Children's social care

Foreword

We want to support children in North Tyneside to thrive and achieve their potential. We want them to have happy, safe childhoods that support them to be successful adults.

Sometimes children are not able to live with their parents. We will always work to support them to live within their family network if this is possible and safe to do so.

There are times when children need to be cared for outside of their families. When this needs to happen we want to make sure that children are offered the best care.

When children feel safe, secure, cared for and happy where they live, they can thrive and suceed.

Relationships are key to supporting children to thrive and to make sense of the reasons they may be in our care. We work openly with children in our care and their families to improve their circumstances with our efforts. No child should feel disadvantaged by being in care.

We make sure that where possible and when in their best interests, children can safely return to their families.

This is not always possible. When children remain in our care, we make sure that as corporate parents we are providing the care and support we want for our own children.

As young adults, want want to be sure they feel able to achieve their best at work or in education. That they have positive relationships and stable lives in comfortable housing.

We need to be ambitious with them and work to make a real and lasting difference to their lives, with enduring positive relationships.

This strategy has relationships at its heart. Children in our care tell us that what makes a difference for them is the people and relationships. That's everything from supporting them to gain employment to buying their first car.

As corporate parents these achivements show the impact of good relationships and excellent care. Our challenge is to provide this experience to every child who comes into our care.

This strategy is a statement of our intention to continue to work with families, carers, schools, and all professionals. To create the culture in our communities that enables children in our care and care leavers get the help and support they need.

Our Promise to you

1. All staff will be trained in Care4Me and understand all issues for children in care, and their responsibilities as a corporate parent.
2. We will help you to understand why you are in our care.
3. We will help you to stay connected with people important to you and make sure you have trusted people in your life.
4. We will support you to have good friendships by making your life as stable as possible and be able to join in activities.
5. We will make sure you understand your rights and what it is like when you move into adulthood. We will help you to achieve your best in education, training, and employment.

Our Vision

• We want to make sure that children only come into our care when they must do so.
• Where they can't remain with family due to harm or risk of harm, we will support them to stay with safe, familiar adults.
• When children are cared for within their networks, we will support the adults who care for them.
• We will work to gain a shared understanding of what has happened in their family and why the child has been cared for away from their parents.
• We want any child who is unable to live at home to live in a homely and comfortable environment.
• Children in our care will have consistent adult support. They will have stable and positive relationships so that they don’t feel the need to repeat their story.
• We want them to thrive with adults who have walked beside them during their care journey.
• Children in our care and care leavers will be supported to achieve their potential in education. They will have dedicated support and detailed personal education plans.
• This support will continue into adulthood. They will have specialised support from connexions workers and targeted work across the borough.
• We want children in our care and care leavers be sure that their voices will be heard.
• We want all children who need support to be heard and to have access to advocacy.
• We want to make sure that regardless of communication challenges and language barriers, every child can share their views.
• We want to ensure children in our care and care leavers have their health needs met by dedicated health professionals.
• We want to provide the children in our care and care leavers with safe boundaries and loving care provided by all corporate parents. This will make sure that the care we offer improves their circumstances now and in the future.
• We want to make sure that communities in the borough work with us to help children who have needed to be in care to continue to feel they are valued as they grow.

We promise

• We will only bring you into care when it cannot be made safe for you to stay at home.

• We will identify who is in your network to try and identify adults that could care for you.

• We will support all adults who care for children to do so safely.

• We want you to live in safe homely and comfortable homes. • We want you to be able to build enduring relationships with consistent adults.

• We want to walk alongside you if you are unable to stay living at home to stop them you from telling your story over and over.

• We want you to achieve their best in education, and will work with you and your school, college or workplace to support this.

• We want you to help us to get better at caring for children.

• We want you to understand your life journey by providing you with your life story.

• We will have clear mechanisms for determining leaving care status and will explain this to you and your families.

• We will provide support to you, your families and the network around you to ensure your physical, mental health and emotional well being needs are met.

North Tyneside context

We have maintained relative stability in the numbers of children in care. As with all North East Councils, we have a higher proportion of children in care than the national average.

This means since 2021 there have been approximately 350 - 360 children in our care at any one time. There has been a recent increase, some of which is based on national trends.

This is a lower rate than our statistical neighbours. It's been consistently low, reflecting our intention to have mechanisms that:

• Challenge thinking
• Maintaining children within their families if its safe

It's supported by our Signs of Safety practice model. This supports consistency in approach and aids creative and child focused practice.

We identify appropriate adults in a childs family network to provide support. They contribute to safety planning, but care when we can no longer keep children safe at home.

Our corporate parenting forum holds the services to account on the edge of care, in care and care leavers. It has adopted the priorities as decided by our children in care and care experienced young people:

• Develop opportunities to make sure a persons care experienced status does not disadvantage them
• .Support young people to have the opportunity to take part in new cultural opportunities.
• Look at ways to make sure that children and young people experience smoother transitions when cared for by us.
• Ensure children in care and Care Leavers feel safe, loved and have positive mental health.
• Ensuring we, as corporate parents, actively listen, know and understand what is important to our children in care and care leavers.
• Ensure children in care and care leavers know and understand what’s on offer.

The multi-agency looked after partnership will drive the priorities within their subgroups.

Our statutory social work services have been structured to provide targeted support. This includes a Children in Need team, a team for young people aged 14 and above and a Pre-Birth Team.

We know our from our Children in Care Council that more work is needed to consider all transitions for children. This could be between teams and social workers or between care arrangements and adult services.

We changed our transfer proccess for those transitioning to the Leaving Care team. Each young person will have a Personal Advisor from 17 onwards, working alongside the social worker.

We know there is more to do. We have invested in specialist roles within our services. For example, we have social workers who support our Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC).

It was recognised that this specialism needed to extend to care leavers and so we now have a UASC leaving care worker which is working well.

We continue to value the importance of children and young people having life story work completed with them. We know that it is important that when this work is done that it is meaningful and accessible. The life story work co-ordinator’s position was introduced in 2022. It has been key to developing our life story work toolkits and model of practice. Funding has been extended to this post until March 2025. This is alongside the commissioning of a digital offer that will make life story work accessible to children, young people, and their network. With the aim being that every child who leaves our care having access to their life story work.

Our Children and Young People

The children who come into our care do so because they have suffered loss and/or harm.

They need to be supported by the adults in their lives to understand what has happened. This should be in a way that makes sure they don't assume blame or shame for what has happened.

The challenges the children in our care have faced mean we have to be assured that being in our care makes things better for them. We want children to have stability in our care and for them to know where they will be living until adulthood and sometimes beyond.

This is why we have introduced a new permanence champion role. This role ensures permanence plans for children are tracked and monitored. It reduces any delays when in our care.

Our children have amazing talents and skills and it is our role to help them to explore these. We will provide the environment that supports each child to feel loved and confident to learn and to make mistakes. The children in our care will feel able to have all the opportunities their friends have, without being concerned that they are in our care.

By doing this work with all services in contact with the children it will remove any barriers or prejudices. The children in our care and care leavers will be aware that we are proud of their achievements and that we celebrate these with them.

Children are supported in having their achievements acknowledged in all manner of ways. Children are supported to participate in all celebration events in their school and colleges. Individual talents in arts and sports are supported. This is alongside support for children and care leavers who choose an academic pathway into adulthood via university.

We promise

• We will hold annual celebration events for you.
• We will provide warm and loving care to you.
• We will challenge discrimination towards you.
• We will celebrate individual achievements you make however large or small.

Relationships

Every child needs to be supported to develop relationships. We know, because they have told us, that the children we care for value the relationships they have with the people who care for them. Families, foster carers, social workers, residential staff teams, teachers and nurses can all have a huge impact on a child’s life. It is our responsibility to make the impact positive. T

he children we have cared for have told us that this makes the difference to them as they have grown up. These relationships need to be nurtured and acknowledged as special. They support each child to understand their place in the world and to feel confident to learn and to grow.

The children in our care have families and histories that we must respect. We must work cooperatively with each child’s family as co-parents in the best interests of each child.

We must allow the possibility for change and growth in families. We must do this with supportive relationships help each child to maintain all positive relationships in their lives.

We do not believe that any person progresses to total independence. As social beings’ humans require loving supportive relationships throughout their lives to thrive. We want to support children who are, or have been, in our care to develop and sustain these relationships.

We promise

• We will always try to support you to keep the relationships that matter to you.
• We will continue to improve the way we work with birth families.
• We will stick with you through good and challenging times.

HIVE

The HIVE Team stands for Health, Information and Advice, Virtual School, Emotional Wellbeing. They work to support children, young people, their families and the network around them to ensure their holistic needs are met.

They support:

• Children in Our Care and Care Leavers
• those who have been previously looked after and achieved permanence through Adoption or Kinship Care (SGOs/CAOs/other kinship care arrangements)
• Children with a Social Worker and other children that have experienced complex trauma.

They are a multi-agency team including:

• nurses
• teachers
• occupational therapists
• trauma therapists
• clinical and educational psychologists
• CBT practitioners
• an admin team.

The team is responsible for:

• completing Initial and Review Health Assessments
• reviewing and supporting with Personal Education Plans
• scoring and monitoring SDQs
• allocating Pupil Premium Plus
• providing consultations for professional
• delivering training
• providing direct educational (CiC only) and therapeutic support.

We want to ensure that our children in care get the support they need to achieve stability at home and in their education settings. We want to provide them with an opportunity to succeed in education and achieve their dreams and ambitions. 

We promise

• To communicate the support available to young people and their networks
• To provide training to professionals. This will make sure they understand the impact of being in care and experiencing difficult events in childhood.
• We will celebrate successes on a regular basis.

Model of Practice

We use a strengths based model of social work practice across all areas. All frontline staff have been trained in Signs of Safety. Our partners are supported with introductory training too.

This is an innovative strength based, safety organised approach to social work. It is grounded in partnership and collaboration.

It focuses on "how can workers build relationships with children and their networks in situations where children may have been harmed and continue to safeguard children and work in partnership to meet the child’s needs overall”.

We will work with young people to develop ways of expressing themselves within relationships. Working through with their social worker what they think is going well in their life, what are the worries what needs to happen as a result.

We promise

• We will continue to work to establish stability in workers for you. We know that this best aids you to feel that you are valued and reduce the need to repeat their stories.
• We will help you to understand why you have been cared for outside of your parents’ care. This will be done with your parents. It creates a shared understanding that the whole family can accept. This is then shared with you. This is further supported with a record of your experiences in care which together form your life story record.
• We work using this model to identify signs of success.
• Focusing upon the achievements and strengths in each child’s situation to grow positives and reduce the challenges. There are a number of tools within signs of safety which support this.

Care Leavers

Young people who have remaind in our care need the nuture and support of consitent relationships.

We want the children and young people who have experienced our care to have been cared for in stable and supportive homes.

Where we can, we want these to be foster homes. That's beacause they are able to work alongside the family and network to support them to believe in themselves.

We are proud of the accommodation offer we have for care leavers. We have a commitment to ‘Staying Put’ in foster carer. This is through our Staying Close provision for young people leaving children’s homes into our ‘Starting Point’ supported accommodation offer.

We believe that the ambitions and aspirations of the young people we care for or have cared for need to be supported and nourished. This helps each young person fulfil their potential. It includes support with education and employment but also support to become happy and contented members of our communities as they mature.

We promise

• We will provide a dedicated personal advisor to all you if you are eligible for leaving care services.
• We are committed to supporting you to engage in education and employment.
• We work within the Local Authority and with business partners to support you to fulfil your aspirations for adulthood.
• If you become a parent, we will provide you with the necessary support to enable you to be the best parent you can be within your local community.

Children in Care Council and Care Leavers

Our Participation and Advocay team support young people to have their voices heard.

They support children and young peoples forums like:

• the Elected Young Mayor
• Elected Member of UK Youth Parliament
• Youth Council, Children in Care Councils
• SEND Youth Forums
• Children’s Council.

Children in Care Council

This is a group of care experience young people. They aim to ensure all children in our care and care leavers can give their views on the service they recieve. We have one main group that meets fortnightly. A junior group meets during the school holidays.

They use information from our annual conversations programme to inform what they work on. These conversations take place with every child aged 5-18 in our care. They recieve an independent visit once a year to share their experiences of being in our care.

The Council is involved in the North East Regional Children in Care Council. This is made up of the 12 authorities in the North East. It includes planning and delivering conferences for professionals led by young people.

Sharing their views

Our young people are supported to give their views on themes. This ensures senior managers are listening on a strategic level and including them in change where possible.

The participation and advocasy team runs our advocacy service and return home interview services. This allows the emerging themes to be used to support change.

The independent vistor service sits alongside this. It supports children in care and care leavers to be introduced to an independent person. They will support them outside of their care arrangement.

We promise

• To support the North East Regional Children in Care Council campaign and conference.
• To support the CiC Council to achieve change on their themes.
• To support the CiC Council to gather the views of more children in care through the annual conversations.
• Hold two Children in Care and Corporate Parent events each year.
• Increase the number of children and young people who have an Independent Visitor.
• Support and promote the use of advocacy to encourage you to have a voice and have their rights upheld.

Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO)

The main role is to be there for our children and young people in care. Their focus is to make sure those making decisions, making them with children and young people as the focus. This means they have clear plans on how we are planning to achieve stability for them.

For all children and young people in care, we aim to provide them with relationships with adults who:

• Care about them
• Listen to them
• Celebrate their growth and challenges

We have a statutory role to ensure that we, on behalf of the children in our care, hold our aspirations and vision for children at the heart of their care planning.

We promise

• To ensure that we provide independent scrutiny of care plans. Ensuring planning is clear on what needs to be done, who needs to do it and what it is that we want to achieve for the child and young person.
• To hold reviews at meaningful times that supports children and young people to attend and chair their own review.
• To promote our relationship with children outside of statutory meetings. Ensuring they have opportunities to share what is working well and what their worries are for the future.
• We will hold child in our care reviews in keeping with the legal framework. We will increase the offer so that if there is a need for an early review that this is brought forward and that the child and young person’s voice is heard.
• We will continue to link up with advocacy. This means at times when children and young people feel that they are not being heard that they have an advocate to strengthen their voice

Learning from our care leavers

We have listened to you and these are things you told us you would like to prioritise:

1. Care Experienced Leaver Status.

   Develop opportunities for children in our care and care leavers and make sure their care experienced status does not disadvantage them.

2. Arts and Culture.

   Support our young people to have the opportunity to take part in new cultural opportunities both locally and nationally. This could include theatre and art exhibition opportunities.

3. Transitions.

   Look at ways to make sure that children and young people experience smoother transitions when cared for by North Tyneside. This may cover transitions between social work teams, workers, schools and homes. Transitions between health teams and into adult services.

4. Emotional health and Wellbeing.

   Ensure children in our care and care leavers feel safe, loved and have positive mental health.

5. Voice of the Child.

   Ensuring we, as corporate parents, actively listen, know and understand what is important to children in our care and care leavers. Ensure children in our care and care leavers know and understand what’s on offer, what work is being undertaken on their behalf and how we are looking after them as corporate parents.