Agenda item
Bright Spots Survey: Your Life Beyond Care 2021
To receive a report updating the Committee on the Bright Spots Survey 2021.
Minutes:
Sonya Kalyniak (Head of Safeguarding and Quality Assurance, Brent Council) introduced the report, which provided information on the Bright Spots “Your life beyond care” survey 2021 and how the Council planned to respond. She highlighted that there had been a good response rate, with 132 care leavers responding out of a possible 400 at the time. This amounted to a 32% response rate with a good range of experiences, age groups and ethnic backgrounds. In introducing the report, she highlighted the following key points:
- There were high levels of happiness, life satisfaction and feeling worthwhile, and a reduction in the reporting of low wellbeing. There had been 24% of respondents reporting low wellbeing so there was still work to do there but it had improved. Levels of positivity about the future had increased at 46% compared to 35% in 2019 and there was a higher percentage of care leavers knowing who their leaving care worker was.
- Areas for improvement were around young people feeling that they had someone they trusted and people who stuck by them in life. There was a correlation between those who reported lower wellbeing and not having someone to trust. 41% of young people said they did not feel safe where they lived, and 36% felt their accommodation was not right for them. Some respondents wanted to know more about the reasons they had been taken in to care.
- These areas had been focused on in a session, and care leavers had looked at the results in detail and were considering what project they would like to do following the results to support their peers. For example, following the previous survey they had developed a financial guide for care leavers which had been well received.
The Chair thanked Sonya for her introduction and invited comments and questions from those present, with the following raised:
Responding to whether the completion of the survey was incentivised, Sonya Kalyniak advised that there had been a prize draw of 3 prizes, so those who let the service know they had completed it were entered into the draw. She highlighted that the survey was 10 minutes long and designed to be quick and snappy, developed with young people. Details of the prize winners would be circulated to care leavers.
The Committee queried the statistic in section 4.4 of the report which detailed that 30% of care leavers reported high levels of satisfaction, and whether that meant 70% of care leavers did not. Sonya Kalyniak explained that there were also people who reported high levels of satisfaction, but the 30% referred specifically to those reporting ‘very’ high levels of satisfaction.
In relation to some respondents feeling they had nobody they could trust, the Committee queried how the Council might address that in future, and whether the pandemic had impacted those feelings where it might have been difficult to meet and establish a trusting relationship. Onder Beter (Head of LAC and Permanency, Brent Council) felt it was an important point to raise. In light of the growing care leaver numbers, the service had been expanded with the addition of another leaving care team which had meant new PAs were required, and he felt it inevitable there would be trust issues at the beginning of those new relationships which took time to build. He felt there was a need to focus on how to provide those opportunities for relationships to grow and be nurtured between new members of staff, PAs and care leavers. He hoped with the easing of restrictions more face to face meetings with larger groups was possible in order to boost relationship building.
RESOLVED:
i) To note the report.
Supporting documents: