Executive summary – plan on a page
Sufficiency Strategy - Homes for Looked After Children and Care Leavers
- Aims to ensure sufficient placements, both in terms of numbers and quality, available locally to meet the needs of children and young people who need our care.
- Number of placements available nationally hasn’t increased at same rate as number of children coming into care; scarcity of particular placements e.g. for more complex needs
- Placement costs rising due to inflation, cost of living, difficulty recruiting/ retaining suitable staff
- Coventry continues to develop internal provision to contribute to sufficiency, e.g. foster carers, new residential provision
- Ongoing regional work in West Midlands to manage placements markets to improve choice, cost and quality
Fostering
- Increased foster homes within Coventry or within reasonable travelling distance of schools
- Highly trained foster carers for those children with complex needs including additional needs and disabilities.
- Foster placements that can care for siblings so that they can stay together
In-house
Fostering Excellence Project:
- Strengthen training offer to foster carers, widen mentoring to include Connected Carers
- Growth of the Next steps fostering scheme.
- Recruit more specialist carers – for complex needs and disabilities
- Maintain retiring carers as advisors and mentors
External (IFA)
- Explore innovative evidenced based fostering service models, e.g. Mockingbird
- Engage with providers – develop step down, specialist carers for complex needs, children with disabilities
- Lead for W Midlands IFA framework recommissioning
Residential
- Encourage new homes in Coventry so CLA can see family, friends, maintain school and health support
- Provision linked to foster care to support step down
- Provision able to care for young people with complex needs and challenging behaviour
- Provision for disabled children, with suitable adaptations
- Provision for vulnerable CLA, particularly teenagers at risk of exploitation (Criminal/ Sexual)
- Crisis / same day provision
In-house
- Grow internal provision: home for children with disabilities; ‘same day short stay’ provision
External
- Continue with Hard to Place contract development
- Engage with providers to encourage new local provision to meet needs
- Develop provision for step down from Tier 4 MH places
- Develop step-down provision to foster care from residential
- Lead for W Midlands Res Care framework recommissioning
Supported Accommodation
- Develop further good quality, local supported accommodation provision to meet the needs of care leavers in transition to independent living
- Monitor risk of Block Providers not Registering and /or meeting new Regulations.
- Continue to support providers with Ofsted registration.
- Continue to support providers to meet new standards and initial provision of quality documentation.
- Commitment to House project to promote independence skills
- Supported Accommodation block contracts due to expire in 2026, need to review impact of new standards and regulations on market before planning renewal of these contracts.
- Engage with providers to deliver provision to meet complex needs and challenging behaviours, particularly CSE. This also relates to young people who have reached the age of 18 but are not eligible for adult statutory services.
- Continue to work with Housing and providers to ensure there is a supply of quality accommodation within the city.