Council Recognised For Work With Children

South Gloucestershire Council is celebrating after it was awarded a national accolade for the way it helps children and young people in care.

The council received beacon status in the “care matters: improving the outcomes for children in care” category at a ceremony in London. The award was presented by Schools Minister Jim Knight.

Councils are awarded beacon status for the expertise they have gained in a particular area and this knowledge is then shared with other councils for them to learn from.

South Gloucestershire was praised for the work it has done in looking after children and young people in care, including taking a well-led “corporate parenting” approach to providing services, whereby councillors, officers and partner organisations take collective responsibility for providing the best possible care.

Some of these services include the introduction of an innovative scheme to provide work experience and guidance on college courses and taking part in a pilot scheme to ensure young people have a voice in decisions about their care if they are over 16 but are not yet ready to live independently. The involvement of children and young people themselves in shaping services was also commended.

Sheila Cook, executive member for children and young people, said: “I am absolutely delighted that the council has been awarded beacon status for the way we look after and support children and young people in care.

“We take our responsibilities as corporate parents very seriously and we have introduced a number of schemes to give youngsters in our care the best possible start in life.”

The council is becoming a national leader in the way it supports children in care. As well as being awarded beacon status, the council is taking part in a three-year £6 million Government pilot project – Right2BCared4 – which is looking into the best ways of providing care to looked-after children after the age of 16 if they are not ready yet to live independently. Approximately 70 young people are looked after by the council each year to whom the pilot will be relevant.

The council has developed several pioneering schemes to help young people it is responsible for, including “Young Recruiter”, which offers training for young people in interview skills, and then allows them to sit on an interview panel for frontline staff that are going to work with children. Another scheme is a summer work placement called “What Next?” which helps to prepare young people for work or college.

The council’s fostering service was rated as outstanding by the Commission for Social Care Inspection in 2008, and the educational achievements of young people in the care of the council are among the best in the country.

This is the fourth beacon award that the council’s children and young people department now holds, the other three being for school improvement, healthy schools and supporting social care workers.