June 2005 Item 13

Care Leavers' Passport to Success - Background Paper 1

Historical Background

Until October 2001, when the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 came into force, there was no statutory requirement for local authorities to support care leavers. Although there were pockets of good practice, provisions for care leavers were generally poor, with many young people leaving care at the tender age of sixteen with little support to enable them to cope with the transition to independence. Statistics gave a fairly bleak picture, with care leavers significantly over-represented in the prison population and 50-80% of young care leavers were unemployed (according to Barnardos)

The Act placed a legal duty on local authorities to support care leavers until the age of 21, or 24 if they are still in education/training. Over the last few years, the notion of `corporate parenting' has become widely used and it is generally accepted that local authorities should support young people in and leaving care in the same way as any other `good' parent would.

Since the implementation of the Act, support for care leavers has improved tremendously and Hampshire is no exception. The recent Best Value Review highlighted the strengths of the Leaving Care Service. In particular, the service was praised for its management; involvement of young people in developing the services; the dedication and skills of the workforce and improved performance indicators. The `Big Brother' DVD that was produced as part of the review clearly demonstrates young people's satisfaction in the way the services are delivered.

Despite the clear successes, it has been identified that there are still improvements that could be made in order to ensure care leavers are better equipped to live a full and successful adulthood.

In this paper, we have made some suggestions around how services could be further improved. We have highlighted ten key areas in which we feel care leavers should be entitled to support from their `corporate parents' in order to succeed in leading independent adulthoods. We also aim to involve other departments within the county council so as to promote the role of corporate parenting across the local authority. This links very well to Section 10 of the Children Act 2004 - the duty to make arrangements to promote co-operation between agencies in order to improve children and young people's well-being,

These areas are also mentioned in the Every Child Matters: Change for Children Outcomes Framework and may be used to measure the success of local authorities.

We would anticipate these recommendations being implemented gradually, over a period of several years.

It must be emphasised that the strategies should be flexible, so as to provide for young people's individual needs. We believe that personal advisors, who, ultimately, know their clients best, should, in general, have the responsibility of deciding what their clients are entitled to and they should not have to go through hugely bureaucratic procedures in order to authorise the recommended support. In order to receive these entitlements, care leavers would be expected to be following their pathway plan. Although care leavers should be entitled to support in each of the ten areas, these recommended procedures do not give any service users the `right' to a specific provision or service.

Since care leavers are all individuals and have individual needs, we do not believe these entitlements can be put in order of priority.

We would envisage that, as a result of the Children Act 2004 and other recent government initiatives, there are likely to be huge cultural shifts in the way children's services are delivered. It is therefore essential that the way in which the leaving care services are delivered can adapt and develop so as to be workable alongside other systems and structures within the local authority and best meet the needs of the service users. These entitlements should not be `fixed' - it is of utmost importance that care leavers remain actively involved in shaping the services in order to ensure that service.

Other local authorities have shown a keen interest in this scheme and officials in central government feel that such a scheme would be an example of `excellent practice'.

Appropriate Accommodation

In order to succeed in living independently, a range of housing provisions is essential. Statistics show that young people often don't leave home until they are in their mid-twenties, contrasting care leavers who leave between 16 and 18. Therefore, care leavers will often need support from their `corporate parents' in finding and retaining suitable accommodation. The National Children's Bureau estimated that, nationally, around 20% of care leavers experienced homelessness within 18-24 months of leaving care.

Improvements have been made in Hampshire over the last few years with regard to the development of housing panels, the quality of accommodation and specialist advice.

In a diverse two-tier authority like Hampshire, with eleven district councils, providing consistency and equity to care leavers can be extremely difficult. Housing departments (which are run through district councils) usually give priority to care leavers when giving tenancies for council houses.

Nevertheless, there are still concerns about the choice, quality and appropriateness of provisions. While there is definitely a huge cultural shift away from the `one size fits all' model, we believe there is still room for improvement in relation to accommodation. We feel provisions need to be much more adaptable and tailored to individuals' needs. In particular, we feel that many care leavers would benefit from semi-independent living before living fully independently. Examples of how accommodation schemes of this nature have worked are mentioned in the DH/DTLR `Care leaving strategies - a good practice handbook'.

Over the last couple of years, SSD has developed a joint working agreement with some of the key housing providers. This has helped to ensure that the accommodation needs of care leavers are placed higher on the agenda within local housing services.

We recommend that SSD (C&F) should further strengthen its partnership with the local district councils and other partners. This work could be taken forward by the county core group and the district forums led by the Supporting People Programme. We also feel that housing issues for care leavers should be placed higher on the CYPSP agenda.

Costs: We hope that district councils would contribute to the costs of developing better provisions. We believe that this kind of approach would give rise to long-term savings - we would be resorting much less to B&B accommodation and crises, which can be very expensive to resolve, would happen much less.

Public transport passes

We expect young people to be in education, training or employment and care leavers are no exception. (Current statistics show that 80% of Hampshire's care leavers (16-19) are in education, training or employment, compared with 49% nationally, according to A National Voice)

Access to transport is obviously a key requirement, particularly in Hampshire, because of the rural nature of the county. The leaving care service supports care leavers with transport costs to get to college/work and, within reason, to visit friends and family.

We would recommend that SSD works with officers in the Transport Department to negotiate schemes with local bus and train companies. We would hope to pilot a scheme whereby care leavers are eligible for passes which give them discounted travel.

A similar scheme has been adopted in Durham, where young people negotiated arrangements with local transport companies.

Costs: Since this entitlement is already in place, we envisage no extra costs. In fact, we would hope that, through bulk purchase, we would be able to reduce expenditure.

Insurance schemes

Statistically, care leavers are more likely to be victims of crime. We therefore believe it is extremely important that care leavers (who are in stable accommodation) have suitable home insurance.

Most care leavers who are in stable accommodation have some form of home insurance. This is organised through the PA and is recorded in the pathway plan.

In order to gain from economies of scale, we would advise that a scheme is developed with an insurance firm. We would advise similar work with district councils in developing insurance schemes for tenants who are care leavers.

Costs: Since this entitlement is already in place, we envisage no extra costs. In fact, we would hope that, through bulk purchase, we would be able to reduce expenditure.

Financial management and savings scheme

It has been identified that some care leavers may lack skills in financial management. We therefore propose that care leavers are offered additional support in managing their finances.

In general young people have bank accounts set up before they leave care and we believe it should be mandatory for family support teams to ensure that their clients have an active bank account before they are referred to the leaving care teams.

We also believe that financial advice should be available to care leavers. We would suggest that the County Treasurer's Department take an active role in this.

The council should also contribute to CLA's Children's Trust Fund in the same way that any `good' parent would. We would obviously need strict criteria around which children are eligible - for example, we could say that a child's trust fund is topped up by a certain amount when he reaches a certain age, providing he has been in care for a minimum of a specified period of time.

Evidence suggests that not all care leavers would have the level of responsibility required to manage large sums of money. We therefore suggest that, when a care leaver reaches 18, he is offered appropriate financial advice and has the option of keeping his money in trust until he is 21. This would be particularly important for care leavers who receive large sums of money through inheritance or compensation.

It may also be worth considering working with colleges and other young people's service providers in providing financial advice to care leavers.

Costs: We would hope that County Treasurer's Dept would contribute to the costs of running courses. We would envisage SSD spending no more than £200-300 per year.

Sport and leisure passes

Historically, care leavers have not participated in recreational and leisure activities as much as their peers have. Although the situation is certainly better now than it has been in the past, we feel that there is still room for improvement. We therefore suggest that care leavers are offered discounts at leisure centres.

We have an excellent relationship with the Recreation and Heritage Department and we plan to work closely alongside them. We have had several discussions with colleagues in R&H Dept and we are planning to work with district councils around how various discounts could be provided. We are hoping to set up a pilot scheme with Hart District Council in the near future.

Costs: We would hope to gain from economies of scale through bulk purchase and envisage spending around £20-30 per person per year.

Independent Living Allowance

Until the implementation of the Children (Leaving Care) Act, care leavers received a grant on their eighteenth birthday to cover the costs of household items, but were not supported in spending the money in the most effective way.

The situation is very different now. A needs-led grant is given and the PAs work their clients to plan how the grant should be spent in order to ensure that they have all the necessities. The grant is usually around £1500, but varies according to young people's individual circumstances.

Costs: Since this entitlement is already in place, we envisage no extra costs to the department

Driving Lessons

Being able to drive can sometimes be very important and hence in order to improve life chances, we suggest that care leavers are supported to learn to drive.

Mildren Construction Ltd now sponsors four driving bursaries per year and Social Services have agreed to match this, giving eight per year.

We would like to extend this so as to offer more care leavers the opportunity. We would suggest a phased approach over the next few years, where the number of bursaries offered increases each year.

There would have to be strict eligibility criteria and we recommend using a needs-led procedure in deciding which care leavers should receive the driving bursaries.

SSD could negotiate arrangements with local driving schools, as well as the police, fire service and military around opportunities that they could provide for care leavers to learn to drive.

Costs: We believe that a driving bursary should entail twenty hours of lessons, a theory test and a practical test (young people would be expected to pay for any extra lessons or retaking the tests).

20 lessons at approximately £20 £400

1 theory test at approximately £20 £20

1 practical test at approximately £50 £50

£470

Grant for Higher Education

Vast improvements have been made in this area over the last eighteen months and care leavers now automatically get the full student loan and the expected parental contribution is paid by the county council. A procedure is now in place for schools and colleges around helping care leavers to apply for HE and PAs have a good understanding of the application procedures.

Nevertheless, it would appear that there is still room for improvement, particularly in terms of emotional support for care leavers in HE placements. The children's participation team is working with SSD communications team in order to raise awareness and develop ideas around how we can provide better emotional support to care leavers in HE establishments.

Costs: We feel that, at present, the department provides adequate financial support and hence no extra expenditure would be required.

A mentor

Many young people seek advice and guidance from their parents. Since many care leavers are unable to do this, we feel it would be very beneficial for care leavers to have a mentor, to whom they can turn for guidance. While PAs do an excellent job in supporting young people, we feel that the nature of PAs' jobs (namely that they tend to only work office hours) prevents them from being able to provide the same level of support as a mentor could provide.

We currently have excellent mentoring services, facilitated through the leaving care teams. We would like to see these schemes extend so that all care leavers are offered a mentor. We strongly advise that mentoring is done voluntarily, but SSD should pay expenses.

E-mentoring schemes could also be developed - the University of Southampton is an example of excellent practice. Private businesses could also be engaged, thus giving emotional support and advice to care leavers.

Costs: Under this proposal, demand for mentoring may increase, but since mentoring schemes are in already in place, we would not envisage huge increases in the department's expenditure.

(Mentors' annual expenses are approximately £1200 per person per year)

However, we believe there may be costs in recruiting mentors.

Achievement Award

SSD takes its corporate parenting responsibilities, in terms of celebrating their children's achievements, very seriously. We now have an annual prize-giving for young people who have achieved well in terms of education. We hold two celebration dinners - one for academic successes and one for personal achievements. Care leavers are given financial rewards for achieving five or more GCSEs, A-levels and university degrees.

We recommend that personal targets should be recorded in the pathway plan and meeting those targets would result in receiving a reward. There should be agreed timescales, but timescales should always be within a period of twelve months.

Cost: We would advise that £100 per person per year is allocated to be spent on achievement awards.

Mark Houston Emily Joslin

(Children's Participation Worker) (LSA, Team for the Education of CLA)