Agenda item

To present the annual Corporate Parenting Report on outcomes for children in care and care leavers, providing a summary of the activity and strengths and areas for growth in supporting care experienced children and young people in Brent.

Kelli Eboji (Head of LAC and Permanency, Brent Council) introduced the annual Corporate Parenting Report, covering the activity for the period 2024-25 and the priorities moving forward into 2025-26.

In presenting the report she highlighted the following key points: 

• In relation to staffing and recruitment priorities, as of the end of 2024-25, staffing in the service was almost fully permanent with agency staff recruitment reserved solely for sick leave or maternity cover.
• The improved staffing, alongside the service redesign, was hoped to create a strong foundation to develop quality and consistent practice.
• The service continued to work with health colleagues to improve health services, children and young people’s emotional wellbeing and implement interventions.
• The service continued to work with Brent Children’s Trust with an action plan in place for that.
• Brent Care Journeys with Barnardo’s had now transitioned to Brent Care Journeys 2.0 (BCJ 2.0), taking on the learning of the last 4-5 years with Barnardo’s and embedding new ways of providing participation for young people.
• The service was working on developing accommodation pathways and independence skills for young people, detailed in section 18 of the report.
• An action plan following the findings of the most recent Bright Spots Survey had been established and would be implemented over the summer.
• There was increased focus on developing and improving practice on life story work with multiple bespoke life story work training offers for staff and a life story work pilot with frontline teams to improve the way that work was started when children were newly in care. This included a life story work online platform that the service was looking to introduce in the coming year.
• Work had been undertaken on the Corporate Parenting Committee structure and the way it worked in Brent, and she thanked the young people for their commitment through that journey and the improved format where young people were much more involved in meetings and discussions.
• Some priorities from 2024-25 would remain the same for the incoming year, particularly around embedding the redesign of children’s services and the government’s new Families First priorities as they related to children in care and care leavers.
• A continued focus would remain on kinship care as the first option for children unable to live with parents and reunification with birth families where possible and appropriate.
• There would also be continued focus on the voice and engagement of children and young people in day-to-day practice through co-design and co-production approaches.

The Chair thanked Kelli Eboji for the introduction and invited contributions from the Committee, with the following points raised:

The Committee noted the improved permanency in the workforce and asked what was being done to sustain the almost 100% permanent workforce. Kelli Eboji advised that there was a good Learning and Development offer for social workers and personal advisors. Around two years previously the biggest challenges in turnover occurred in the LAC teams, which had been addressed and retention maintained. Since Palvinder Kudhail (Director Early Help and Social Care, Brent Council) had started at the Council there had also been improved focus on converting agency workers to permanent staff to help retention, and it was hoped that her redesign of the department would create systems where staff felt clearer about their roles, remits and the systems they were required to use. The new model had been implemented on 2 June 2025 and there had been a training session every day since then to ensure staff understood the new structures and requirements through a 12-week intensive programme. This programme had been designed following a consultation phase of all staff, including early help practitioners, to understand their skills readiness and what they needed going forward.

In relation to the numbers of children in care across the last few years, it was noted that the rate of children coming into care was going down, and the Committee asked why that was. Kelli Eboji explained that Brent had historically maintained a relatively low population of children in care which was likely due to the demographics of the movable and transient population where people entered and left the borough. She also felt that Brent had higher thresholds compared to other places for taking children into care as there was a focus on early intervention and keeping children with their families wherever possible.

Noting that the children in care population in Brent was predominantly adolescent ages, the Committee asked if that was consistent nationally or specific to Brent. Kelli Eboji advised that it varied between local areas, but Brent typically had higher percentages of adolescents in care.

The Committee highlighted the statistics in the report that 17% of children at any one point were missing which was an increase from the previous year. They asked how the service planned to address that going forward whilst recognising the work being done to minimise children going missing through the Exploitation, Violence and Vulnerability Panel (EVVP). Kelli Eboji confirmed that the service had been reflecting on what the causes of the increase could be. There was some consensus that it could be related to an increase in awareness and reporting as the figures also included absenteeism. She felt that there was work the service needed to do with placement providers around what they were reporting and when. In terms of addressing children going missing going forward, there was a new Targeted Prevention Hub which pulled together all contextual safeguarding resources for better consistency to support practitioners. The LAC teams would also continue embedding protocols around decriminalisation.

The Committee asked for assurance that the service knew who the young people going missing were and for how long. It was confirmed that the service received data from the police every week so knew exactly who was missing and for how long, and when Strategy meetings took place it was clear what police actions were. In terms of whether police treated reports of missing incidents seriously and treated young people equally, Kelli Eboji highlighted that it was difficult to generalise the response as many young people were placed out of borough, meaning the police response would depend on the local area and the police resources allocated. From the Council’s point of view, getting the right police around the table for strategy discussions was crucial, and if that happened then good work came from that. Sabine Kadhaya (Service Manager – Safeguarding and Reviewing, Brent Council) added that police attended the EVVP where missing children were discussed and issues addressed straight away. The Committee were reassured that, where there were issues with the response from police, this could be escalated to the relevant Detective Chief Inspector.

Brent Care Journeys 2.0 (BCJ 2.0) provided a perspective on some of the reasons young people might go missing, which included disliking the area they were living in, not feeling safe, not liking the home environment they were in or the people they lived with. Sometimes it was about not feeling heard. The importance of getting the placement right was emphasised. BCJ 2.0 also highlighted the importance of young people being comfortable with their social worker so that they felt able to share their feelings with them about their placement, and that there should be a mechanism for young people to feed back about their social worker.

BCJ 2.0 asked how soon after care leavers have bid for accommodation should a direct offer be expected, highlighting that many care leavers wait for years. Kelli Eboji highlighted the challenges in giving specific timeframes for that, emphasising the pressures on the housing stock in Brent which had directly impacted how quickly care leavers were receiving direct offers. The service was looking to address that, as the time it now took for care leavers to receive an offer was increasing. The service was trialling the Shared House and were setting up auto-bidding for some care leavers. Work was being done with colleagues in Housing to identify specific properties for care leavers as well as the Housing Companies in Brent to broaden out the options available. Afzal Ahmed (Service Manager – LAC and Permanency, Brent Council) added that care leavers were on Band 2 priority, compared to homeless people on Band 1. Whilst the service was trying to be creative in supporting young people into housing, officers were also being realistic about the low housing stock across London and the pressures in the Council’s budget that access to housing was causing.

In considering the response, BCJ 2.0 asked how much encouragement was given to staying put arrangements, feeling that was a good option where young people could stay with people they knew, transition easier into adulthood and become independent. Kelli Eboji responded that there was emphasis on encouraging staying put arrangements, but there was a balance needed because foster placements were also needed. BCJ 2.0 highlighted the importance of good placement matching for this, explaining that their staying put arrangements had worked when they stayed with a family of the same cultural background and heritage which had been a key factor. It was agreed that training could be considered for foster carers who entered into staying put arrangements to support them with that transitional time to adulthood where the young person might be looking for more independence.

In relation to section 14.3, which detailed the aim of the service for care leavers to be introduced to a personal advisor by 17.5 years old, the Committee raised concerns that this was quite late. Kelli Eboji advised that the service would prefer to begin that introduction process at 16, but highlighted this target was what the service could currently achieve with the resources available. This area was a particular pressure point that the service wanted to improve, but it was challenging without additional resources. In relation to the causes of the pressures to achieve this target, Afzal Ahmed advised that Covid had impacted the service, as had the increase of Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC) and referrals from the 4 hotels in the borough for age assessments. The legislation had also changed, meaning young people were staying in the service longer, and so the service was trying to keep caseloads to a manageable level.

It was confirmed that the Sufficiency Strategy detailed in the report related to having a plan in place to ensure Brent had as many foster carers as possible.

As no further issues were raised, the Committee resolved to note the report.