Agenda item

For the Committee to Note.

Andy Pallas and Andy Elvin from (The Adolescence and Children’s Trust) TACT introduced the report to Members which provided an outline the services provided for foster care and adoption services.

Key points raised included:

·         TACT was a charity company that had provided foster care and adoption services since 1993 and had been set up by LA social workers;

·         Provision of services across 120 authorities in England and Wales with 595 CiC supported;

·         Provision of mother and child, sibling groups, older children and mixed heritage placements;

·         Campaign currently underway to request the Government to provide free university or apprenticeship placements for care leavers;

·         Effective foster carer recruitment services; and

·         Solomon O.B was an ambassador for TACT who wrote a poem about his experiences of foster care and currently works with young people to encourage them to open up about their care arrangements and the situations experienced. 

Andy Pallas, Andy Elvin (TACT) and Assistant Director for Children’s Social Care responded to comments and questions raised by Members. In summary responses included:

·         TACT would attempt to complement current safeguarding support provided by the LA through the provision of alternative models to develop the stability of placements, support and training for foster carers and safeguarding services to support CiC, with the aim to lessen the placements for children;

·         TACT have also made an application to the DfE (Department for Education) Innovation Fund for additional resources to support further innovation for children in care e.g. around educational outcomes. 

·         The Permanence Service and the provision to care leavers and looked after children was funded by the LA.  The TACT contract was funded by the LA to provide the day to day services for fostering and adoption. The DfE funding applied for by TACT was additional and was aimed to provide creative services on top of the contracted safeguarding provision;

·         The LA remained responsible for the whole provision of fostering, adoption and safeguarding services and the Partnership Board would review the progress of TACT in relation to the first two.  The LA employees would be TUPEd to TACT services and would continue to record and use the case management system Liquid Logic. The performance data would be accessible by the LA in order to provide returns to the Government and would continue to report to Committees such as Corporate Parenting and Creating Opportunities and Tackling Inequalities Scrutiny Committee. 

·         Work on Business Objects was under development to provide a suite of performance information, with specialist data being designed for adoption and fostering reports, which would be presented to CPC by LA officers and TACT in the future;

·         Effective development for internal fostering agency arrangements were underway by TACT and there were plans to provide positive training programmes such as Fostering Changes, which would be offered to foster carers; 

·         The Fostering Changes training programme involved interactive training with YP in order to learn about issues such as challenging behaviours in order for foster carers to gain effective skills on how to manage them;

·         Local Authorities generally were spending a lot of money on external agency foster care placements and TACT believed that the fostering provision could be provided internally and effectively by the provision of good support and training, which would ultimately save money for the authority;

·         Members commented that they had seen evidence at a recent event facilitated by TACT, that children coming into care supported through TACT services, had experienced a positive outcome in their care placement, with some ultimately pursuing an education through university;

·         TACT provided effective support to foster carers, which included continuation of support through special guardianship orders for CiC placements; and

·         Foster carers commented that they were encouraged by the service that TACT offered and in particular to the training and funding.  The support provision offered by TACT around management of challenging behaviours had also been positive, which would hopefully support more young people to remain within a fostering environment.

ACTION AGREED

The Committee noted the report.