Children's needs, types and costs of placements and their stability: comparisons using the Cost Calc

1
Children's needs, types and costs of placements
and their stabilitycomparisons using the Cost
Calculator for Children's Services

• Jean Soper and Lisa Holmes
• Centre for Child and Family Research

2
The Cost Calculator

• Combines fee/allowance costs with the costs of
  social care support for placements
• Calculates costs from the bottom up
• Calculates individual costs based on the actual
  care history of each child
• Relates costs to childrens needs
• Presents results for any child, group of children
  or type of placement by any time period
• Analyses costs by outcomes, thus promoting the
  Every Child Matters agenda

3
Cost Calculator is research based

• Research findings form the basis for what goes
  in
• unit costs of social care processes
• data on children and placements (User Guide page
  13)
• how costs are calculated
• cost variations that are modelled
• what comes out
• reports available

4
Social care processes for looked after children

• Activity to support a looked after child from
  point of entry until no longer looked after
• Decision to place a child
• Placement finding
• Reviews
• Care planning
• Activity by all social care personnel
• Based on practice rather than theoretical
  framework
• Focus groups
• Event records
• Verification questionnaires

5
Cost variation factors

• Standard cost a child with no additional support
  needs, looked after in local authority foster
  care within the authority area
• Variation factors
• Local authority specifics
• Organisation, policies, procedures, geography
• Placement type, provider, location and duration
• Foster/residential/kinship, local authority/
  agency, in/out of area, new placement or more
  than 1 year
• Child characteristics
• Disability, emotional or behavioural
  difficulties,
• offending, UASC, age

6
Strengths of the CCfCS model

• Has been developed in consultation with local
  authorities and has been piloted
• Makes use of information that is readily
  available
• Unit costs include support as well as expenditure
• Numerous and extensive variations are taken into
  account
• Allocates children to cost-related needs groups
• Facilitates strategic planning, thinking and
  commissioning
• Longitudinal perspective
• What if analysis
• Model flexibility allows development in response
  to user requests and feedback

7
Costs of Placements

• Separate Placements report
• Shows costs for each child
• Of every placement in the time period
• Costs are shown sequentially
• Row totals show total cost for each child in the
  time period

8
Stability of Placements

• Separate Placements report again
• Shows number of days for each child of every
  placement in the time period
• Items in cells match with those in costs report
• Displays actual patterns of placement stability
• Can explore stability for selected groups of
  children or placements

9
Stability of being in Care

• Children who have Exited Care and Returned Report
  
• Only for children who have re-entered care during
  the time period
• Shows days out of care between placements
• Totals show total days in care and total days out
  of care during the calculation period

10
Contact details

• Jean Soper methodology and technical issues
• J.B.Soper_at_lboro.ac.uk
• Lisa Holmes research and methodology
• L.J.Holmes_at_lboro.ac.uk
• www.ccfcs.org.uk
• CostCalculator_at_lboro.ac.uk

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Cost Calculator for Childrens ServicesLive
Demonstration

• The following slides accompany the CCfCS
  demonstration

12
Implementation version 6.6

• Computer software application and database
• Access 2003 database platform
• Excel 2003 reports
• Users can use a Run Time version of Access
• Current version is for looked after children only
• Import your own data using Import Setup form
• Customisation of placement types and costs
• Unit costs database helps with calculation of
  unit costs

13
User Choice

• Set Calculation Parameters
• Time period for calculation
• Unit costs sheet to be used
• Inflation rate to be applied to unit costs
• Reports and analyses are then available from
  other menu options

14
Reports Separate Placements ...

• Separate costs for any of the eight processes
• Total costs
• Number of days
• Number of care plans
• Number of reviews
• All children, or those with the ten highest
  values

15
Reports ... Specific Groups

• Select
• Placement Name
• Provider Name
• Placement characteristics
• Child characteristics and needs
• Outcomes
• View the chosen variable for all placements for
  those children who meet the selection criteria

16
Reports Children who have Exited Care and
Returned

• Lists the days in each placement
• Shows days out of care prior to each placement
• Totals show total days in care and total days out
  of care during the calculation period