Agenda item

To receive information about the implementation of the Brent Looked After Children and Care Leavers Placement Sufficiency Strategy 2025-2029 outlining how Brent will meet the current and future placement needs of children looked after and care experienced young people.

Michelle Gwyther (Head of Forward Planning, Performance and Partnerships, Brent Council) introduced the report, which outlined how Brent would meet both current and future placement needs. In outlining the report, she advised that Brent wanted to increase the number of local placements in the borough, as many young people were having to move a long way from Brent. In order to do that, there was a need to increase the number of in-house foster carers in Brent and the number of residential placements, with it noted that there were not many residential placements in London. Brent had its own residential care home due to open and there was the success of the Mockingbird project, looking to keep children and young people as close to their own communities, networks, families and schools as possible and living in high quality, value for money placements. She pointed members to the action plan detailed on page 51 of the agenda pack.

An update was then provided on the West London Residential Home Project, which was being led by Hounslow Council in partnership with Brent and Ealing Council, which aimed to open a 6-bed residential home in 2027. Brent was also involved in a Pan London Secure Children’s Home Project to support older children and young people with complex needs at risk of harming themselves or others. She added that Brent was ready to take advantage of any future projects, whether independent, tri-borough, or across London, where they were right for Brent’s children and young people and financially viable.

The Chair thanked Michelle Gwyther for the report and then invited comments and questions from Committee members with the following raised:

The Committee was pleased to see the multiple examples of Brent working across London and with other local authorities to achieve the best quality placements for children and young people.

The Committee asked for further details about the Pan-London Secure Unit, noting that a potential site had been identified in Waltham Forest. Michelle Gwyther advised that the DfE had temporarily paused the project due to issues identified with funding, but the project had recently started again and transferred to Waltham Forest to take the lead, so it was anticipated it would move forward much quicker. Nigel Chapman (Corporate Director for Children, Young People and Community Development, Brent Council) added that there would be a need for each individual local authority involved in the project to take this through their Cabinet to commit to supporting the secure home, as there would be a financial commitment from each local authority required. Once signed up, Brent would share the burden of liabilities for running the home alongside the other 32 London boroughs. He confirmed that there were currently no secure children’s homes in London and children were required to travel long distances to access a secure unit, often with very complex needs. He agreed to bring a future report to the Committee about the Council’s readiness for this project. 

A discussion was had with Brent Care Journeys / Empire about the potential for care leavers to become residential care home providers, with Brent Care Journeys highlighting their unique experiences as care experienced young people which they felt would benefit residential care homes. Michelle Gwyther highlighted that it was a long process to open a residential home with set rules and regulations governed by Ofsted, as well as it being very costly in terms of property prices, so recommended that young people wanting a career in that space first volunteered or worked in a residential home to gain that experience, building their understanding of what would be required to open a residential home themselves. She added that another route would be to become a foster carer. In response to whether care leavers could have priority for roles in residential care homes, Kelli Eboji (Head of LAC and Permanency, Brent Council) highlighted that Brent Council now recognised care experience as a protected characteristic, therefore where there were jobs that care leavers met the criteria for they would automatically receive an offer of interview. The service could work with applicants to advise on what was required for those roles and what skills and experience would be needed to apply for those positions. The Chair suggested that once the new Brent residential home was running, some of those roles could be expanded to take on apprenticeships or work experience placements where possible.

Brent Care Journeys reported feedback from other care leavers that they sometimes felt pressured to sign tenancy agreements and were moved into accommodation that was not fully complete or fit for habitation, and asked whether there were any advocacy services available for care leavers to challenge that on a legal basis. Kelli Eboji responded that all young people were encouraged to bid for a unit within the timeframes required, and should be bidding for properties before being given managed moves. She advised that Brent was still in a fortunate position where young people were being offered social tenancies, which many local authorities no longer offered, and Brent was expanding its offer, working with the Housing Department to improve that relationship and ensure they understood their duty as corporate parents. She emphasised the importance of working with the Leaving Care Team to ensure young people understood what they were entitled to and their responsibilities around bidding and engaging with the housing process, highlighting that her service was not in control of that but worked in collaboration with Housing. There were workshops for care leavers to help them understand their housing options, and Brent Care Journeys agreed to advertise those sessions to other care leavers. Kelli Eboji added that ensuring young people had access to advocacy services was important so agreed to look into what was available and provide an update.

Brent Care Journeys fed back that some looked after children had many hours available to them with their key worker, with up to 5 or more hours a week, but that many young people did not use all their allocated hours with their key workers. Brent Care Journeys highlighted that the unused resource could be put elsewhere, and suggested asking young people how many hours with their key worker they would want instead of a blanket approach. Kelli Eboji thanked Brent Care Journeys for the suggestion and agreed to take this under consideration.

In relation to table 3 of the sufficiency strategy – Placement Profile of Looked After Children as at 31/03/2024 and 31/03/2025 – the Committee asked what the ‘other’ placement type would cover. Michelle Gwyther explained that this would likely include young people on remand and Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC) but agreed to check this information. Following the meeting, further information confirmed that ‘other’ referred the following categories; NHS / health trust / establishment providing medical or nursing care, parent and baby unit, youth offending institution, residential school, regulation 24 foster carer, unregulated 16+ supported accommodation provider (which was now regulated), and unregulated residential home (one of which was now regulated).

Noting the aim of the strategy for children to only have to tell their story once when it came to interacting with practitioners, the Committee asked Brent Care Journeys what their experience of telling their story had been like. There was a mixed response, with some young people not needing to repeat their story, and others having had to repeat their story several times. The Committee highlighted the issue of consistency in relation to this and ensuring any social workers re-assigned to a case had read the young person’s file so that their story did not need to be repeated. Brent Care Journeys highlighted the importance of finding the right personal advisors and social workers in order for young people to connect with them, and for reporting mechanisms to be in place for if that relationship was not working. Kelli Eboji highlighted that this was a very sensitive topic and relationship based, acknowledging that people may not relate to each other straight away, but emphasising the limited resource of social workers and personal advisors available to the service. She advocated for young people to build those relationships and develop strategies to deal with any issues, and agreed that there was a need for the service to support young people to do that and ensure mechanisms were in place where things went wrong. Brent Care Journeys took an action away to do a workshop on this topic and gather feedback, and Nicole Levy (Quality Assurance and Learning Manager, Brent Council) thanked them for their feedback, which she would incorporate into the life story training that would begin in March 2026.

The Committee asked why there had been an increase in the time taken from a child entering care to moving in with their adoptive family, compared to the previous year. Nigel Chapman explained that Brent Council received a 6-monthly report from Adopt London West (ALW), and because there were very small numbers this meant even one child who was an outlier would skew the average time. In this case, there were cases in court proceedings for a very long time, but once the Council had authority through a placement order to place a child it acted very quickly to do that as there was good availability of adopters. As such, the delay was primarily in court.

Noting that there were now 81 young people in supported accommodation, which was 56 higher than in March 2021, the Committee asked how the service would continue that positive momentum to move more people into supported accommodation. Michelle Gwyther explained that supported accommodation providers were now regulated by Ofsted under similar processes and procedures to Registered Providers, which included inspection. Brent was leading in North West London in terms of holding inspections and young care ambassadors undertaking quality assurance visits to providers. One visit had resulted in team managers closing a provider down, highlighting the importance of the Council ensuring providers being used were of high quality. Brent was increasing the number of providers slightly, ensuring that quality assurance processes were happening and that no young people were living somewhere unsuitable. 

The Committee asked how the service was improving placement sustainability, noting that the percentage of children with three or more placements during a year had consistently been around the 16% average. Michelle Gwyther highlighted that there had been a drop in that percentage recently to 12%, but there were fluctuations because the service did have to act relatively quickly to do some moves. Whilst some of these were emergency moves, there were positive reasons for moves as well, such as to a more suitably matched placement, a long-term placement, a kinship arrangement or adoption. Kelli Eboji added that minimising placement moves was a priority for the service. The service was robust in undertaking stability meetings to try to resolve any issues and improve placements to keep the child in situ. Appropriate matching was fundamental to sustainable placements and the Children’s Resilience Service had a therapeutic offer for children at risk of placement breakdown for both the young person and the carers, showing the range of ways the service was addressing placement stability. The local authority was also challenging providers where there were risks of a placement breakdown to ensure they had done everything possible to avoid that, ensuring that social work teams and providers were working together to discourage providers from ending placements in crisis and supporting providers to work with social workers to sustain that placement and resolve any issues.

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