Agenda item

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

Kelli Eboji (Head of LAC and Permanency, Brent Council) introduced the report, which provided both a 6-monthly update of the fostering service and an annual end-of-year report. In introducing the report, she highlighted the following key points:

• Section 4 outlined the fostering service priorities across the reporting year.
• One of the priorities was around recruitment of foster carers, which she highlighted as challenging. The service had not met the target of recruiting 10 carers, with 3 carers approved, 5 assessments in progress at the time of writing the report, 1 resignation and 2 de-registrations due to safeguarding concerns in the reporting year. She added that the offer continued to be competitive and well received by Brent foster carers, and no carers had transferred to any other local authorities or independent agencies.
• The first mockingbird constellation had been implemented during the reporting period, with the foster carers involved enjoying that additional support and building their communities.
• Whilst there had not been an increase in fostering capacity in terms of numbers of carers, placement stability performance was good, and vacancies with in-house foster carers were being fully utilised where the foster carer was free and appropriate risk assessment and matching had taken place.
• An area for continued improvement and development was the training and development of foster carers, and there was work being done to ensure carers took up that offer and completed their mandatory training.
• Other developments were taking place in fostering, including the West London Fostering Hub and regionalisation.
• The fostering front door was being developed to include assessment of foster carers.

The Chair thanked Kelli Eboji for the introduction and invited comments and questions from those present, with the following issues raised:

Noting that a key development in fostering currently was the transition to regional fostering arrangements, which the Committee recognised as one of the biggest reforms to fostering in many years, members asked how the Council was working towards that and what the challenges would be to comply with the changes. Nigel Chapman (Corporate Director Children, Young People and Community Development, Brent Council) advised that Josh McAllister (Children’s Minister) was working to change how fostering worked and was keen to bring local authorities closer together to have the 8 local authorities in West London working together to provide one service, which was thought would improve the number of foster carers recruited. He highlighted that the main challenge for Brent, and many London boroughs, in finding foster carers was finding applicants with a spare room. As such, his view was that the regionalisation of the fostering service would not necessarily resolve that. However, merging into one service would enable officers to respond more quickly to enquiries, complete assessments quicker, and offer more to carers to encourage them to stay. Some of the challenges of delivering the regional service would be the timescales in which to implement the changes, as staff and funding needed to be considered, and he highlighted the need to do that at a pace that ensured this was done in the most appropriate way. It was likely that the changes would need to be brought to a future Cabinet meeting. Kelli Eboji added that there were opportunities in working across local authorities to learn from them and see what services could be implemented quickly, as well as the opportunity of more funding from DfE, which would be reliant on working together.

Kelli Eboji further added that workshops would be taking place throughout the week to consider the different aspects of the reforms, with the additional challenge being the localised picture, as the aim of the fostering hub was to keep children close to home and near their networks, meaning there was a need to ensure knowledge of local factors and a localised response was retained. As such, the fostering service was being as creative as possible with the marketing of the fostering offer and maintaining that internally so that it could be tested as the service moved through the reforms.

The Committee highlighted the importance of maintaining relationships amongst social workers, children, and foster families where possible, whilst also recognising that the Council’s definition of ‘local’ may differ from residents’, as there were many different boundaries and borders across Brent. Empire Care Leavers also emphasised the need to be less rigid in relation to Brent being the young person’s local area, highlighting that the matching process was more effective when children were placed with someone of a similar culture and background. Kelli Eboji confirmed that the biggest goal of the service was to match well, which was also one of the biggest challenges due to the placement sufficiency pressures.

Noting that there were recruitment barriers in terms of housing, with the fostering service reliant on applicants with a spare room, the Committee asked whether the recruitment drive targeted particular demographics or areas where individuals were more likely to have a spare room. Nigel Chapman confirmed that the service did general advertising across Brent and targeted specific groups through social media algorithms, such as those within a particular age range or those in homes with additional space. The Committee also highlighted particular community events as good places for outreach to different communities, and asked for a future report to outline how successful the different engagement and outreach activities were at leading to enquiries and subsequently converting those to applications.

In response to a query from Empire Care Leavers as to whether foster carers who had been with the service for a long time were reviewed, Kelli Eboji confirmed that foster carers were reviewed annually by an independent person. If there were any concerns raised, a serious concern or standards of care review would be undertaken to review their suitability. Nigel Chapman added that where there were concerns these would always be listened to, whilst ensuring that the service was helping foster carers grow and learn from their mistakes. He added that there were some foster carers had reached a point where ending their approval in a mutually agreed way was appropriate, and those conversations regarding retirement would take place with supervising social workers.

Councillor Dixon provided further details about the reviewing process, as she had previously been a Panel Member of the Fostering Panel. She confirmed that the Panel consisted of 7-8 members with lived experience or social work experience, who were required to undertake training in order to assess cases. The Panel received papers about the foster carers and read them thoroughly, which included many details about the foster carer, their early life and current circumstances, and then made a recommendation based on the papers they had received and the information they had heard directly from the social work team and foster carers themselves. She confirmed that it was a very intricate discussion amongst professionals and very responsible, and there were times when the Panel would have to refuse someone if they did not have what was necessary to be a foster carer. Where a case of concern or standards of care issue was raised, these would come back to Panel for review. Kelli Eboji further added that where a young person made a complaint, depending on the severity of the complaint, there were safeguarding procedures that would be followed and there would be actions coming out of those which may not be shared with the young person, such as training and development for the foster carer. Where concerns were serious, the foster carer would be put on hold whilst an investigation was carried out. The Committee highlighted the need to consider how the young person could be kept informed on the complaints they made, emphasising that whilst there were robust processes taking place, the young person might not know that, and it was important they received feedback on what they had shared.

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