Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence for the meeting.

There were no apologies for this meeting. The Chair welcomed new Insight representatives and observers and also new Councillors who were awaiting formal confirmation of their appointment to the Board.

To receive information on any changes in the membership of the Committee.

Note – When a member of a Committee is unable to attend a meeting of a Committee or Sub-Committee, the relevant Political Group Leader (or their nominated representative) may, by notice to the Monitoring Officer (or their nominated representative) prior to the meeting, appoint a substitute member from within the same Political Group. The contact details on the front of this agenda should be used for notifications.

There were none

To elect a Vice-Chair for the Corporate Parenting Baord for the 2024/25 Municipal year.

It was agreed to defer this item to the next meeting to allow for the appointment of the other Councillor members of the Board.

Councillors are requested to declare any interests on items included in this agenda. Please refer to the workflow on the preceding page for guidance.

Declarations received will be reported at the meeting.

Any other members of the Board may declare an interest for the purpose of transparency.

None

To confirm and sign as a correct record the minutes of the Meeting held on 11 March 2024.

The minutes of the meeting held on 15 June

Members of Insight and Unite will lead an icebreaker activity for all meeting attendees.

The Co-Chair introduced the item, the intention of which was to have some summer fun! The question for everyone was “what kind of cake would you be and why”. Some very entertaining answers were shared around the table.  The Co-Chair explained that this was one of the types of activities that young people may utilise when they are involved with recruitment exercise to help identify applicants’ ability to think of their feet, presentation skills interpersonal skills adaptability, etc.

For the Board to consider a verbal update on housing matters including Homewards, prior to a report to the next meeting.

The Board considered a presentation from the Director of Housing and Communities. A number of key points were related to the Board in terms of recent activity including:

Work with Homewards

Centrepoint appointed as a support service provider

Recruitment of 2 new officers with DfE funding to support joint assessment

Progress made in data monitoring and engagement with young people

An outline of the Next Steps for the service and partners

It was suggested that Michael Corbishley, from Homewards could be invited  to the next meeting.

A number of questions and points were raised at the meeting including:

·     It was asked whether Homewards worked with the Care Leaver Covenant, a charity specifically for care leavers, to support employment opportunities with local companies the Director of Housing would follow this up. 

·     Process for care leavers and how would banding improve with this. It was noted that the housing system can be quite rigid but the process mapping should help with this.

·     Locations for accommodation provision – Options were being considered for the wider package including location and transport issues.

·     Ensuring that Care Experience is treated as a protected characteristics – The term ‘fast pass’ was useful to describe the projected outcomes and it was important to ensure that people were not placed into a repetitive cycle.

·     The elements of the work where YPs have been asked to get involved – it would be good to see a greater planned governance structure around this. The Programme Officer post would support this.

·     Capacity and Resource was always a challenge and it was crucial to get this right in order to utilise opportunities

The Chair thanked the Director for a really informative update.

This report summaries the output, outcomes and influence of children’s rights and engagement work across 2023/24, setting out the development and direction of travel for 2024/25

The Children’s Rights and Participation Manager presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'A' to these minutes in the Minute Book. The report summarised the output, outcomes and influence of children’s rights and engagement work across 2023/24, setting out the development and direction of travel for 2024/25. Some of the issues raised and highlighted within the report included:

·     Issues regarding community’s mindset on what a care leaver is.

·     CEYP and CIC personal journeys and them as individuals

·     Found opportunities for young people to be move involved in other universal work for young people to influence what happens in BCP Council

·     Future challenges and opportunities were outlined.

·     Role of the traditional children in care council and possible different options.

·     A CPB conference was due to be rolled out in November.

·     The Brightspots survey would be aiming to get as many young people as possible involved to help highlight work for the next year.

A number of issues were raised in the discussion including:

·       The CPB conference – what it was and why did it matter. The Board were given an update with more information about the event.

·       The Board really appreciated the report which showed the depth of involvement in getting voices of children and young people heard.

·       The Annual Star Awards was highlighted, and it was noted that it was good to see all of the different young people participating, however it appeared that those in Kinship Care were not invited. It was noted that this would be dependent upon their status at the time.

·       There was discussion around the application process for Council jobs and whether Care Leaver was included as a protected characteristic, it was noted that it was not always available but this may have recently changed.

·       Southwest Regional Care Leavers Offer had an app in development, and it was hoped the team would be able to pursue this.

·       There had been an initial conversation about the input of local businesses into the 333 hub.

The meeting adjourned briefly for five minutes following this item.

Workshop style session to consider the BCP Local Offer

The Participation Manager advised the Board that this was an important opportunity to hear from them on the Local Offer. The Board was divided into professionals, and young people and participation workers. Both of the groups discussed what they felt should be included within the local offer under a number of different headings based on the guidance issued from the Department of Education. Consideration was given to a number of different issues regarding this. Both groups then came together to share their ideas and see if there were commonalities. The different areas under which the suggestions were made were Health and wellbeing, Relationships, Education and training, Employment, Accommodation and Participation in society.

Some of the key issues which generated a lot of discussion included:

·       Support for mental health conditions and how this would be included

·       Drivers licence and the provision of driving lessons or alternative support with transport and issues around car purchases and insurance costs.

·       Issues around food bank vouchers and that these were supposed to be for emergency situations

·       Housing provision which was suitable for needs and aspirations

·       Support targeted to individual needs and situations, e.g. support with finances and cooking. This was difficult to account for as young people often wanted to have things spelled out in black and white but also wanted to have an individual approach.

·       Health and wellbeing links to lots of issues where support may be required.

A discussion was also had around the gold star aspirational offers which Corporate Parents would like versus the reality of the financial situation.

The Board also discussed the possibility of community sponsorship and the role of the rest of the community.

What next? The Director for Corporate Parenting would go back with discussions that had taken place to update the Local Offer due to a tight deadline and then they would continue to focus on updating with more inspirational ideas for future versions of the Local Offer.

To consider and amend the Board’s Forward Plan as appropriate.

It was noted that the Plan included with the agenda was an old version of the Plan due to the change in date of the meeting

It was agreed that a draft of the Local Offer will come back to next meeting to be shared with the Board for information.

It was agreed that if possible, the DFE mentoring project partners would attend the September meeting to share what they had been doing with the Board. 

This is the first Annual Report for the Care Experienced Young People’s (CEYP) Service in BCP (Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole) Council, summarising the work undertaken in the period 1st April 2023 to 31st March 2024.  

The report highlights the progress made in terms of recruitment and compliance with Key Performance Indicators as well as noting challenges for the service and actions for the future.

There were no comments or questions on this item.

This report gives a summary of:

•        The Children in Care and Care Experienced Young People supported by Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council

•        Key performance issues

•        Key issues affecting the welfare of children and young people

The report uses data from 1 January – 31 March 2024 (Quarter 4 2023/24)

Snapshot figures are as at 31 March 2024

There were no comments or questions on this item.

The Board is asked to note the future dates arranged for meetings of the Board as follows:

·       Monday 30 September 2024 5.00 pm

·       Monday 16 December 2024 5.00 pm

·       Monday 17 March 2025 5.00 pm

·       Monday 16 June 2025 5.00 pm

·       Monday 29 September 2025 5.00 pm

·       Monday 15 December 2025 5.00 pm

The Board noted the next meeting date – 30 September and was reminded that the next meeting would be attended by LGA peer review colleagues.