next few weeks. John Skinner suggested that we could start by piloting work with partners of a co-located basis. The Improving Life Chances strategy is prioritising two communities to make a difference – it would be good to combine this with a pilot for early help and prevention, particularly regarding children on the edge of care, which is integral to improving life chances.

It was suggested that figures for the Troubled Families (Family Intervention Service) could be looked at on a constituency basis, mapping levels of need and presenting examples of good practice.

It was agreed that the Board note the reports and that:

1.  The focus for the next meeting will be the Universal Plus services / geographical pilot

2.  The edge of care strategy group would be set up and invitations circulated – John Skinner

3.  John Skinner to circulate information about the role of the Access to Resources Group