Children in Care

What is a Corporate Parent?

Either through agreement with their parents, or through court proceedings, children might come to be cared for by the local authority. When this happens, the local authority becomes what is known as the

‘Corporate Parent’ for such children, and is charged in law with promoting their safety

and wellbeing.

Role of Corporate Parent

In Derbyshire, we want children in care to:

• Be Healthy;

• Stay Safe;

• Enjoy and Achieve;

• Make a Positive Contribution;

• Achieve Economic Wellbeing;

Being Healthy

Needs Assessment Findings• Derbyshire is a comparatively healthy place to grow up

for many children including children in care. • As the Corporate Parent we are responsible for ensuring

that all children in care receive their development and health assessments, immunisations and dental checks when they should, and monitor their emotional and behavioural health.

Being Healthy

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Being Healthy

Action Planning for Change• Continue to ensure annual health and development

assessments, immunisations and dental checks are up to date for all children in care.

• Active promotion of healthy lifestyles to reduce levels of obesity and substance misuse.

• Continue to promote emotional and behavioural health of children in care through early identification of difficulties and access to universal, targeted and specialist services where appropriate.

Staying Safe

Needs Assessment Findings

• All children in care are to be protected from harm, through good quality planning and care, in stable placements where they can feel safe, and be able to learn those social and life skills which will enable them to look after themselves in adulthood

• In Derbyshire we have always sought to maximise the opportunities for children in care to experience a family-like structure, primarily through living with relatives and friends or through fostering and adoption, with a view to promoting permanence

Staying Safe

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Staying Safe

Action Planning for Change• Continue to improve placement choice and availability

through the recruitment and retention of foster carers.• Continue to improve placement stability through the

development of support mechanisms for carers and staff.

Enjoying and achieving

Needs Assessment Findings

• Many children and young people in Derbyshire achieve good test and examination results above those of similar areas of the country at all key stages except for Key Stage 4 where Derbyshire’s performance is slightly below the national average.

• However, many children could get better results and vulnerable children, including children in care, achieve less well.

• As the Corporate Parent we are working to close attainment gap for children in care in Derbyshire compared to all Derbyshire Children and maximise their adult life chances.

Enjoying and achieving

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Enjoying and achieving

Action Planning for Change• Continue to increase the number of children in care

achieving GCSEs at higher grades (A*-C).• Continue to close the attainment gap between children in

care in Derbyshire and all Derbyshire Children.

Making a positive contribution

Needs Assessment Findings

• All children in care should have the same opportunity as other children to take part in activities that will make them happy, teach them new things and help them to understand their place in the world and contribute to their community.

• Their views should be respected and valued by staff and carers and they should be active participants in decisions about their lives, both as individuals and as members of society.

• There are approximately 540 children and young people in care at any one point in time within Derbyshire of which approximately 380 have been in care for 12 months or more.

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Making a positive contribution

Action Planning for Change• Continue to develop the participation of children in care in decisions

about their lives through the exploration of further opportunities to involve Elected members with children in care and Care Leavers in their work as Corporate Parents.

• Continue to promote The Caring Voice, the children in care Council, and the widening of its membership, and inclusion of their views in any relevant plans and strategies

• Implementation of a protocol with the Police, to apply the ‘reasonable parent’ test to minor offending by children in care, to further reduce formal reprimands.

• Continue to work with schools to reduce the number of fixed term exclusions.

• To reduce the percentage of children in care engaging in substance misuse.

Making a positive contribution

Achieving economic wellbeingNeeds Assessment Findings

• There are approximately 40 – 50 young people who leave care each year in Derbyshire with the majority leaving care on their 18th birthday.

• Leaving care is a critical time for many young people and they should be provided with or signposted to safe and appropriate accommodation and supported to enter and remain in employment, education or training.

• Accommodation is regarded as suitable if it provides safe, secure and affordable provision for young people. It would generally include short-term accommodation designed to move young people on to stable long-term accommodation, but would exclude emergency accommodation used in a crisis.

• Care leavers are a key group at risk of social exclusion and ensuring care leavers are in suitable accommodation is intended to help minimise the risk of care leavers living in unsuitable housing or becoming homeless.

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Achieving economic wellbeing

Derbyshire Needs Assessment Findings

Age of Children in Care• At 31 March 2009, 534 children and young people were

in care in Derbyshire with the majority of children in care aged between 10 and 15 years (45%).

• There has been a slight increase in the percentage of children in care in Derbyshire in both the 1 to 4 and 10 to 15 age groups since 2005 and a significant decrease in the 5 to 9 age group.

Category of Need of Children in Care• Overall the main reason why Safeguarding and

Specialist Services first engaged with these children and young people was because of abuse and neglect (62%).

• This percentage has changed significantly from 69% in 2005 and is in line with the downward trend seen nationally.

Derbyshire Needs Assessment Findings