National Commissioning and Contracting Training Conference

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National Commissioning and Contracting Training
Conference

• 2nd and 3rd October 2008
• Tendering for Foster Care
• Involving Young People in the Process

Workshop Facilitators Howard Smith, Placement
Planning Manager, North Yorkshire Email
howard.smith_at_northyorks.gov.uk Jonny Hoyle,
Chair A National Voice Email
Jonathon.Hoyle_at_northyorks.gov.uk
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Child Placement
Trends in child placement 2001 - 2005
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Independent Fostering Agencies Spend
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IFA Market Share March 2006
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Children Looked After by locality 2005-2006
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Age bandings of children in IFAs
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Hard to place children and young people

• Remand fostering
• Placements for Disabled Children, and in
  particular, so that they can remain within their
  special schools
• Mother and baby assessment and support services
• Placements for CYP whose adoption has broken
  down
• Sibling groups
• Teenagers with sexualised and potentially
  predatory behaviours
• Teenagers with emotional behavioural difficulties
  as an alternative to residential care

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Evaluation Team

• Fostering Manager
• Safeguarding and Assessment Manager
• CYPS Contracts Officer
• Senior Corporate Procurement Adviser
• Placement Planning Manager
• Finance Lead

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Pre-qualifying questionnaire

• Organisational Structure
• Finance
• Insurance
• Equalities
• Health and Safety
• Quality and technical ability
• Sustainable development
• General

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Managing the Market

• Reduce our supplier base
• Set the Councils terms and conditions
• Shape provision to meet need
• Create efficiencies
• Fix prices and set inflation
• Systematic monitoring

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Evaluation Criteria

• 70 quality (including 5 determined by young
  people)
• 30 price

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Quality and Recruitment

• Systems for maintaining and improving quality
• Compliance with policy and procedures
• Foster carer recruitment and vetting process
• Strategy for carer retention
• Process for vetting and recruiting support staff

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The Fostering Service

• Ratio of supervising Social Worker to carers
• Supervision and review arrangements
• Non supervising Social Worker support to carers
• Out of hours support
• Average total monthly support to carers
• Foster carers professional development
• Amount of respite provided without additional
  charge
• Maximum distance of travel for supervising
  Social Worker
• Fostering fees related to training undertaken
• Investment in training staff and carers
• Disruption procedure
• Capacity to provide educational support

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Foster Carers

• Availability during school hours
• Proximity to urban areas of North Yorkshire
• Training undertaken
• Ability to drive a vehicle
• Length of experience
• Number and duration of placements
• Percentage of disruptions
• Number of exemptions

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Equality and Diversity
You accept a placement referral for a young
woman who is a lesbian. How do you ensure that
no aspect of your organisation would discriminate
against her on the grounds of her sexuality?
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Price

• Comparison of indicative prices submitted
• Reduction for sibling groups
• Reduction for long term placements
• Reduction for volume of business
• Cost of additional services

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Young Peoples AssessmentQuestion 1
The placement is a considerable distance from a
childs home area, what commitment is there from
your organisation to ensure that the child can
maintain important links with his or her family,
friends, community and possibly school?
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Young Peoples AssessmentResponses to Question 1

• We have carers who stay overnight in hotels to
  facilitate contact
• Birth families have had holidays with carers and
  children
• Our carers are trained to understand the
  importance of maintaining contact with
  significant people
• Prior to placement the issue of contact and
  transport is discussed and key decisions made.

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Young Peoples AssessmentQuestion 2
The first few days in a new placement can be very
daunting for children and young people. What
arrangements, facilities and equipment would your
organisation put into the placement to ensure the
child or young person feels welcome, and is also
able to set the pace of integrating with his or
her new family placement?
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Young Peoples AssessmentResponses to Question 2

• We provide a welcome to the family booklet
• Pre placement visits
• We hope our Young Persons Council will consider
  how we can improve in this area
• During training foster carers are asked to
  consider being taken to an alternative home with
  no time to prepare for this or take any personal
  belongings

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Young Peoples AssessmentQuestion 3
What would be your organisations policy about
ensuring that children and young people eat a
healthy diet?
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Young Peoples AssessmentResponses to Question 3

• Discussed at monthly carers formal supervision
• Carers are trained by a nutritionist
• Link workers visit at meal times
• The need to compromise whilst encouraging good
  habits.

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Young Peoples AssessmentQuestion 4
In most families it is normal for older children
and young people to be able to make a snack, or
to help themselves to a drink. What sort of
guidance would your organisation give out to
carers to ensure that children and young people
have reasonable access to snacks and drinks?
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Young Peoples AssessmentResponses to Question 4

• Carers to be aware of young persons level of
  development and capacity to be safe in the
  kitchen
• Expect young people to treated as a family
  member
• Carers are encouraged not to buy too much junk
  food
• All carers to be expected to allow children and
  young people access to the kitchen to help
  themselves to a snack or a drink depending on
  the age of the child.

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Young Peoples AssessmentQuestion 5
Our experience of foster carers has been a mix of
both positive and negative. We are particularly
interested in how carers within your organisation
would demonstrate the same sort of commitment to
children and young people as they would to their
own children. As an example, we wondered if both
carers work what arrangements would be put into
place if a foster child suddenly became ill at
school and needed to remain at home for 2 or 3
weeks whilst they recovered?
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Young Peoples AssessmentResponses to Question 5

• Our agency seeks carers where one partner is not
  working so that they are able to care for a child
  who is not at school and needs to be home for any
  reason
• References are sought from employers to help
  ensure that appropriate consultation in respect
  of flexible working has taken place
• As part of the preparation training, assessments
  and induction, foster carers complete case
  studies and are given clear guidance on the
  importance of welcoming a foster child to make
  them feel part of their household.
• The carers are advised that the agency would
  expect at least one carer to remain at home to
  facilitate any unforeseen circumstances such as
  long periods of sickness, along with other
  situations.
• Recently the agency had carers who commuted 230
  mile round trip on six separate occasions to help
  assist a young person to undertake his GCSEs.

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Young Peoples AssessmentQuestion 6
Children and young people who spend long periods
in care often dont have, or lose their records
of child and adolescent development when compared
with children and young people who grow up within
their own families. How will carers from your
organisation make sure that foster children have
a good record of their past?
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Young Peoples AssessmentResponses to Question 6

• Each young person is provided with a camera and a
  scrapbook to retain any information that they
  feel is important to them.
• We keep all the young persons past information
  in a safe and secure place (a memory box) for
  when they are older.
• Some children do not want memory boxes
• Our lifestory work includes history of genetic
  illnesses within the family.

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Evaluation SummaryYoung Peoples Assessment
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Evaluation Summary
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Evaluation Summary