Permanency Strategy
The committee will consider the permanency strategy which addresses all aspects of permanency planning for children and young people. Priority is given to children remaining, wherever possible within their own birth families. Where this is not possible there are a range of options to consider, from legal permanence in the form of achieving adoption, special guardianship or residence orders to long term fostering with or without a care order. To be tabled at the meeting.
Minutes:
The Committee considered a tabled paper outlining the developing Permanency strategy. The Chair asked that in future briefings were not tabled at the meeting but distributed to members prior to the meeting with the despatch of papers.
The paper contained some early headlines of the information to be included in the strategy. The strategy would address the key issues which impact on permanency, set out the options for permanency such as special guardianship orders, adoption and residential care, and the circumstances where these options will be considered. The strategy would also contain details about planning for permanency and the set of procedures to inform permanency planning and prevent drift which is caused by the unintended sequential planning for securing a permanent family for a child. Instead there will be parallel planning to enable a secondary plan for a permanent placement to be implemented should the initial intended placement plan not be workable.
Workshop sessions with staff were planned with the release of the strategy to reiterate its key messages and ensure that permanency planning was embedded in the work of the service.
The Chair recommended adding a vision at the start of the strategy which would advise on the best outcomes for children. The Committee were assured that this was already intended and would be included in the strategy which was to be considered by the Committee at their next meeting on the 31 January 2012.
Members sought information on the remit of the Transformation Board and whether the driver for this strategy had arisen from their observations. The Committee noted that this was an internal officer board which contained external representatives that were assigned to consider and provide a critical challenge to the budget issues being faced by the Children’s service. Although the permanency plan fitted in with the strategic improvement plan of the service it was good practice to have this strategy in place. It was noted that the strategic improvement plan could be considered by the Committee at future meetings.
The Committee were assured that permanency planning was not a new practice for the service and the strategy would be highlighting how the service would be changing the existing practice of sequentially planning to parallel planning.
Comment was made on the need to follow the corporate format for strategies when compiling the strategy.
RESOLVED