Homes for Children and Young People in Coventry 2023-27

Introduction

Coventry’s vision is that all children are cared for in safe, supportive, and where appropriate placed in local placements that best meets the child or young person’s needs. This is to ensure that children can maintain important links with family and friends, continued local education and access to health services. 

Above all Coventry City Council believe in securing good quality, stable, local homes for Coventry children and young people so that they can stay within the communities which they are connected to wherever this is possible and safe to do so. This supports them in maintaining their networks and therefore their resilience and gives them a better chance of stepping down, back to a family environment quickly, where appropriate, but also supports positive outcomes and stability for those that stay in care, nurturing their capacity for personal independence.

Coventry faces a number of system challenges in delivering placement sufficiency. These include (but are not limited to):

  • Local homes for children with complex needs and challenging behaviours potentially requiring a therapeutic input 
  • Crisis provision – emergency, same day provision 
  • Local provision for children with Learning Difficulties and Disabilities   
  • Placement Stability particularly for our more challenging young people

Coventry has actively improved placement sufficiency locally with the growth of our internal provision, both in increased numbers of foster carers and connected persons and also an increase to 5 residential homes, which has resulted in more children remaining with family, staying in or returning to the city. Following the success of this, Coventry is planning to open further residential homes to meet current needs and local gaps in the market e.g. a home for our children with disabilities and a ‘same day short stay’ emergency provision.  

There is a need for providers who will work with young people with complex needs and challenging behaviours and Coventry is embarking on a partnership approach with a small number of external providers who will deliver homes for our hardest to place young people, ensuring they are supported by specialist staff teams in small homes with therapeutic packages designed to stabilize, support, and step down when they are ready.  

Our Homes for Children and Young People in Coventry Sufficiency Strategy sets out how Coventry will meet its sufficiency duty as laid out in Section 22G of the Children Act 1989 between 2023 and 2027. It indicates our current position, gaps and needs and planned work or commissioning intentions, to secure the placements required. 

This document is informed by a number of local and national strategic documents, reports and data sources including:

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