Source: City of Plymouth
Significant strides have been made in how care-experienced young people are supported in Plymouth according to Ofsted inspectors, who found ‘many improvements’ since their last visit in February 2024. The Council’s ambition and commitment to its role as a corporate parent were particularly highlighted.
A focused visit in early July looked specifically at the arrangements for care leavers, who are young people aged 16 to 25-years-old who have previously lived in the local authority’s care. While focused visits do not result in a graded judgement, inspectors published a letter detailing their findings and areas for improvement today.
The inspection found that ‘Plymouth City Council is an ambitious Corporate Parent, driven effectively by the Director of Children’s Services’.
Councillor Jemima Laing, Cabinet Member for Children’s Social Care said: “There is a lot in this inspection letter to celebrate and I am incredibly proud that we are now delivering a better service to all our care-experienced young people.
“We are absolutely committed to being corporate parents, which means supporting our care-experienced young people as a family would support their own young adult children. As every parent knows, your responsibility does not end once your child reaches adulthood.
“By working closely with partners across the city, we can ensure that care leavers are properly supported at this crucial time in their lives.”
Corporate parenting means that it is the collective responsibility of the Council and partner organisations to support children in care and care leavers.
Plymouth City Council is committed to supporting care leavers as set out in the updated corporate parenting strategy, ‘The Sky’s the Limit’ and in the comprehensive local support offer, which was commended by Ofsted. This includes dedicated help to access health, education and wellbeing services, as well as financial support.
The Council also agreed to treat care experience as a protected characteristic in March 2023 and is a signatory of the Care Leavers Covenant.
The Council’s Corporate Parenting Board meets four times a year and works to advise on best practices in fulfilling the council’s role as a corporate parent to ensure the best possible outcomes for children in care and care leavers. Ofsted inspectors noted that the Board ‘provides effective governance and oversight of the council’s work with care-experienced young people’.
There are currently 200 care-experienced young people in Plymouth aged 18 to 21-years-old, and a further 86 young people aged between 21 and 25 who have chosen to continue receiving support from the Council.
Each of these young people has a personal adviser (PA) who works closely with them to offer advice and support. The inspectors highlighted how positive these trusting relationships are: young people ‘describe their PAs as always being responsive and kind’ and ‘receive timely practical and emotional support from social workers and PAs who know them well’.
One young person shared that their PA ‘is amazing, I have no negatives about her, she is trying her best to get the right support for me.’
Inspectors also noted that care-experienced young people who are pregnant or parents receive ‘dedicated effective support’ to help them ‘succeed in their parenting, and reduce risks in meeting the needs of their children’.
Karen Blake, Head of Service for Permanence at Plymouth City Council, said: “I am delighted by the recognition we have received from Ofsted about the improvements that have been made for our care-experienced young people. Our staff are extremely dedicated and work incredibly hard every day to support young people as they transition into adulthood.
“While we’re very proud of these achievements, we know what we need to do to make our service even better and will be focusing on the further improvements that are required as a priority.”
The inspection letter outlines two key areas for improvement. The first is the effectiveness of joint working with housing to improve the quality and availability of accommodation for care leavers, with a small number of young people having spent too long living in bed and breakfast accommodation.
Joint working across the Council is already taking place to address this issue, which includes finding alternative accommodation that is more suited to individual young people’s needs.
The other area for improvement is the identification and management of risk for young people. An additional team manager had already been recruited and has since started with the team, providing additional management capacity which will help to address this issue and work is being undertaken to improve quality assurance across the service.
Councillor Laing continued: “We completely accept that there are still improvements that need to be made in order to give our young people the best possible start to their adult life. Council teams are working collaboratively to make these improvements as swiftly as possible and the Corporate Parenting Board will have oversight of these improvements.”
The inspection letter also positively highlights how partnership working between the Council and health organisations means that ‘the physical health needs of young people are well considered and well met’, with access to a flexible nursing team and dental services. Support is given to help young people access mental health services and more work is underway to develop bespoke mental health support.
Penny Smith, Chief Nursing Officer at NHS Devon said: “It is great to see the hard work that has been put into improving health services for care-experienced young people in Plymouth over the last 18 months recognised by OFSTED.
“These improvements include improved access to mental health support and dental services and are the result of strong partnership working between numerous organisations.
“Care-experienced young people in Plymouth have for some time had access to well established, flexible, and responsive nursing teams and these improvements further enhance the support offer available to them.
“We are committed to continuing to further improve health services for care-experienced young people in Plymouth and growing the strong partnership arrangements we have in place to do this.”
Read the full inspection letter on the Ofsted website.
For more information about Plymouth’s offer to care-experienced young people, please visit: www.plymouth.gov.uk/care-leavers.