Agenda item

To provide an update on the work across the Council and with partner agencies on Transitional Safeguarding.

Councillor Gwen Grahl (Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Schools) introduced the report, which provided an update on the work across the council and with partner agencies on transitional safeguarding.

The Chair thanked Councillor Grahl for the introduction, and invited comments and questions from the Committee, with the following issues raised:

In response to a query, the Committee were advised that any child in care was classed as a child in care up to the age of 18, after which the council had leaving care responsibilities to care leavers up to the age of 25. The Corporate Parenting Committee oversaw those arrangements.

The Committee highlighted section 4.20 of the report, which detailed an overlap between the Exploitation, Violence and Vulnerability Panel (EVVP) and Community MARAC, and asked whether there were any proposals to stop that overlap. Kibibi Octave (Head of Community Safety and Prevent, Brent Council) advised that both panels currently sat within different directorates and had different focuses. With Community MARAC, there was a very heavy anti-social behaviour element, looking at cases where the person was a risk to both themselves and potentially others. These cases were not bound by age limits, with many cases involving those able to have their own tenancy, shared accommodation or who were owner occupiers. In comparison, the EVVP had a different focus on the younger cohort, looking at criminal and sexual exploitation. When looking at the 18+ year old cohort, officers often dealt with integrated offender management cohorts which included those who were persistent perpetrators as well as people who may be transitioning. Those people may not have a criminal record but were vulnerable and had the potential to be pulled into violent crime and exploitation. For those reasons, she felt the differences between the panels were quite nuanced and that they needed to remain separate.

The Committee asked what officers perceived to be the biggest barrier in transitional safeguarding and in the transition to adult life. Phil Porter (Corporate Director Adult Social Care and Health, Brent Council) felt the biggest barrier was a lack of definition of the cohort involved. Some work had started to address that, with Nigel Chapman and Sonya Kalyniak (Head of Safeguarding and Quality Assurance, Brent Council) analysing the people coming through to understand the risks prior to 18, which would help ensure the support offered met those needs. Sonya Kalyniak added that, from a children’s perspective, the more that could be done to support young people as they prepared for turning 18, the more knowledge they would have about the resources they could access post-18.

The Committee highlighted that children leaving care were seen as a vulnerable cohort and asked how they were assisted into adult life. Councillor Grahl explained that the Council had more statutory obligations that the Council had towards care leavers than some other vulnerable young people. There was a good package of support for care leavers including housing support, employment support and a personal advisers co-designed with children and young people through the Corporate Parenting Committee and Care in Action / Care Leavers in Action. The Committee’s attention was brought to the fact that there were many other young people accessing council services, for example those with a Disability or Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP), who had not been in care and did not have the same amount of statutory support from the Council. The report attempted to highlight that large umbrella of different organisations who would try to follow those young people to ensure they had the right support.

The Committee queried whether the voice of young people was extended to those who had transitioned into adulthood already, as the problems young people faced now while transitioning to adulthood may be different from 20 years ago. Phil Porter advised the Committee that the Young Brent Foundation had been commissioned to work with the Council on this aspect of transitional safeguarding, who were proposing to go quite broad with engagement to get the broadest sense of that cohort and look at health and wellbeing, safety and security, education, employment and training, and youth participation and citizenship.

Councillor Nerva (Cabinet Member for Public Health and Adult Social Care) added that he would want confidence that the organisations working with people on transitional safeguarding knew who was in the system and who might be of concern, particularly those who may fall through the gaps.

In concluding, the Chair asked officers how the recommendations from the Task Group report were progressing. Phil Porter advised the Committee that the Council agreed with all recommendations and were progressing all of them, with some more progressed than others. The recommendations would form the core part of the plan going forward, with actions against each recommendation.

Having considered the report, the Committee RESOLVED:

i)              To recommend that the Black Community Action Plan (BCAP) Team are consulted about the transitional safeguarding approach to ensure that the voices of young Black people are reflected in the Council’s approach.