Children's Services Policies, Values and Principles

1. Introduction

This policy sets out the framework within which Children's Services work with children, young people and their families. It is underpinned by a range of legislation including, but not limited to:

• Children Acts 1989 and 2004;
• Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000;
• Care Standards Act 2000;
• United Nations Convention on the Rights of The Child;
• Human Rights Act 1998;
• Adoption and Children Act 2002;
• Data Protection legislation;
• Children and Families Act 2014;
• Children and Social Work Act 2017.

The policy framework also has regard to and is consistent with a range of government guidance, particularly the principles set out in Working Together to Safeguard Children.

It is largely directed towards the work that Children's Services undertakes with Children in Need and Looked After Children; which is carried out in partnership with all sectors of the Local Authority and with other statutory, independent and voluntary sector services.

2. Corporate Parenting

2.1 Corporate Parenting Responsibilities

The role that councils play in looking after children is one of the most important things they do. Local authorities have a unique responsibility to the children they look after and their care leavers.

The term 'corporate parent' is broadly understood by Directors of Children's Services and Lead Members for Children, as well as those working directly in Children's Services, in relation to how local authorities should approach their responsibilities for looked after children and care leavers. A strong ethos of corporate parenting means that sense of vision and responsibility towards the children they look after and their care leavers is a priority for all council employees and elected members. Corporate Parenting is an important part of the Ofsted inspection framework and the Corporate Parenting Principles are referenced in Ofsted's Inspecting Local Authority Children's Services.

The Corporate Parenting Principles are intended to facilitate as far as possible secure, nurturing, and positive experiences for Children in Our Care and young people and enable positive outcomes for them.

The experiences of Children in Our Care and care leavers, particularly in regards to whether they feel cared for and listened to, will therefore be an important measure of how successfully local authorities embed these principles.

2.2 Corporate Parenting Principles

The Corporate Parenting Principles set out seven principles that local authorities will have regard to when exercising their functions in relation to looked after children and young people, as follows:

• To act in the best interests, and promote the physical and mental health and wellbeing, of those children and young people;
• To encourage those children and young people to express their views, wishes and feelings;
• To take into account the views, wishes and feelings of those children and young people;
• To help those children and young people gain access to, and make the best use of, services provided by the local authority and its relevant partners;
• To promote high aspirations, and seek to secure the best outcomes, for those children and young people;
• For those children and young people to be safe, and for stability in their home lives, relationships and education or work; and
• To prepare those children and young people for adulthood and independent living.

The Corporate Parenting Principles do not replace or change existing legal duties, The principles are intended to encourage local authorities to be ambitious and aspirational for their looked-after children and care leavers.

In addition, section 10 of the Children Act 2004 sets out the responsibility to make arrangements to promote co-operation between 'relevant partners' with a view to improving the well-being of children in their area. This should include arrangements in relation to looked-after children and care leavers. Section 10(5) of the 2004 Act places a duty on relevant partners to co-operate with the local authority in the making of these arrangements, therefore promoting and ensuring a joined-up approach to improving the well-being of children in their area.

See DfE, Applying Corporate Parenting Principles to Looked-after Children and Care Leavers – Statutory Guidance (February 2018).

3. Key Outcomes

The key outcomes for all children identified in the Children Act 2004 remain relevant and enable the local authority, the Children and Families Directorate and its practitioners, to focus on the key aspects for all children. The performance indicators local authorities and partners use are structured around these outcomes.

Being healthy

All children and young people have the right to have their physical, emotional and mental health safeguarded and promoted. Where appropriate, they should be supported to develop a sense of well-being through:

• Build resilience;
• Develop their self-image and confidence;
• Experience positive affirmation and encouragement.

All young people should be given the encouragement and opportunity to live a healthy lifestyle.

Being safe

All children and young people have the right to be safe and secure, protected from harm and neglect, and to live in an environment that enables them to develop to their full physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social potential. This includes being safe from a range of concerns. When they need help to achieve these outcomes it should be available in a timely way and delivered through effective interventions.

All children and young people have the right to family life wherever possible and to be supported to take part in community life. They have the right to a continuity of care wherever possible and to develop and preserve their own identities.

All children have a right to a loving and secure home and, where this cannot be provided by their birth parents and wider families, children should have the opportunity to experience this through adoption, special guardianship, child arrangement orders or long term fostering.

Enjoying and achieving

All children and young people have the right to good education and training which meets their identified needs and equips them to live full adult lives. Looked after children should have the opportunity to attend good schools, higher education/training establishments where they make the expected or greater than expected progress and effective use is made of the additional resources available for them through the pupil premium. All children (not forgetting young carers) have the right to time and support to pursue appropriate leisure interests.

Making a positive contribution

All children should be encouraged and supported to make an age-appropriate positive contribution wherever they are living or call 'home'. They will be able to do this best where they have a continuity of care, an understanding about their identity and information which they can use to make informed decisions about themselves. Therefore, contributing to their own lives.

Children, young people and care leavers should also be encouraged to take an interest in their communities, through school, higher education/training or local clubs, and to take part in activities which contribute to these and /or support others.

Economic well-being

All children have the right to be supported in their studies, to be prepared for adult life and work, and to be equipped with the skills and knowledge that will help them overcome any social disadvantage, become self-sufficient and able to make positive choices for themselves.

4. Key Principles

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children will always be at the centre of the work Local Authorities and their partners undertake with children and their families. The child's needs are paramount, and the needs and wishes of each child, be they a baby or infant, or an older child, should be put first, so that every child receives the support they need before a problem escalates.

Children's Services, together with their local authority colleagues as corporate parents, will work to secure the above outcomes by working to enable a child's own family including their wider family to meet their needs. They will facilitate services, including early help services, to support children and families consistent with the child's safety and well-being.

Where a child cannot be cared for within his or her immediate family, strenuous efforts will be made to identify potential carers within the wider kinship network of the child who are able and willing to meet the needs and best interests of the child. If continuing care within his/her family is not possible, every effort will be made to identify suitable alternative carers through adoption or other forms of permanence. Efforts to secure the child's future must be timely and avoid delay. Children's Services will ensure that permanence plans are made for all children in our care within 4 months of their becoming looked after.

Children's Services will ensure that children in our care are placed in properly approved placements, suitable to meet their needs and that, wherever possible, siblings are placed together. They will be placed in a family placement unless there are assessed reasons why residential care or an alternative type of placement is the better option. Contact with their birth family should be promoted, and where required, supported, except where this may be contrary to the child's best interests.

If a young person remains in care until adulthood Children's Services will ensure that they are supported when they leave care, including through remaining in their foster placement (Staying Put), at least until they are 25, to give them a positive start to independent living. This support will include personal assistance with living independently and with accessing and making the most of education and employment opportunities.

Children, their parents and other significant adults will be consulted about plans for their care and these plans will be subject to regular independent review. Children and their families will be encouraged to take part in their reviews and can expect that their views will be listened to and will help shape the child's Plan.

Children's Services will ensure that children have access to advocacy services that will assist them in being heard, where this is appropriate.

5. Our Strategy

The Strategy of the Children's Services will be to harness Government policy and funding opportunities to develop evidence-based services that meet the needs of children and families.

To reflect on and consider feedback on local and national issues and to promote a learning and development culture that will work to provide:

• Sustainable and cost-effective structures and services;
• Partnerships with other statutory services and locally based providers;
• Well-trained and supported staff who are able to carry out their responsibilities effectively;
• A commitment to seek the views of service users/stakeholders and to use their input as a key method for evaluating current services and improving future service delivery;
• A clear sense of corporate responsibility throughout the Council which ensures that children and their families have their needs met within the community.

This will deliver a range of universal, targeted and specialist services. These services will aim to reduce the numbers of children becoming children in need and concentrate specialist services on children most in need to give them the best possible life chances.

Within Redcar and Cleveland our Service Plan 2021 – 24 sets out our mission, values and vision for Children and Young People in the borough.

Our vision is for “thriving children fulfilling their needs”, our core values are to provide be child-centred, respectful and creative. Working in partnership to deliver excellence for children and families.

Redcar & Cleveland Children and Families Service Plan 2021 – 24

6. Our Practice Model – Relationships First

To view our Practice Model and Assessment Guidance please go to internal folder S:\ChildServ\Relationships First.

We work with the people that love and care for children when they are having difficulties, and support them to keep their children safe and make changes that last through restorative interventions that protect and heal. If they can’t, even when we and the people in the child’s life have given all the help we can, we put in plans so that all of our children and young people are loved, happy, safe and supported through lifelong relationships and connections.

In Redcar & Cleveland, our “Relationships First” practice model is underpinned by systemic theory. This means that we think about individuals and understand difficulties in the context of their relationships and within the world that they live. We work in a relational way recognising the strengths and stories of others. We understand that we are unlikely to create sustained change without a relationship with the child and their family, and without their support. We value the relationship that we have with others – children and young people, their families and our colleagues. We build relationships first. We put relationships first. 

For our practice this means that we are transparent in approaching our work to build trust and gain positive outcomes. We work collaboratively with children and families, and each other. We work ‘with’ as opposed to doing things ‘to.’ We recognise strengths in children and families and in our colleagues, and we utilise their expertise. We are hopeful. We have high aspirations for ourselves and those we work with. We provide high challenge and high support in equal measure.

Our Practice Model is supported by three complementary strengths based approaches – Signs of Safety, Wellbeing and Success; Trauma Informed; and Family Focused.

Signs of Safety is a strength based, solution focused approach to working with children and families. It is a questioning model that recognises families’ own expertise in their situations and supports the worker to take them on a safety planning journey to their own solutions. We use the Signs of Safety model across our social work and early help services. All practitioners use the Signs of Safety Assessment and Planning process. Within this process practitioners seek to identify the family’s strengths (what is working well), develop a shared understanding of the network of the concerns (what we are worried about) and to build on the family’s own solutions and to address jointly defined goals (what needs to happen). The Signs of Safety framework has been developed to incorporate “signs of wellbeing” within early help, and “signs of safety success” within the children in our care and leaving care services.

A trauma informed approach is a way of being in within our work; it seeks to prioritise physical and psychological safety by building trust, allowing choice and creating a culture that focuses on collaboration. It is when practitioners connect and engage with children and their families, build relationships and really understand what’s going on for them, that we can truly make a difference. In being trauma informed, every contact is seen as an intervention and an opportunity to create change and within our practice we:

• Realise the widespread impact of trauma and support potential paths to recovery;
• Recognise the signs and symptoms of trauma in the children and families we work with, as well as our staff;
• Respond by seeing all that we do, including our assessments, plans, practices, and policies through a trauma lens;
• Actively seek to prevent re-traumatisation through the work that we do together.

Family focussed is based on the principle that safety in its whole for a child / young person can only ever be temporary without healing, connection and belonging. By positioning ourselves as family focused we start from the view that there is always a family or network for the child / young person and they can be found if we try. A family focussed approach supports us to see people for their capabilities, their unique gifts, their strengths and their importance to the child in which we continually ask ourselves:

• Who loves the child? Who does the child love?
• Who may love the child? Who might learn to love the child?