Issue - meetings

At the joint meeting in October, it was agreed to provide a report back to the  December meeting of Corporate Parenting Advisory Committee  advising  on the process and risk assessments in place for children in care taking unauthorised leave from their placements and  also for children missing from care. Report to Follow

 At the joint meeting between the Corporate Parenting Committee and Children’s Safeguarding Committee, in October, Members had requested a report explaining the process and risk assessments in place for children in care taking unauthorised leave from their placements and missing from care.

 The  Committee commented that this was a  very useful report  which  set out the  various definitions of ‘missing’ actions for when children go missing,  figures for missing episodes in the last calendar year  and information about the research being undertaken to find out the factors  for young people  going missing from care.

Clarification was sought on where evidence is sought to enable a social worker to complete a visit after the missing episode.  In response, it was noted that there is a requirement to visit looked after children on a monthly basis and currently this performance stands at 99% of visits completed. The social worker will, as part of the visit, be aware of missing episodes and   discuss and record the issues which would have triggered the missing episode.  Members were assured that there was a tight recording process in place for reporting children and young people missing from care and this information was also considered at a high level meeting between the Cabinet Member for Children and Director for Children’s services on a weekly basis.