Looked after young people in Dundee's residential houses have a range of multiple and complex needs relating to childhood trauma, which has often resulted in the breakdown of foster placements, poor engagement with education, and moves to residential care away from local communities. This disrupts their schooling, involves considerably higher costs, and does not always deliver improved outcomes.
Our Educational Psychology Service, in partnership with Social Work and Education managers, has introduced regular and frequent direct support to Dundee's residential children's houses from a link educational psychologist, with the aim of developing consistently high quality approaches to the care and support of young people to reduce placement breakdown and improve educational outcomes (attendance, engagement and attainment). Before the project started, 75% of placements broke down within 6 months. Over the two years of the project this has reduced to 35%. We can evidence the identification of previously unknown additional support needs and increased educational attendance and engagement. For a small group, intervention has resulted in them staying on at school to S5, while some have completed National 3 or 4 assessments or placements at College that may not otherwise have been achieved.
The challenge
Reducing placement breakdown and improving outcomes for our looked after children are key priorities for Dundee due to the marked differences in outcomes between looked after young people and their non-looked after peers. Before we began this project, data told us that:
- The number of young people in external residential settings had risen by 39% between 2010-11 and 2016-17.
- Attendance at secondary school was lower by 10.5% compared to non-looked after children.
- Looked after young people achieve 23% fewer SCQF level 4 qualifications than their peers, and 34% fewer SCQF level 5s.
The rationale for this project was that successful residential care placements which the authority uses outwith Dundee frequently have psychologists as core members of staff. We recognised the positive impact of the psychological support on young people and this was the driver to implement the model locally. The aim was not only to improve outcomes for our young people by finding different ways of working locally, but by doing so we also wished to demonstrate best value.
Actions/approach taken
This project aimed to:
- Implement a psychological approach to care planning, integrated across care and education, including the assessment of and appropriate interventions for children with Additional Support Needs (ASN).
- Promote and support school attainment and stability of care placement for this vulnerable group and reduce the need for out-of-authority or secure placements.
- Work with staff to understand young people's behaviour from a developmental perspective and help deliver support strategies from a trauma-informed and nurturing standpoint to allow us to meet young people's mental health and wellbeing needs in their local community, where possible.
The planning for this project started in early August 2017 and involved a multi-agency steering group made up of educational psychologists, education and social work managers, residential house managers and a senior advisor for learning and workforce development. We used the six improvement questions from the 3 step improvement framework for Scotland's public services to plan the project implementation: http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0042/00426552.pdf
Impact and results
Given the importance of stability in a child or young person's hierarchy of needs, this innovative psychological approach to care represents a key component in a range of initiatives being progressed as part of our Corporate Parenting Strategy. So far, the impact of this project has been:
- A reduction in placement breakdown for young people living in the residential children's houses. In addition, the majority of arrivals and exits are now planned. Over the last three years, the average length of placement in the houses increased from 5 to 12 months. There has been a shift from a majority of short-term to a majority of long-term placements, with a reduction in the % of placements shorter than 6 months from 75% in 2014-15 to only 35% in 2017-18. Colleagues in Barnardo's who specialise in child sexual exploitation and social work team managers have stated that the EPs bring an informed perspective and a solution focused approach to case risk-management and their input has helped to stabilise placements, or if a placement does end the EP helps to ensure that onward planning is appropriate. A new protocol developed with the social work team managers now clarifies the expectations for moves into residential care including increasing the frequency of review meetings in the early stages of admission to ensure effective tracking and monitoring of outcomes and supports. It is planned this will be formally launched to all social work teams in Dundee by August 2019.
- Increased identification of any ASN of previously unknown additional support needs in 5 cases has led to better support. All young people in the houses aged 16 or below will be considered for a co-ordinated support plan by August 2019.
- The use of Person-Centred Planning (PCP) has increased young people's engagement with their plans. From August 2019, PCP will be used in all meetings for young people attending Dundee's offsite school (Rockwell Learning Centre) following training by EPs. The child's voice is much more evident when this approach is used and most of the children in residential care attend Rockwell.
- Improved partnership working and multi-agency planning. There are now more regular meetings for children with all partners, with improved sharing of assessment information at a case level. More staff from education are now being invited to initial meetings when a young person comes in to a house whereas, prior to the project, only 29% of secondary staff who responded to a survey said they were currently involved at this stage. Staff at Rockwell go to the houses more, and care staff visit the school to support young people more often. The DHT at Rockwell describes a greater sense of partnership. This partnership working is also evident strategically, for example a recent locality event chaired by the executive director of Dundee's Children and Families Service resulted in the drafting of a Looked After Children's Charter.
- Increase in staff confidence. Residential care staff report they are now more confident in raising issues with other partners to improve a plan for a young person where they feel the need. They report positive relationships with their EPs and greatly value their advice.
- Increase in staff knowledge and skill Staff in the houses are more trauma-informed. Managers state their staff take a far more solution-focused approach when talking about placements that are at risk, and they see an increased commitment to sustaining placements. Staff in the residential settings now have a greater awareness of the rights of young people under the ASN legislation and the responsibilities of the school to help address these.
- Improved attendance. Although there is still work to do here, there are some positive successes, e.g. one young person brought back from an outwith placement with no engagement with school now has attendance at over 96% and just sat National 5 English. In another case, attendance is now up to 85%. Another YP is showing an improving picture with attendance at 29% in March but by the end of April up to 73%.
- Improved attainment. For a small group, this project has resulted in them staying on in to S5, and completing National 3 or 4 assessments or placements at College that may not otherwise have been achieved.
Over the longer term we anticipate we will see:
- Increased placement stability, school attendance and attainment for all the young people in residential care.
- Improved partnership working between all secondary schools and the residential houses.
- Improved planning and assessment for the young people including PCP becoming widely used in all planning meetings.
How is the approach being sustained?
Regular meetings are held fortnightly in the educational psychology service to maintain an overview of the project. The educational psychologists and care staff feedback to the Residential Children's Houses Improvement meeting chaired by a service manager from the Strategy and Performance Team, and also to the Corporate Parenting Strategy Group. There is a regular focus on operational delivery at monthly residential team managers meetings.
The success of the project is informing work in other placement settings for looked after children and in schools.
Lessons learned
Until this project began, educational psychologists (EPs) in Dundee were not fully aware of the specific challenges facing staff in the residential houses, and residential care staff were not aware of how education legislation related to their role in supporting young people (e.g. the rights of looked after children to be considered under the Additional Support for Learning Act as having additional support needs (ASN). Their training on trauma-informed practice, the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACES), bereavement, anxiety, teenage development, nurture and neurodevelopmental disorders including autism was patchy, which led to variability in understanding and supporting some of the young people.
We were careful from the start to pull together a strong steering group and take time to get buy-in from residential managers and staff. The EPs took care to build relationships with the residential care staff in the early days including visiting the houses in the evenings and informally making themselves known to the young people and staff. EPs and residential staff researched models of effective working including attending a residential care conference in Newcastle in November 2017 which has informed the Dundee project. In the first year the EPs piloted their engagement with two of the highest priority young people in each house and are slowly rolling this out to include all 25 young people. The team continue to adapt their approach in response to what has been successful in the earlier case studies and meet fortnightly to review their practice. This year we are adding a fourth EP to the team, who already links with our adoption and resource allocation panels, and has a background in working in residential care.
Next steps
Our innovative new approach, although still at an early stage, has already significantly improved residential care staff confidence in their corporate parenting role, as evidenced through survey feedback, focus groups and informal discussions between residential managers and the project lead, and has begun to improve joint assessment and planning for young people. Links between social work managers, schools, case-holding social workers and EPs are improving for this group of young people: social workers and the EP team speak much more regularly and EPs have also been invited to talk about the project at SW team leaders meetings and have made links to other departments including the permanence team. Schools are invited to care planning meetings more often.
This project has also identified the need for improved processes in schools which the psychologists have been able to begin to take forward with the support of the new Education Officer (EO) for looked after children. This new EO post was created in part due to feedback at the end of year one of the project which included the recommendation to senior managers in the council for a `virtual head teacher' to oversee attainment of Dundee's looked after young people. This post is evidence that this project is given a high profile strategically, and when influence is required to address barriers, these can be raised at the highest level.
The team of residential care staff and EPs have shared the journey in developing this innovative practice by presenting jointly on the year one project outcomes at the Scottish Institute for Residential Care's `Re-writing the Script' conference for residential child care staff in Edinburgh in June 2018.
For further information on this case study, please contact
Polly Jones
polly.jones@dundeecity.gov.uk
01382 432980)
.