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‘Bridging the Divide’

Dez Holmes, Research in Practice Linda Uren, Gloucestershire

Jon Stonehouse, York

annual conference #adcsconf15

Dez Holmes

Director Research in Practice (RiP)

The Challenge The existing framework for children’s social care is designed, primarily, to safeguard children and young people at risk of harm. The approach to assessment in this framework is a risk-based parent deficit model both in its language and the practical approaches used in many areas. Although the Children and Families Act 2014 has made changes to the way in which assessment and planning should be approached for children and young people with SEN the legislation does not make changes to the duties on social care in this regard.

How are we going to innovate?

1. Discover 2. Define 3. Co-design

engage learn

innovate

engage learn

innovate

engage learn

innovate

4. Test

engage learn

innovate

Investigate the reality of people’s lives and their experience of services

Explore the challenge with stakeholders

Look at how others are tackling the challenge

Bring together research evidence & data

Brainstorm with families and other stakeholders to develop lots of ideas for how things could work differently

Identify the most promising ideas and develop them together

Bring insights & evidence together in one place Analyse & discuss what you’ve learned

Decide what you think it all means Test this thinking with key stakeholders

Develop the detail of the best ideas and bring them to life

Get feedback on the ideas and adapt them as you bring in new thinking

Test your idea on a small scale to see how it works in practice

Dual identities : young offenders & SEND • 18% of sentenced young people in custody had a

statement of special educational needs, compared to 3% in the general population (Hughes, 2012)

• A quarter of YP in the justice system have SEN (Talbot, 2010)

• the prevalence of neuro-developmental disorders (e.g. dyslexia, communication disorders and epilepsy) among young people in custody appears to be higher than in the general youth population (Hughes, 2012)

• Over 60% of people in the youth justice estate have difficulties with speech, language or communication (CDC, 2014)

Complexities: adolescent risk , SEND, offending • CSE: 29% looked after, 16% had a disability and 5% a

statement of special educational needs (Barnardos, 2011)

• disability rates significantly higher among male CSE service users than among female CSE service users (35% versus 13%) (McNaughton Nicholls et al, 2014)

• 48% of male CSE victims had a youth offending record, compared with 28% of females (Cockbain et al, 2014)

• children and young people account for a third of all sexual abuse coming to the attention of the professional system in the UK (Erooga and Masson, 2006).

• 66% of the contact sexual abuse reported by children and young people was perpetrated by others <18 (Radford et al, 2011)

• young learning disabled people – over-represented (victims and perpetrators) of harmful sexual behavior (Hackett, 2014)

Common messages • Safeguarding concerns being underplayed / minimised • Failure to recognise and utilise the protective role and /

or expertise of parents • Dual identities not acknowledged (whether parents;

disabled cyp; adolescents facing / posing risk) • Assessment practice that lacks the child / young

person’s voice and lacks analysis • Intervention that is driven by process rather than being

needs-led / flexible / responsive

Common messages cont.

• Tensions around the notion of choice (being underplayed and conversely overplayed)

• Assumption of social worker involvement – rather than ensuring the ‘best person for the job’ for that particular child / young person

• Emphasis on ‘rescue or reform’ rather than an emphasis on building resilience

• Centrality of relationships not being recognised in the way services and pathways are constructed

• Disconnection of this cohort / their needs from the wider population

Practice paradigm

• assumes professional hierarchies (for example ‘automatic’ social work involvement) whereby a child / young person is ‘passed up the chain’ rather than ‘drawing specialist expertise down’ to the child and their lead worker’.

• emphasises process and procedure and therefore misses opportunities to benefit from the transformative power of relationships

Policy paradigm Fr

agm

enta

tion

Com

part

men

talis

atio

n

Practice paradigm Professional hierarchies

Process > relationships

Common messages

eg. protective role of parents underplayed eg. dual identities not acknowledged

Potential consequences

• Disproportionate spend for outcomes achieved • Families and communities excluded from the

solution - implications for resilience in adulthood - missed opportunities re building social capital - traditional (costly) delivery models prevail • Practice continues in silos, inhibiting learning,

innovation and child-centred approaches

annual conference #adcsconf15

Battle of the Front Door - doing better for young people Linda Uren Director of Children’s Services Gloucestershire County Council

Our challenge

• Poor outcomes

• Too much process

• No money!

Same issues for commissioning + practice 14

Summary Issues Main issues for children: 1. Education (27out of 39

cases) 2. Witnessing or experiencing

domestic abuse (25/39) 3. Poor parenting skills (22/39) Other factors such as parental mental health, running away/missing, and violent and aggressive behaviour feature in over half of the cohort.

Main issues for the money: 1. CSC assessments cost us

£279m but 200,000 children got no service (£176m)*

2. Second referrals cost £74m 3. Second CP plans cost

£48m 4. Glos –referrals over 10

£614k, re-referrals £353k 5. Current spend c£35m

* National 13/14 15

Different… Better… Lower cost…

outcomes for service users

Changes to frontline practice

New practice conditions

• Fewer hand offs+ stand offs • New assessment +formulation practices

• Better more targeted interventions • Reducing re- referral rates • Fewer young people in Care

Where we are now

Changes to the local system

Evidence of progress

New local system and organisational

conditions

New experiences, interactions and

relationships with children and families

• Referrals + re-referrals/ hand-offs

• Process not

interventions • Duplication +

gaps in support

• Individual

professions trump young people

• Expectation

of ‘fixing the problem’

• Binary/rigid

system

• Single multi-disciplinary service for adolescents – agreed principles, processes and practices

• Multi-disciplinary service hubs

• Alternative delivery model

• Fewer repeat experiences

• Tell us once • Families get

help

• Fewer crises, safer lives

Better outcomes of children and young

people Adolescents are: • In education • Healthier and

happier • Living at home

safely • Better social/ peer

relationships.

Families: • are resilient • Caring and

supportive • address difficulties

together

Less spend on:

• repeat work – re-referral and assessments that result in no service

• Short term care • high cost

residential OOA placements

• Short courses • Multi-disc

formulation + joint planning

• Risk-

management approach • Engagement

that works

Changes to frontline practice

INNOVATIONS FUND PROGRAMME 16

Changing the language

Assessment, risk management + interventions • Engagement, motivation and capacity to change • Protective factors – resilience, strengths, assets,

resources and coping mechanisms • Hazards – temporary and more long term,

vulnerabilities, weaknesses and risk • Hazards – imminence, likelihood and impact

17

The Practice Approach

1. Engagement

, Motivation, Capacity to

Change

2. Child, YP & Family’s Objectives

3. Assessment

of Resilience

4. Assessment

of Risk

5. Analysis

6. Building a Secure Base

18

Contractors

GHFT

GCC Children’s Social Care

2GT CYPS / CAMHS

Youth Support

Glos Care Services L&D

FFT

PODs

TACS

MASH

The delivery model conundrum

EY Pilots

Police

19

Playing the long game…how it was

Youth Offending/

Care leavers

VCS/ Youth Service

Connexions

Private company Council run/ social care

Council / Community 20

How it is now

Prospects

Integrated Youth Support Teams

£6.5m annually

GCC/Health/PCC

Helping c6000 young people

Multi professional

teams

GCC LAC/ Care

leavers

£3m annually In partnership

with GCC social care

GCC commissioners Local partners

Other joint projects

21

Options going forward

• Status quo • Simple contract • Joint venture • Social enterprise

22

23

Jon Stonehouse

Director of Children’s Services, Education and Skills City of York Council

Objective

York are planning to explore how a new parent-led approach to assessment for disabled children, young people and their families can transform culture and practice in children’s social work

• Reducing stigma and creating opportunities for earlier engagement and preventative work with families

• Development tools for engaging ‘hard to reach’ families

• Creating an environment of improved engagement in local community

• Upskilling community staff to work effectively with families and to signpost them to relevant community based support and develop creative solutions for using personal budgets to achieve better outcomes;

Transforming the approach to

statutory assessment using:

o Parent to parent support o A new accessible language o Proportionate response

Anticipated Outcomes

• New parent-led, community based assessment framework.

• Community participation officer role implemented locally, with national learning of a defined and tested set of responsibilities.

• Contribution to a national toolkit for LAs on approaches to developing a new assessment framework.

Reflections for leaders • Does our structure / delivery model reinforce

professional silos? • What systems are in place to enable (or require)

staff to share learning across service boundaries? • Are there inequalities between groups in terms of

our approach to participation / co-design with communties?

• Do our strategies reinforce professional hierarchies to the detriment of sustaining relationships?

• How do my leadership behaviours challenge fragmentation?