Archived decisions

Appendix Six

Report of the Director of Children's Services

Placement Stability and its Impact on the Education of Children Looked After

November 2006

Sue Kocaman, Rachel Hughes, Gill Horrobin

1. Introduction and Context

1.1 The degree of stability which children in care experience in their care placement has an impact on a number of different elements of a child's life;

a) Their feeling of security, trust and emotional well being

    b) Their ability to make/retain friendships both informally and through clubs, hobbies and other leisure activities

    c) Consistency of access to services such as GPs, dentists, opticians, hospital specialists, occupational therapists, portage, playgroups etc

d) Consistency of education, training and employment

e) A feeling of inclusion in or belonging to a neighbourhood or community.

    Some of the potential negative impact can be minimised if placements are carefully matched to meet a child's needs, and care planning is of a good quality so that children/young people are properly prepared and introduced to a new placement. This will be particularly relevant to a) above.

1.2 Good matching can only be achieved where there is a choice of different placements available, residential and family based care, specialist and generic, emergency and permanent or long term placements. Placements need to be well supported if they are to last for the required period of time. Similarly, if the move is geographically close, the impact of b), c) d) and e) above can be kept to a minimum.

1.3 Where placement moves are unplanned, frequent, unmatched, and at significant distances from each other, there is no doubt that there will be an impact on the child or young person in all aspects of its life. The recently published Green Paper, `Care Matters: Transforming the Lives of Children and Young People in Care' recognises the crucial importance of placement stability on outcomes for children in care, and the significant part played by schools and education.

2. Performance Indicators

2.1 There are a 8 Performance Indicators (PIs) which relate to placement stability, and either education or educational outcomes for children looked after. Hampshire's performance in both these areas could improve (see paragraph 2.2), although they are about average for shire counties.

2.2 Hampshire's performance against PAF Indicator A1 `The percentage of children looked after who had 3 or more separate placements during the previous 12 months' was 15% in 2004/05 (compared to an average of 13% within Hampshire's cohort group) and 16% in 2005/06. Comparator data is not yet available for the cohort group for 2005/06 but will be published at the end of November.

2.3 Hampshire County Council is one of 10 local authorities currently engaged in work with consultants from the DfES to understand and try to improve the stability of placement for Hampshire's children, using some of the findings from research. Four critical service factors have been identified as working together to enable improvement:

      · Improved `front door'

      (early intervention, diversion from care, rapid rehabilitation, tight gate keeping e.g. percentage of children becoming looked after who have had a Family Group Conference (FGC));

      · Improved placement choice

    (Stronger commissioning, aggressive improvements in foster care);

      · Improved placement support

      (dedicated teams, 24/7 and 7/7 support, education and health support, practical support, training for carers);

      · Management and practitioner focus on cohort

      (Regular performance information, tight tracking, Independent Reviewing Officer challenge, strong permanency policies, continuous improvement-no coasting);

    This work is not directly related to improved educational attainment, but it hypothesises that if stability of placement improves, then educational attainment is likely to be positively affected.

3. Educational Attainment for Children Looked After

3.1 Although there has been some improvement in educational outcomes, the gap between children looked after and their peers remains unacceptable. The differences are evident at all key stages but are particularly acute at Key Stage Four. The Green Paper recognises the importance of school stability, especially in years 10 and 11, once young people have started their GCSEs. It states that children should not be moved during this time unless there are exceptional reasons for doing so. Ironically this is when young people tend to experience more placement moves than any other time.

4. The Link between Placement Stability and Educational Outcomes

4.1 Hampshire is a large county with 1,100 full time looked after children with 64% subject to court orders. There is a mixed economy of placement provision both directly provided and commissioned, but in reality there is little choice of placement. There is an inherent tension between holding vacancies in order to enable real choice and maximum usage in order to achieve value for money. Sometimes this means that children can be found a placement which is within Hampshire, but a significant distance from their home community. Whilst distance from home is sometimes a necessary factor for the child's safety and well being, more often it means either long journeys to school or to visit family and friends, or a change of school and the need to make new friends and social arrangements in a new neighbourhood.

4.2 The County has increasingly tried to take the availability of schools and further education into account in making decisions about placements for children and this is reflected in more co-ordinated working arrangements across the Children's Services Department. This is further supported by the statutory requirements of Section 52 of the Children Act 2004.

4.3 The Green Paper confirms that educational outcomes are consistently poor, and suggests a number of factors which contribute to this, in addition to the experience of being in care itself, and the associated possibility of numerous placement moves.

4.4 Although there is a belief that there is a link between placement stability and educational outcomes, national research on this subject is inconclusive. Locally there appears to be a direct correlation between very high numbers of placement moves (5+ in a year) and not participating in the Standard Aptitude Test (SATs) . However any further correlation is ambiguous.

4.5 Research from `Fostering Now - Messages from Research' (Ian Sinclair), published by the DfES, indicates that it is difficult to overstate the importance of school and education for children looked after. He also states that children who had a good stable experience at school were more likely to have a stable placement, in other words it is instability of education that can affect stability of placement. Furthermore the Green Paper identifies that pre care experiences (abuse and neglect) are key barriers to educational attainment.

5. Summary and Conclusion

5.5 In Hampshire, evidence bears out the national position, in that there is no direct link between the educational outcome of children looked after and the number of placement moves. This result would support the view that whilst there may be an impact on educational attainment due to placement instability, it is only one of a number of factors, all of which require attention. Equally, poor educational outcomes are not the only poor outcome likely to be experienced by children who are looked after, if they have had many moves of placement. All the outcomes described in the introduction will be affected and are inextricably inter-related.

5.6 Despite this complex picture, it is important to note that attendance at and participation in school life is critical to the overall social and emotional development of children as well as to their educational attainment. It therefore remains a priority for children in the care of the local authority to expect that their corporate parents will do everything in their power to ensure that they receive a good quality educational experience as well as a stable home life.

Report completed by:

Sue Kocaman Service Manager, Strategy, Family Placement

Rachel Hughes Manager, Team for the Education of Children in Care

Gill Horrobin Service Manager, Strategy, Children Looked After