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Covid 19 Update (19.30)

Meeting of Children and Young People Scrutiny Commission, Tuesday 8 September 2020 7.00 pm (Item 5.)

Minutes:

5.1 The Commission continues to receive updates from both Children and Families Services (CFS) and Hackney Learning Trust (HLT) on how services were responding to Covid 19 and subsequent recovery plans. The Directors of the respective services highlighted key issues from their respective reports as set out below.

5.2 The Cabinet member for Education, Children and Children's Social Care introduced the response to this item and highlighted a number of issues:

The council had been working extensively on supporting schools to reopen safely for children, including engagement with local parents;
The health and wellbeing of children and young people continued to be priority, particularly the identification of children who may experience delayed trauma;
An increase in social care referrals was expected as children returned to school and the service was in discussion with the Finance Department for additional capacity to support this;
Youth hubs were open and were engaging children in outside spaces and virtually to ensure that young people remained supported;
Children’s Centres have remained open throughout and adventure playgrounds have been reopened over the summer to help children reintegrate with their peers.

Children & Families Service (CFS)

5.3 The Director of Children and Families Service highlighted a number of key issues from the report:

· Referral levels continue to be lower than expected, and were down by 38% overall on comparable figures from last year. Numbers were expected to increase as schools returned but no discernible difference had been recorded as yet.

· Notable increases in the system were recorded for the number of Children on a Child Protection Plan (CPP) with a 10% increase being recorded (to 288 cases). This increase was the result of more children remaining on a CPP rather than new cases coming into the system, as there continued to be difficulty in undertaking appropriate interventions to help children and families improve and move off a CPP.

· Similarly, there were also increasing numbers of children in the court and pre-court systems also due to the problems of getting appropriate interventions to support children (or to make appropriate assessments).

· There were currently 456 looked after children in Hackney with the majority of new cases being unaccompanied asylum seeking children and adolescents whose relationships with their families had broken down.

· Domestic abuse referrals have fluctuated over recent weeks though levels appear to have plateaued.

· There was more face-to-face communication with children and young people, though this continues to be risk rated.

· Courts have reopened in July and as a consequence more local cases in the Youth Offending Team were being dealt with which had helped to ease the backlog of cases.

· Summer activities offered through Young Hackney had gone well and more young people were accessing Youth Hubs. 680 children and young people had accessed Youth Hubs (3,146 total attendances).

· Digital devices arrived very late (late July) and CFS and HLT had worked together to distribute these to priority groups of children.

Questions from the Commission

5.4 In terms of staffing at CFS, how have caseloads been affected from the impact of Covid 19? Are preparations being made for the expected increase in demand as children return to school?

Some parts of the child care system were now very busy as referrals were increasing. Other parts had been less busy, such as the Access and Assessment services and these staff had been helping out in other areas of CFS. CFS was mapping out expected demands and how this may impact on overall patterns of staff activity. CFS had met with the Finance Team to discuss additional resourcing for the service to meet expected increase in referrals.

5.5 The impact of the pandemic has been far reaching which may necessitate families who have not needed social care support in the past to seek help. What early help interventions were being put in place to help engage and support these families?

CFS had been working with both HLT and Young Hackney to provide early help to new families by signposting young people to front facing services. Such support would hopefully maintain children and families in the community and prevent more intensive interventions at a later date.

5.6 With increasing numbers of looked after children in its care, has the council been able to provide sufficient foster care placements?

The numbers of looked after children were rising and there were pressures in finding suitable placements for them. There were particular difficulties in finding appropriate foster carers and as a result, more children were being placed in residential care. There were now over 40 children in residential care, the highest it has been in Hackney for over 10 years. It was noted that residential care was a significantly more expensive placement option for children than foster care.
Capacity in the in-house foster carer team has been reduced since the start of the pandemic as many carers were elderly or from BAME communities and may have needed to shield themselves. It was hoped that as restrictions eased, capacity would increase within the in-house team of foster carers.
Foster carer panels continued to operate as usual.

5.7 Given the increasing numbers of children in the care system and the likelihood of an increase in referrals for social care as schools return, what financial modelling has taken place to ensure that there are sufficient resources in place to meet these needs? What is the expected financial outturn for 2020/21?

CFS were logging all additional expenditure due to Covid and were working with finance colleagues to address this. The situation was complex and evolving which made it difficult to predict the financial impact of covid on CFS as an end of year figure.
A wider piece of work being carried out across the council on additional costs resulting from Covdi 19 and what could be reclaimed from central government grants. The Council was keeping very close tabs on all children’s social care expenditure.

5.8 It was concerning to note the number of young people being held in remand situations. What was the council doing to help reduce this number?

To clarify, there were more young people going on remand who had been waiting for their court cases to be heard. There were however many young people still waiting for their cases to be heard, and the lack of outcomes was very unsettling for both them and their families.

Hackney Learning Trust

5.9 The Director of Education highlighted a number of issues from the submitted report:

HLT worked together with Young Hackney to support over 700 children to attend schools over the summer, many of whom were vulnerable children or children in need;
HLT was starting to receive attendance data from schools which suggested that some schools were reaching 95% levels of attendance, which would what would normally be expected. Some schools are below this figure, but this could be due to staggered start of year groups;
The SEND team were working on new bus routes to help more children access their respective educational settings;
Schools have been provided with guidance from both the LA and nationally on how to manage a Covid 19 outbreak. There have been a small number of positive cases identified across London which has required ‘bubbles’ of children and staff to be sent home. It is likely that this will also occur in Hackney school at some point, so guidance is available to make sure schools are prepared and know how to respond. If a child is diagnosed and sent home, HLT has issued guidance to schools establishing a minimum standard of what children can expect who are quarantined and need to be homeschooled for two weeks. It was also unlikely that a whole school would close, which will reduce pressures on schools digital devices:
It was also clear that there will be some vulnerable groups of children who may have difficulty in returning to school and schools will need to set up IT support for such children to enable them to continue to work remotely;
HLT continues to enhance local provision of digital devices and has set up a laptop donation scheme where old laptops can be reconditioned and given to schools. Wifi access continues to be problematic and as yet there is no borough wide solution. HLT could report more fully in time on this issue;
Children with an existing or emerging mental health condition were also a priority and the Wellbeing and Mental Health Service was operating in a large number of schools to help support these children;
Many childcare settings have remained open during the pandemic, but independent providers and those settings which rely predominantly on fees income have faced considerable financial pressures. Whilst practical and financial support has been provided by the Early Years Network and Business Grants respectively, there is concern around the shape and size of the childcare landscape.

Questions from the Commission

5.10 Will schools relax behaviour policies to help children with SEND, mental health or other behaviour issues adapt to being back in the school environment?

HLT has provided guidance to schools to ensure that they recognise the difficulties that children have faced over the past 6 months and that some children will need targeted support to help them adjust back into school life.
The WAMHS Project and CAMHS workers were available to schools to help support children with specific mental and emotional well being needs.
Schools have been provided with guidance to ensure that children are provided with reasonable adjustments to help them adapt to local school policies and practices.
Although Yeshiva are out of school settings rather than schools, the Director of Public Health (DPH) and Group Director for Children, Adults and Community Health had written to one such setting highlighting concerns.

5.11 Given the increased prevalence of Covid 19 in the north of the borough, will any additional support be provided to out of school settings such as Yeshiva to help them prevent infection?

Letters have been sent to schools in the wards most affected. It was noted that there had been a stronger response from schools where HLT had a connection and across most early years settings.
The Commission noted that the DPH does have the power to close schools if necessary, though this power would be used as a last resort.

5.12 Given the prospect of a second wave of infection, what action is the council taking to help improve resilience of local education and children and young people services?

HLT was maintaining communication with all schools to help promote key public health messages and to ensure that school staff remain vigilant and aware of infection control measures.

5.13 What role can libraries and other community spaces in combating the digital divide, for example by providing wifi access and places for children to study.

Many children would use libraries if they could not only to gain access to free wifi, but also to have a quiet space to study. It would be beneficial if libraries could reopen, though it was recognised that this may be more problematic for particular libraries given the need to maintain social distancing requirements.

5.14 Whilst school closures may not have been beneficial for most children, a small number have seen some benefits in their mental health as they have not been exposed to the pressures from their peers. Is there anything we can learn from this small cohort of young people about some of the possible negative effects of schooling?

A number of benefits of school closures have been reported among children and parents. Children have experienced less pressures in relation to exams and some parents have reported that their children have benefited from a less intense curriculum and timetable during lockdown. Whilst it is critical that children are back in school, there are clearly wider lessons to be learnt from the school closures.

5.15 Does the power of the DPH to close schools extend to unregistered settings given that these are not schools?

The powers do extend to unregistered settings, but these are very rarely used. These settings have been notified that this power exists should it be needed.

5.16 The Cabinet member for Families, Early Years and Play noted the work that was going on to support children with SEND and the Disabled Children Service in particular. It was acknowledged that many families living with children with SEND would have struggled over recent months, but the Short Break team had connected with all service users to identify needs and had relaxed conditions for payments to help improve home environment.

5.17 The Cabinet member had also visited adventure playgrounds including those supported by the Disabled Children Service. It was reported that children with SEND had benefited from this facility being reopened.

5.18 The Chair noted that the situation with schools remained fluid and that a more definitive picture would emerge as the term progressed and the Commission would retain oversight over this in the coming months. The Chair reinforced the need for financial monitoring data for both HLT and CFS for the next meeting as per the work programme.

5.19 The Chair thanked officers for attending and responding to questions from the Commission.

Supporting documents: