Title: Children's needs, types and costs of placements and their stability: comparisons using the Cost Calc
1Children'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
2The 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
3Cost 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
4Social 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
5Cost 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
6Strengths 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
7Costs 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
8Stability 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
9Stability 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
10Contact 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
11Cost Calculator for Childrens ServicesLive
Demonstration
- The following slides accompany the CCfCS
demonstration
12Implementation 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
13User 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
14Reports 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
15Reports ... 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
16Reports 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