Agenda item

To provide Brent Corporate Parenting Committee with information about the general management of the in-house fostering service and how it is achieving good outcomes for children.

The purpose of this report was to provide information to the Corporate Parenting Committee about the general management of the in-house fostering service and how it was achieving good outcomes for children, in accordance with standard 25.7 of the Fostering National Minimum Standards (2011).

The report detailed the increase in numbers of Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASCs) currently being supported in Brent, which had doubled compared to the same time the previous year. This was a result of the dispersal of Asylum Seekers by the Home Office into 3 Brent hotels, and some of those subsequently coming forward to claim to be under 18 and therefore children. It had been found that some of those who came forward were children and a lot of activity had been undertaken to ascertain that through age assessments. This had put pressure on the Council’s budget through the need to recruit 4 specialist social workers to conduct age assessments and 2 locum lawyers to assist in confronting challenges around judicial reviews.

Nigel Chapman (Operational Director Integration and Improved Outcomes, Brent Council) added that there had been difficulties with the placement of Asylum Seekers in hotels in Brent for at least 6 months, where the Home Office had not been making the right decisions at port of entry in terms of age assessments, and were then placing young children in adult accommodation who were then going to the Council for support. The Council were also lobbying the Home Office for a more dispersed approach to dealing with new arrivals. Through a meeting with the Home Office, he had been advised that they were planning to increase resources at ports to do age assessments, and would be utilising the national transfer scheme which was now mandatory for local authorities. It was possible that the process for age assessments at ports would change as a result of discussions and could include medical checks. The Council were anticipating a rise in the numbers of people arriving in Spring, once winter was over. A meeting on Friday 21 January was being held with London Councils to see how they could support and challenge the Home Office in relation to the issues outlined.

The Chair advised the Committee that the resources in relation to supporting UASCs had been raised at the Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee the previous evening during budget scrutiny. She highlighted there had been very strong feelings from all councillors across parties that the commitment from Brent had been excellent but the Council were bearing the burden of resource constraints which needed to be addressed by Central Government through more funding.

The report also detailed the recruitment efforts for foster carers. Onder Beter highlighted that there were challenges in recruitment, and this was a shared challenge across neighbouring local authorities. There had been some good marketing activity on social media and the data showed a significant increase in the number of people showing an interest in fostering and subscribing to social media. A specific Google campaign was underway, the results of which would be seen in Spring. The report detailed the additional efforts the service was doing to identify any barriers for existing foster carers currently on hold, in order to make them available to foster again. Existing foster carers were also receiving a financial incentive to join the campaign call for action.

Recruitment ideas were discussed, such as placing advertisements in Indian newspapers, posting on ‘next door’ and through Whatsapp. Councillors raised several online opportunities for them to share information about foster caring to help with the recruitment ask and posters would be shared with the Committee in order for them to disseminate through their channels.

RESOLVED:

i)              To note the contents of the report.