Devon needs to continue to invest in targeted early help, reducing the need for statutory intervention and preventing cumulative harm to children. Develop the role of the Family group conferencing team in leading family-led approaches and sharing this skill base across the workforce.

There is a gap in provision to cater for short breaks for children with disabilities who are Children in Need. For some families it is necessary to support with regular residential short breaks to maintain their resilience and avoid a break down in the home which may lead to the child coming into care. We need to build a greater range of capacity and variety of offer in this area.

There are significant gaps in the number of younger fostering households with 36.36% of fostering households in the 61yrs + age group and a further 45.02% in the 51yrs to 60yrs age group. This means that 80% of our current foster carers cohort are aged over 50. This is a corporate risk for Devon County Council.

Over the five year period of this strategy it is reasonable to expect that those foster carers currently in the 61yrs + age group will either reduce their work level or leave the system significantly impacting sufficiency.

It is recognised that many children in care experience a disrupted education and that this negative impact is amplified for a child with additional needs. There is a critical need to ensure that educational needs are accurately reflected in any home finding activity and that educational disruption is minimised.

There are gaps in the range of provision on offer in all market sectors particularly in relation to children and young people who may present with:

• • self-injurious behaviours, suicidal ideation and other mental health presentations

• • neurodiversity or exhibit behavioural challenges (or both)

• • self-identified gender that is different to that assigned at birth

Providers have identified that communication with social workers can be challenging – this needs to be addressed with clear escalation arrangements and timescales.

There is a need to develop additional targeted provision (one or two bed homes) with highly skilled staff teams able to work with children who may present with a range of challenges and complexities as these are our most vulnerable cohort of children.

This would enable young people with DOLS to be supported in registered provision and to mitigate the potential risks of accepting young people with presentations that present challenges.

Devon County Council needs to remove barriers created by a child in care’s historical behaviours to ensure that providers are able to offer homes. One option is to underwrite the buildings and household insurance for providers who take young people with specific risks in relation to damage and fire setting. We also need to offer support and training for providers to upskill staff and manage risk.

We have been unable to place children in their local communities in Exeter, West Devon, Torridge, Teignbridge and North Devon and this impacts on their continuity of education and their ability to main connexions within their home communities. This is of particular significance for those children whose Permanence Plan is for them to return home.

There needs to be a focus on bringing the children and young people in residential or children’s homes placed at distance back to Devon as a priority.

Devon must continue to engage with the other local authorities (LAs) across the south west to explore a future collaborative commissioning agreement that will ensure common terms and conditions are used across the region and will have the expectation that providers offer placements to their host authority in the first instance.

Young asylum seekers – some children or young people allocated to Devon through the national scheme have expressed the wish to live in other parts of the country mainly in larger cities with greater diversity and we therefore have some young people placed at distance.

Consideration should be given to the development of a multi-disciplinary team that could offer support and guidance to homes at times when the young person is dysregulated to prevent further escalation.

There needs to be robust placement stability processes to avoid placement disruption.

Where complex young people move to a new placement, a clear plan of support and review needs to be identified to enable providers to discuss issues and share risk effectively and without delay.

There is a need to develop a range of options for emergency beds including:

• • fostering beds that can be used for up to seven days while work continues to identify options for their ongoing care, for example, return to family or ongoing fostering

• • emergency registered beds in children’s home provision, which need to be immediately available and can last for between seven to 28 days to enable the young person to settle, assessments to take place and a future placement to be identified

Improved links with adult social care and adult mental health services is a priority and needs to be strengthened.

Gaps in provision are causing bottlenecks and preventing them from moving towards greater independence. This is critical information for district councils when considering the type of housing required to meet the needs of young adults in their areas.

We are developing options for ‘Staying Close’ using a number of properties from within both DCC and district council property portfolios, however, that activity alone will not provide sufficient capacity.

Pathways to independence are not achieving a smooth transition to independence for our children in care. This creates pressure on the homelessness prevention (HP) pathway.

There are no clear ‘move on’ arrangements so young people stay in the HP provision for long periods blocking capacity to offer suitable accommodation to young people presenting as homeless.

There is also ongoing work with district councils to identify suitable accommodation within the young person’s local community where they can live independently.

However, this activity alone is unlikely to meet the need of the young people currently identified as care experienced and those likely to become care leavers over the next two years and wish to live independently and access social housing and support.