In Cumberland we truly believe in giving children and young people a voice which is listened to and where possible influences the plans we have.
What our children and young people have told us.
Relationships with family and family networks
Our cared for and care experienced children and young people talk to us about having different feelings and emotions about time with their birth families and family networks. For those young people who remain connected to their families they tell us about how they want to stay connected and what this means for them. Children and young people talk about how their carers help them manage the different emotions connected to family time and for some children and young people they would like to see their families more but understand why they cannot. Cared for, care experienced and separated young people continue to tell us that birth families, new families and carers and family networks are incredibly important to them and one of the most important thing in their lives.
Relationships with friends
Our cared for, care experienced and separated young people tell us that friendships are incredibly important to them and that for some young people they find it difficult to form friendships and welcome the opportunities created through our participation service to help them make new friends and reduce social isolation. For some young people they feel anxious about meeting new friends, joining groups or attending the drop-in sessions so look to their carers or professional network to support with this in the first case or help them maintain friendships when their friends move. Children and young people have spoken about how school is so important, as that’s when they see most of their friends. Due to some friends living further away they are unable to ‘just knock on them’ and for some young people they rely on having to get the bus or ask their foster carer to take them to see their friends.
“My best friend is moving miles away and I will miss him but my foster carer has arranged sleep overs so we can still see each other”
15-year-old cared for young person
Relationships with Social Workers and carers
Most of our cared for and care experienced young people tell us that they have good relationships with their social workers and the people who have responsibility for their direct care and support. Nearly all cared for children and young people feel that their social workers and the people who are responsible for their direct care and support are good at listening and are kind. Whilst most children and young people have benefited from having the social worker and carers for some time some young people have told us that the people around them have changed or they have moved homes in an unplanned way and for some of these young people they would have preferred things stay the same and for others they are much happier. Our care experienced young people tell us that their relationship with their personal advisor is important and needed as they moved into adulthood. Cared for and Care experienced young people have told us that some of the words we use are not as kind as they would like them to be. As a result of this, our cared for and care experienced young people are helping us review the words we use as part of our ‘language that cares’ commitment.
“I can talk to my social worker, even though he is old he still listens, and he is funny. He doesn’t give me everything I want but at least he says why instead of just agreeing and not doing it.”
Cared for young person – The voice
Identity and inclusion
Our cared for, care experienced and separated young people have told us that LGBTQIA+ people described exclusion, mistreatment and hate (often unreported) in local communities, and it is important that we consider this when we are thinking about the people who care and support them as well as where they live. Experiences often feel more isolating when young people feel there is limited social networks near where they live so ensuring social support networks are made is important too.
Neuro-divergent people described the struggle to be seen, to be heard, to have help to understand their specific divergence and what adjustments at home, in school, or in the community could help make their lives easier; and a marked energy from local leaders in Cumberland to understand neurodivergence differently influences our plans when we consider where children and young people live.
Education and employment
Our cared for and care experienced young people continue to talk to us about how important education or employment is to them. They talk to us about their schools and higher education establishments and what this brings to them in relation to their learning, their social networks, and their independence. Most of our children and young people talk positively about this but for a small number of young people this has not always been as positive an experience and the support of the virtual school and inclusion teams have instrumental in supporting change. For some young people they are seeking education or employment, and whilst this is more difficult due to where they are in their life at the present time, there are people to support them ensuring education and employment continues to be a future aspiration.
Supporting families to stay together
Cumberland Early Help and Prevention Strategy outlines our offer to children, young people and their families. This offer explores how we will proactively work to keep children and families together supporting them at the first point and wrapping around services which enable them to remain together in their communities with support that makes a difference. It is essential that through our focus on maintaining families, exploring ways of supporting families at the earliest opportunity we ensure we can meet our sufficiency needs for children and young people when they need to be cared for and that we are able to ensure services are in place for children and families when they return home.
Improvements in Care Planning, Reviews and Permanence Planning
We have improved our entry to care and legal planning to ensure that we have a very clear level of scrutiny of all decisions relating to children and young people becoming cared for. This ensures we are exploring how we can support young people to remain at home or in their family networks where it is safe to do so.
Our approach to care planning includes lifelong links, which is an approach to exploring family members and those within the family networks who can care and support young people to remain in the family network or return to the wider family network.
A ‘Homes for Children and Resource Panel’ has been established to oversee, challenge, endorse, and review the individual needs for Cumberland’s cared for children and young people arising from the care planning processes. The role of panel is to ensure that all proposed or existing externally commissioned residential, Independent Fostering Agencies (IFA) and Semi-Independent provision continues to meet the individual needs of cared for children whilst ensuring that best value principles are adhered to in the care planning process. The Panel will also address potential or actual drift in care planning by reviewing such placements and funding arrangements as appropriate whilst ensuring that as we deliver on the intention that the right children and young are in receipt of the right services and there is no risk of drift or delay in supporting children and young people to be in the right home for their needs.
We are strengthening our strategic approach to supporting young people to return home in a timely way, where it is safe to do so. Through effective responses to reunification, we will support children and families to remain together. We are committed to do this through our strengthen approach to legal planning, achieving permanence and decision making through the re-design of our panel processes, tracking progress to improve outcomes for children and young people. As part of this work, we have been successful in securing funding from the Department of Education to develop our approach to Family Finding through our Life Long Links approach to practice.