Agenda and minutes

1.1 Apologies for absence were received from:

?  Justine McDonald (Co-opted member)

1.2 Apologies for lateness were received from

?  Cllr Margaret Gordon

?  Cllr Clare Potter

?  Cllr Ajay Chauhan

?  Annie Gammon, Director Education

?  Shuja Shaik

2.1 The following declarations were received by members of the Commission:

?  Cllr Peters was a governor at a local special school;

?  Graham Hunter was a governor a Primary Advantage Federation

?  Jo McLeod was a Governor at a local school in Hackney.

2.1 The were no urgent items and the agenda was as scheduled.

4.1 The Department for Education has introduced compulsory Relationships Education for primary pupils and Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) for secondary pupils from September 2020.  It will also be compulsory for all schools to teach Health Education from September 2020. The purpose of this item was to develop assurance on the preparedness of local schools ahead of the introduction of the new RSE guidelines and to assess if further support is needed to meet these requirements ahead of September.

Hackney Learning Trust (HLT)

4.2 As with all such statutory changes in schools there has been wide ranging consultation and engagement about the changes, which has enabled both local authorities and schools time to prepare for the changes in the RSE curriculum.  It was suggested that the levels of awareness among local schools was high as RSE curriculum changes had been discussed at local school engagement forums including those with Head Teachers Group, Deputy Head Teachers Group and School Governors.

4.3 In the last 18 months more detailed development work had been undertaken within both primary and secondary PSHE Forums, which had focused on creating new programmes of study and sharing good practice and learning. Schools were also directed to the PSHE Association (recognised experts in this area) to help them plan and develop the RSE curriculum and for the provision of specialist training.

4.4 Additional support has been provided to primary sector as often the PSHE coordinator role is shared with other school responsibilities.  A virtual network was set up among primary schools to help them share documents, and HLT invited the PSHE Association to provide a training session which was well attended. The PSHE Association also provided a training session for local SENCO coordinators to support the development of the RSE curriculum to children with special educational needs or disability (SEND).

4.5 It was noted that all schools had been contacted in 2019 to identify if further help or support was needed ahead of the introduction of RSE guidelines in September 2020.  It was understood that given that the new guidelines did not represent a significant change, many schools were already delivering aspects of the new PSHE curriculum, and HLT were confident that schools were prepared for the changes ahead.

Young Hackney – Health & Wellbeing Team

4.6 Young Hackney Health and Wellbeing Team deliver supplementary Relationship and Sex Education, Relationship Education and Health Education to primary, secondary and special schools across Hackney. This programme of training has been available for 3 years, and the service has worked with most schools across the borough.  Excluding sessions in Young Hackney hubs and in alternative education providers settings the number of sessions delivered in schools has risen substantially over the past 3 years:

·  2017/18 - 716

·  2018/19 – 1,042

·  2019/20 – 1,200.

4.7 The HB Service offers training on a wide range of topics, which include:

·  Consent and the Law

·  Gender & Sexuality

·  Pornography

·  On-line Safety

·  Teenage pregnancy.

4.8 Whilst the HWB service provides direct training support to local schools and educational settings,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

5.1 The Improving Outcomes for Young Black Men Programme (YBM) aims to tackle inequalities for black boys and young black men in Hackney.  This is a partnership programme which involved agencies across statutory and community sectors and had been in operation since 2015. The Commission requested an update and progress report on this project.

5.2 Head of Policy and Strategic Delivery presented an update of the work of the YBM and a summary of the key points are presented below:

·  When the project commenced in 2015 work centred on building an evidence base to what was the lived experience of young black men and boys and to develop a shared approach and understanding in reducing local inequalities;

·  The Theory of Change approach has been central to the approach of the YBM programme in which different interventions are tried and tested in the local service framework;

·  Since 2018, there have been 3 key areas of work; education, mental health and reducing harm. There have also been two cross-cutting themes, culture and identity, and employment and enterprise;

·  The project was about to launch new governance arrangements to place young people (through Youth Leadership) at the heart of this programme.

5.3 The lead officer for the YBM programme described to the Commission the work of Youth Leaders, which had subdivided its work into 3 teams:

·  Organisers – offering youth training, conducting research and delivering workshops to young people;

·  Ambassadors – providing representation and advocacy at meetings with senior leaders across services

·  Messengers – undertaking community engagement.

5.4 Education was one of the key strands of work, and the YBM programme was working with a number of primary and secondary schools which focused on leadership and culture, personal development and behaviour, curriculum participation and parental engagement. Work was shifting to more targeted and co-produced interventions in local schools. The YBM ran a conference for school governors looking at young people who ‘feel left out and left behind’ and at risk of exclusion.

5.5 The Commission understood that there were two strands in keeping young people safe, the Children and Families Service-wide YBM workstream and the Reducing Harm workstream.  The CFS has held a number of workshops and training sessions for staff which have looked at identity, diversity, black masculinity and fatherhood. 

5.6 A number of challenges were identified in tackling disproportionalities among young black men and boys, these included:

·  An absence of community voice – where community members were disengaged or disillusioned in processes or institutions which should help reduce inequalities;

·  Ongoing difficulties in talking about race – at the institutional level, there was a discomfort in discussing race, racial inequalities and how this manifests itself in local services and impact on local people;

·  Challenges of transformational change – the difficulties of working across agencies and across sectors and in ensuring strategies lead to changes in practice which improve outcomes for young black men and boys;

·  Responsibility and capacity – problematisation of young black men still persists, and there are resource constraints across the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

6.1 A report on the performance of the Children and Families Service (CFS) is a standing item on the work programme of the Commission and is presented bi-annually (full-year and in-year).  The report provides details of how the service is currently performing in relation to key aspects of children’s social care provision (e.g. number of referrals, assessments and children entering care). 

6.2 The Chair highlighted that this report was for the period April 2019 to September 2019 which meant that the report will reflect any changes in the systems and processes for children’s social care which have been implemented as a result of the focused visit by Ofsted which took place in February 2019.

6.3 The Cabinet member introduced the report and highlighted the following:

?  Whilst the Ofsted inspection outcome in November 2019 downgraded their assessment of Children’s Social Care in Hackney, the Council was committed to an ambitious plan to improve services.

?  The Ofsted inspection had highlighted service areas which needed to improve and the CFS was developing a plan in response.  The inspection also noted those areas of provision which were very good, and the CFS would build on these further.

?  There would be a corporate response to support the CFS to improve and a Member Oversight Board had been developed to assist in this process.

6.4 The Group Director for Children, Adults and Community Health raised a number of issues from the report.

?  CFS was required to provide an annual self-assessment for Ofsted and this report would form the basis of the report to be shared with the Commission.  Responses to the recommendations of the recent Ofsted inspection would also be detailed in the report.

?  Data within the report showed a 43% increase in children being placed on a child protection plan to September 2019.  The Group Director noted that recently (2017-2019) the local rate of children on protection plans had fallen, and that these latest figures represented a return to 2017 levels.

6.5 The Head of Safeguarding and Learning highlighted other key features of the report:

?  The number of children entering care continued to rise, this was mostly due to an increase in older children (aged 14+) who were entering the care system for the first time.  This was a regional trend and other London boroughs were experiencing similar increases in their cohort of looked after children.

?  The key priorities for the CFS in light of the Ofsted inspection outcomes included:

o  Improved information sharing among partners for more informed decision making;

o  Ensuring that practice is authoritative and child centred;

o  Improved assessment and planning of private fostering arrangements;

o  Improvement in timeliness and effectiveness of pre-proceedings work;

o  New procedures to improve effectiveness of management oversight of cases;

o  Developing the voice of young people in care planning and organisational development.

o  Further embedding Safer Together to further develop the service response to those families affected by domestic violence or abuse.

o  In relation to YBM programme, ensure that issues relating to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

7.1 A number of updates have been agreed within this programme:

·  March 11th – Post 16 SEND: this item will focus on the education and training pathways for this cohort of children.  A number of stakeholders have been invited to contribute, with the focus of the meeting being to contribute to a refresh of the Hackney Post 16 SEND Strategy.  A number of focus groups with parents and young people will take place ahead of the meeting to support the Commission’s discussion.

·  March 11th - Cabinet Member Q & A with Cllr Kennedy: further to consultation with the Commission, the Chair has agreed the following areas for questioning:

o  Childhood poverty/ food poverty;

o  Troubled families programme;

o  Children’s centres.

·  March 11th – Action Plan for Ofsted: Officers have noted that the action plan will not be ready for this meeting, but it will be circulated direct to members of the Commission for comment and input when available.  The Chair and Vice Chair will meet the Group Director for Children, Adults and Community Health and Director of Children & Families to report back collated comments from the Commission. The finalised action plan will be published on the next agenda (May 12th 2020) together with the comments submitted by the Commission.

8.1 Minutes for the last two meetings on January 15^th and January 27^th were unavailable at the time of this agenda being published and will be published in the next agenda (11^th March).

9.1 There were no other items.

9.2 The date of the next meeting would be March 11^th 2020.

The meeting closed at 9.30pm