Framework for the Inspection of services for children in need of help and protection, children looked after and care leavers. Gani Martins Assistant Director Specialist Services

The Framework  New framework published on 25 th September 2013  3 year universal programme - every local authority will have one  Comes into effect from November 2013  Review of LSCB will happen in parallel

The key features of the framework:  How well local authorities do things and the difference we make – what are the evidence?  How social workers and others work directly with families and manage the risks involved – how good is this work?  The quality of our interventions in families where risk remains or intensifies  The quality of management oversight and decision making.  How well we help, protect and care for children in our statutory services

 How much we know about the services we provide (with partners) for children living in violent homes, where there is drug or alcohol misuse or the mental ill health of a parent / carer  Leadership oversight  Clear priorities, and learning from feedback  Accountabilities – particularly the LSCB and operational practice

Areas of particular focus:  Children and young people missing from care and risks of sexual exploitation  Children and young people missing from education  The promotion of education and schooling for children who are looked after  Children living out of the area  The early help offer and assessment  The quality of child protection plans – how long, why, what’s changing?  Whether assessments are events or an engagement with families  The quality of work with families where the plan is for children to return home  The quality of care planning for children looked after  The quality of housing and support for care leavers

The key judgements:  The overall effectiveness of services and arrangements for children who need help and protection, children looked after and care leavers  The experiences and progress of children who need help and protection  The experiences and progress of children looked after and achieving permanence including graded judgements on: −Adoption −The experiences and progress of care leavers  Leadership, management and governance

Children who are looked after  Two graded judgements within the key judgement −Adoption and care leavers  These influence but are unlikely alone to trigger inadequacy.  Adoption – Statutory requirement for a range of options to meet needs  Care leavers – their journeys matters

The new Judgement points  Four-point judgement: inadequate, requires improvement, good, outstanding  Requires improvement replaces adequate  Inadequate in any key judgement limits overall effectiveness to inadequate  Looking for good – where evidence exceeds it is outstanding and where ‘good’ is not yet in place, it will ‘require improvement’  Inadequate is defined as widespread or serious failing in either protection or/and safeguarding and promoting the welfare of looked after children  Review and graded judgement of the effectiveness of LSCB

How the inspection will be carried out:  Conducted over a four week period – 11 working days  Inspection starts on a Tuesday – Lead Inspector calls – sets up the inspection and outlines the information required and the timeframes  Wednesday – Lead and small team arrives on site by 9:00am – case sampling information available by the end of Wednesday  Annex A information  Front door focus and identifying children and young people living out of the authority area

 Ask LA to audit cases of 18 children and young people  Track the experiences and quality of practice in the cases of at least 30 children and young people  Sample the experiences and quality of practice in the cases of at least 50 children and young people at key thresholds (e.g. early help, child protection)  Observations of practice – involving children, young people, families, carers  Talking to stakeholders  Management oversight – purposeful and inclusive, regular, challenging, supportive, evaluative and leads to practice and decisions that are effective for the child/young person

Children and Young people who live out of their home areas  Identify minimum of two children and young people living in a children’s home that is not in the local authority area  Visit the children and young people during the course of the inspection to understand the plan for them, the quality of care, the help they have been given and the oversight of the local authority

Fostering and Adoption  The new single inspection replaces the separate inspections of local authority and fostering services and adoption agencies  Case tracking and sampling  Recruitment, preparation, training, support to foster carers and prospective adopters  Foster carers and prospective adopter case files  Adoption support  Interview panel chairs  Meet foster carers – chair of fostering association

The Feedback  Meet the Director of Children’s Services and 4 key others on Wednesday morning of week 4  Share the detail of the evidence that the team used to reach judgement  Clarify any outstanding issues  Discuss areas for improvement  Formal feedback with statutory partners, Lead Member, Mayor/Leader and Chief Executive

The Report  Key decision making points – emerging themes relating to specific age groups of children and young people  Missing from home, care and education  At risk of sexual exploitation  Living out of the authority area  Achieving the right permanence plan  Waiting for adoption  In need of adoption support services

These will be short, bulleted report:  Summarised key findings written for children and young people as well as the local authority  Areas for priority improvement and areas for development  Key findings for each judgement area  Draft report sent to LA within 15 days of inspection  Draft LSCB report sent to Chair and partners  Inspection report and review of LSCB report published as one document following factual accuracy  Copies to HMIC, HMI Probation, CQC, HMI Prisons