Here are the recommendations in the report, and all certainly worth considering if not actually adopting.
Children’s lives in Southend-on-Sea: (A report by The Children’s Society) Recommendations
·
Every child or teenager who goes missing or
absent from home or care should be offered an independent return interview.
·
Ask your Local Safeguarding Children Board to
audit the safeguarding response that agencies provide to 16 and 17 year olds
and review thresholds for intervention to ensure they do not discriminate
against or fail to assess 16 and 17 year olds.
·
Adopt an explicit policy that no child under 18
can be made ‘intentionally homeless’.
·
Review the local homelessness protocol to ensure
all children under 18 who present as homeless receive a joint assessment from
housing and children’s services.
·
Local authorities, as commissioners of supported
accommodation for vulnerable 16 and 17 year olds, should ensure all these
settings have effective safeguarding policies in place and are regularly scrutinised
by the Local Safeguarding Children Board.
·
Health and Well-Being Boards should ensure local
Joint Strategic Needs Assessments explicitly include children and young
people’s mental health and the needs of different vulnerable groups at risk of
developing mental health problems, to assess current and future need and inform
commissioning strategies.
·
Local authorities – through Local Safeguarding
Children’s Boards (LSCBs) – should review and monitor access to mental health
support for children who have experienced abuse and trauma, ensure that such
services are commissioned locally, and ensure that there are policies in place
for priority access to services for all children who need it.
·
All mental health services should have policies
in place on transitions for young people from vulnerable groups between the
levels of CAMHS services and to transition to adult services. This would ensure
that children do not fall through the cracks of services and that they have
continuous access to mental health support. Policies on transitions should
outline how CAMHS will work with other agencies in planning transition.
·
Prioritise resources raised through business
rate growth for early intervention services, using local needs assessments and
open consultation with local residents.
·
Local authorities should ensure the systematic
collection of data for separated children with non-asylum immigration claims.
·
Local authorities should train social workers
and Independent Reviewing Officers in the identification of children who are
out of scope of legal aid and in how to best support their legal needs within
this new and complex territory.
·
Local authorities should develop written
policies that offer clarity on the nature and scope of their responsibilities
in relation to legal aid for separated children.
·
Every local authority needs to have a welfare
assistance scheme which does not exclude 16–17 year olds from support.
·
Annually monitor the spending on local welfare
provision to build up a profile of need in the area.
·
Councils should exempt care leavers from paying
council tax up to the age of 21.
·
Every local authority should have a debt
collection strategy which includes measures to address the impact of collection
on children.
·
Councils should not engage bailiffs for
collecting council tax debt from families who are in receipt of Council Tax
Support and have children.
·
Local authorities should use community hubs as
locations to deliver outreach debt advice and fuel poverty work, to ensure hard
to reach families are able to access this service and support.
·
Local authorities should advertise and promote
the Warm Home Discount – a rebate of £140 on electricity bills for the most
vulnerable – in services that families access, such as children’s centres.
·
Local authorities need to consider the impact of
changes to disability benefits under UC on families.
·
The loss of the SDP is likely to be particularly
severe. There will be a need to reconsider support services in light of this.
·
Local authorities have a key role to play in
ensuring that families with children that need Alternative Payment Arrangements
under Universal Credit are able to receive them.
·
Local authorities need to consider access to
online provision of UC for local families – particularly for those requiring
regular updates to claims, such as parents with childcare costs.