Agenda item

Officers provided an update on the recommendations of the Committee’s previous major review of the Stronger Families Hub.

RECOMMENDATION 1: To continue to raise the profile of the Stronger Families Hub with all Hillingdon stakeholders, including schools (both in and out of the Borough), community organisations, third sector organisations and elected Members, with a view to improving resident awareness of the Hub and the support available to them.

This recommendation was to ensure that all residents were aware of the support that was available to them.

RECOMMENDATION 2: Seeks to maintain the resilience of the 24/7 Hub model by monitoring the staff and triage resourcing covering the out-of-hours service, in light of comments made by witnesses.

The Stronger Families Hub operated 24/7, 365 days of the year. This recommendation was to ensure that there was capacity in the out of hours service to lessen the strain within office hours, where most demand arose.

RECOMMENDATION 3: Review the capacity within the Hub to support increased demand, in light of comments made by witnesses, in particular from unaccompanied asylum-seeking children arriving at Heathrow Airport.

A number of investments had been made to boost capacity. Having Heathrow Airport located within the borough created a particular set of challenges and opportunities for the Hub, and officers had introduced a pilot team to make sure that it was a dedicated bespoke service that was provided to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

RECOMMENDATION 4: To note the Health and Social Care Select Committee’s review into the effectiveness of the CAMHS referral pathway, and to review ways to enhance signposting around mental health services via the Hub and to voluntary and private sector services.

This was noted.

RECOMMENDTION 5: To continue to raise awareness of the Stronger Families Hub regularly with partners to keep abreast of changes or new developments. This is to include an annual renewal of the membership of the Stronger Families sub-group to ensure it reflects all stakeholders; & RECOMMENDATION 6: Ensure the Stronger Families Hub is accessible to a diverse range of communities by investigating advertising and promoting the Stronger Families Hub in additional languages;

It was noted that while some communities were termed hard to reach, officers wanted to be more creative in ensuring accessibility and awareness of the Hub, aiding in preventative measures rather than waiting for issues to become entrenched. A number of methods had been used for this including using the Stronger Families Partnership as a conduit of sharing information. Officers focused on relationship-based social work with children and their families. Word of mouth was useful, and IT can assist in getting the message out in a range of languages. However, digital communication did not work for everyone. Therefore, the Hub did rely on partners including stronger communities leads and managers to work with faith groups, community groups and the voluntary sector to make sure information was available to all children and families.

RECOMMENDATION 7: Investigate adding into the referral form process to explain why consent had not been obtained, where appropriate.

The Committee had questioned why there was not an option for the referral on the Early Help Assessment form (which served a dual purpose of assessment and referral) to be made without consent. Officers had given this much consideration and discussion but wanted to avoid pitfalls and barriers that had been encountered in the past. The Hub often received large amounts of information and would try to make contact with families, often without any contact details, which would increase the time taken when decision making should be 24 hours. Officers could enable up to 72 hours but preferred to make quick decisions within one working day to ensure there were no delays for the family and that they received the right service at the right time. Evidence showed that giving an option not to have obtained consent did lead to delays. It also started the process on the right footing as informed consent from every parent or person with parental responsibility was required. Getting this buy-in at the earliest opportunity was more pragmatic. This meant that by the time the family were contacted by the Hub this would focus more on explaining the support available, rather than the family being unaware that their information had been shared in the first place. Therefore, this recommendation had not been introduced. However, it was noted that there was free text within the referral form so that the referrer could enter any additional information on why consent had not been obtained.

Members noted that they were pleased to see the free text option.

Members acknowledged the progress made and the increased demand on the Hub. Members noted the vacant officer post and asked about the Hub’s resilience to increased demand. Officers confirmed that there was a continued growth in demand. The average of 1,500 requests for assistance per month had risen to between 1,900 and 2,200 depending on the time of year. Officers also acknowledged the innovative approach to building capacity outside office hours. The one vacant triage officer post remained vacant and officers remained committed to recruiting to this role. There were 10 posts in total. Three staff members had been recruited in the last six weeks. The interim post of a Stronger Families Hub team manager had now been converted into a permanent role. Nationally, there was an increase in demand in most local authorities. Most, if not all, local authorities were looking towards early intervention, being preventative and Hillingdon was ahead of the curve for this. The Hub were in discussions around national reforms.

Members noted that in light of national reforms there would likely be implications for the Stringer Families Hub including staffing and resourcing, as a full review of children’s social care delivery model was currently in progress. Members asked for further information on this. Officers noted that they were continually looking at the improvement journey and aiming high. There were expectations, because of the national reforms, that there may be other areas of change. One example of this may be child protection experts leading on child protection inquiries. It was felt that having the same person lead on all child protection inquiries and having the same person chair the initial case conference would give consistency in oversight, whereas in the past it had been an allocated team that would complete the Section 47 Child Protection Inquiry and the assessment. The proposed changes were driven by the data, and the data showed that the Hub completed a very high level of Section 47 enquiries relative to the number that progressed to child protection case conference. The Hub respected the rights of the family whilst making sure that it adhered to statutory responsibilities to undertake assessments and inquiries if a child was reported or may be at risk of significant harm.

Members asked about unaccompanied asylum-seeking children arriving at Heathrow and asked about the impact on the service of the demand in this area. Officers noted that being a port authority was an area that made working in Hillingdon’s Children’s Services unique, with Heathrow being the largest air gateway into the UK. Hillingdon had good links with Heathrow Travel Care and UK Border Force to ensure that information sharing was rapid. On demand, apart from a slight decrease in 2020 due to the pandemic, there had been year on year increases in the number of children seeking asylum, many of whom arrived at Heathrow as a port authority (Port Authorities also included Essex because of Dover, and Croydon because of Lunar House). The number that Hillingdon had was always high compared to London neighbours and typically the second highest in number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

The first response service, which was the referral and assessment service, had had responsibility for assessing and supporting all unaccompanied asylum-seeking children that arrived in borough. This now sat with the new pilot team. Asylum-seeking children were looked after children with the same rights and responsibilities. Hillingdon was also a signatory to the National Transfer Scheme, which was about lessening the strain on the southeast of England. This scheme was working well. While the team was working to move children to their permanent borough within 10 working days, this was not always met. This was, in part, due to the need to rely on external colleagues and the receiving local authority for a placement to be identified and then supporting the safe transfer of that child to their new placement. It was hoped that the new team would continue beyond the pilot, and this would allow key workers to facilitate the transfer and escorting of children during their day of transport from Hillingdon to the new local authority and it would be worthwhile to have key workers able to support rather than social workers spending a disproportionate amount of time where there were other children that they need to be supporting and protecting.

Members noted that a number of older asylum-seeking children were attending schools that were a large distance away, and that this had an impact on absenteeism.

Members asked about mental health and the recommendation to ‘review ways to enhance signposting’, and that there were some areas for improvement required. Members asked how this was progressing. The role of the Thrive Network and particularly the appointment of the Thrive Manager and Practitioner had been vital in coordinating this. While Thrive had been in place for two to three years, it was felt that it had not been achieving the outcomes that were expected. Therefore, there was now a lead to oversee all 25+ services for mental health. There was an interim directory, and a user-friendly online directory was in its final stages and due to be launched at the end of this month. While digital resources were important, the importance of children's centres, family hubs, and universal services, whether it be colleges, universities or schools where people can access the support, whether it be pre-birth, or under 5, or 5 to 18, or all the way up to age 25 if they have special educational needs was highlighted.

RESOLVED: That the Committee noted the update