Agenda item
Brent Care Journeys Programme: year one progress update
To provide the Corporate Parenting Committee a summary of activities undertaken by the Brent Care Joruneys Programme since its inception in 2020 to date. The report also draws attention to key acheivements, challenges within the Covid-19 context as well as areas of priority for 2021/22.
Minutes:
Onder Beter (Head of LAC and Permanency, Brent Council) introduced the report, which was a joint report prepared by Brent Council and Barnardo’s charity. Two colleagues from Barnardo’s were also in attendance to present the report; Rajinder Nagra (Assistant Director Children’s Services, Barnardo’s London) and Anna Willow (Children’s Services Manager, Barnardo’s London). Onder Beter advised that the recommendations were set out in paragraph 2 of the report, which asked for comments on the content of the report, and for the Committee to consider what support could be provided to the strategic alliance by elected members in order to achieve best outcomes for Brent children and young people. The programme was a 5 year programme listening to children and young people, and bringing their voice into shaping services and creating system change so that children and young people could influence decisions and end up with better destinations. The definition of ‘destination’ was not just about being employed or attending school but was defined by young people around what would make them happy and fulfil their potential. For example, a care leaver may have a goal to be able to parent their child without the involvement of social workers for their child. In terms of the joint working with Brent and Barnardo’s, several themes to work on had been identified. The major theme was around the challenge of young people coming into care late, as adolescents, and what could be done to create system change to ensure positive destinations for the cohort. A qualitative piece of work would be undertaken by young people who were designing 2 projects as detailed in the report. There was a group of 35 young people known as ‘the Movement’ who were supporting the work with participation, engagement, voice and influence. The Committee’s attention was drawn to the case study at the end of the report which showed the impact of the programme on the lived experience of young people.
Anna Willow advised that a partnership between the statutory and voluntary sector would always be organic and there would be a need to learn as they went. The programme was not delivering pre-determined outcomes of what they thought was best for young people, but instead working with young people to create their best future with them. She advised that the programme aimed to work in equal partnership with young people, going into situations together. For example, the young people had co-designed training for key workers who worked in semi-independent provision, and that training had been delivered equally with young people and Barnardo’s.
A young person who had been involved in the project shared their experience, expressing that the programme had helped them a lot and they had become the young person they wanted to be. They were now more confident and a better speaker. They joined to help other people and better themselves along the way. Another young person had been involved in the training designed and delivered to semi-independent providers. He advised that between 5 and 6 sessions had taken place to design the training and then two separate training sessions had been delivered to 12-13 providers for around 3-4 hours each session.
The Committee queried what the structure of the programme was. Anna Willow advised paragraph 4.4 explained what young people had defined it – ‘The Movement’. She advised that the projects within the programme would look like the movement of young people at the core, who had the ambition to drive youth led connections that sustained over time and built a legacy for people like them. She highlighted that the programme should be a co-designed space working with people who were the experts in that space as they had lived the issues they were serving. The projects that were being focused on were outlined in section 5.2 of the report. As the partnership thrived, the focus would evolve through phases. The starting point was research going through to design, which had now been done and so those projects had moved to the testing phase to see how the designs worked.
The Committee queried how quickly changes from engagement, feedback, design and testing of the current projects in the programme could be made. Onder Beter gave an example of the Quality Assurance Framework for semi-independent provision which the Committee spoke about at the last meeting. Brent Care Journeys had been involved in the work on that, through training of key workers, as well as now being a part of follow up visits and the Best Practice Forum. He felt this was an example of how the programme worked with young people to influence how the Council internally developed and how semi-independent provision could learn from that too. In addition, one care leaver had now been formally employed as a project worker as part of the semi-independent provision project. There was also an ambition to provide up to 10 young people some ‘as and when’ contracts so that their contributions could be financially incentivised. The Committee welcomed that recompense for the valued work young people provided. While the work of the programme was fluid and not necessarily quantifiable, officers felt that there were solid examples of impact.
In terms of engagement, the group had now delivered the prototypes of the welcome packs for people to give feedback on. Five young people had been given 2 weeks to try out the packs to see how they made them feel and what difference they made. The Committee queried who the welcome packs would be given to. Onder Beter confirmed that, for now, the packs were designed for 16-17 year olds going into semi-independent provision for the first time, as the expectation was that anyone going into a foster placement should have all items they needed available. The research for the project had showed there were variations in semi-independent provision and what providers made available for young people, particularly if their accommodation took place out of hours by emergency duty. The prototype pack had been designed to focus on the very practical elements of the first few nights of entering semi-independent provision. Within the pack were essential cooking items, toiletries, two sets of bedding, towels, a Deliveroo voucher, a £10 oyster card, a lock which was important for young people to feel safe, and the Brent local offer condensed to one page. Anna Willow highlighted the box was more than items, as it was also a gesture of welcome and the beginning of the relationship between a young person and a semi-independent provider. For that reason, a guide for a conversation between staff and the young person had also been provided including how to introduce yourself and what to do if something went wrong. Anna Willow highlighted that the design of the box gave hard evidence of how lived expertise mattered.
In relation to the two projects highlighted in the report (the welcome pack and the complaints process), the Committee queried whether these would be enshrined in the Quality Assurance Framework for semi-independent providers and form part of the monitoring process going forward. Onder Beter confirmed that the aim was to do that and take the learning from the testing phase to enhance the Quality Assurance Framework. The ambition was to embed the projects into the Council’s expectations of providers in their commissioning arrangements.
In relation to the financial impact of Covid-19 on the project, Anna Willow confirmed that the funding of the programme was from the Barnardo’s project, which might increase if they could demonstrate that the programme was having an impact on the outcomes for children and young people. Gail Tolley (Strategic Director Children and Young People, Brent Council) added that during Covid-19 charity fundraising had significantly reduced and the fundraising events that might have led to significant donations were not able to take place, which had impacted these types of projects.
In searching for additional partners and engaging grassroots organisations, Anna Willow explained that the programme did not have additional resource, so they were looking at where they could bring additional resource in, together in partnership across the locality. She had explored several opportunities which had not came to fruition but would keep looking.
The Committee asked for further details about the bundles and food parcels provided to young people during the lockdown. Anna Willow explained that these had been donations from Barnardo’s, and were very much about addressing someone’s acute needs and building trust into a relationship. Onder Beter advised that the donations from Barnardo’s to young people had been documented in the previous report to the Committee regarding support to care leavers during the pandemic.
The governance arrangements for the programme was a 6-monthly strategic steering group which included Gail Tolley, as the Strategic Director for Children and Young People, and the Programme Directors from Barnardo’s, who provided support and challenge. The recommendation was for the Corporate Parenting Committee to receive an annual report about the progress of the programme, as well as an evaluation impact report.
RESOLVED:
i) To note the report.
Supporting documents:
- 8. Brent Care Journeys Programme - year one progress update, item 8. PDF 524 KB
- 8a. Appendix 1 - Case Study of R, item 8. PDF 354 KB