Issue - meetings

That the Joint Committee support the future commissioning intentions as detailed in the Placement Commissioning Strategy to be submitted to Welsh Government.

            The Senior Manager (Children and Workforce) presented the Placement Commissioning Strategy which set out the Council’s ambitions and plans to support looked after children locally with parents and families being given support to provide safe loving homes in Flintshire.  Some children would require foster care and residential care and if they could be kept in Flintshire it would enable them to sustain their friendships, keep their schools placements, friends and family connections.  It was also easier for the authority’s officers to maintain that support and build trust if they remained within Flintshire and resulted in better outcomes.  However, for some children they would need to move away from Flintshire for their own safety and well-being.  

            The Senior Manager (Children and Workforce) provided detailed information on “the Mockingbird” approach to fostering and outlined how the three hubs grouped foster carers together in clusters to support each other.  He outlined the issues around recruitment of foster carers and that the authority was reliant on commercial independent fostering agencies.  These commercial agencies recruited their own foster carers and the authority had to buy the placements from them at a much higher cost.  He recommended that Members visited Arosfa, a residential home run by Action for Children, which provided respite care for children with disabilities and outlined the support provided there.  At present this was the only in-house residential provision for residential care and the Council was totally reliant on the Independent Sector.  He referred to the Independent Sector placements within Flintshire which had worked well with positive outcomes.  He provided an overview of the programme for developing residential care homes with two being developed in Mold. 

The Strategy set out the Council’s ambition over the next three years which aligned with Welsh Government’s (WG) ambition to eliminate profit from children’s social care.  Information was provided on the funding, template and partnership working and the number of foster carers and placements that would be required to achieve this.

In response to a question from Councillor Gina Maddison on why people chose the Independent Agencies rather than the Council, the Senior Manager (Children and Workforce) confirmed that these Agencies charged the authority more and paid foster carers more money.   All local authorities in Wales were working together to develop a local authority brand and he provided detailed information on the work that was being undertaken.

            In response to a question from the Chair about carers who chose to care for sibling groups, the Senior Manager (Children and Workforce) confirmed that there were a range of initiatives as the Council was a foster friendly employer and these were explained together with other schemes available to support sibling groups. 

            In response to a question from Councillor Gladys Healey on the age limit for foster carers, the Senior Manager (Children and Workforce) confirmed there was no limit, and the process was fully inclusive, as it was about the best fit for the child.

            In response to a question from Councillor Andy Hughes on the differences were between  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5