I am inquiring about the impact of the responses to the Covid-19 pandemic on children entering care. Please can you supply:
1. The number of children who started to be looked after within 1 week of birth during the period 01 March 2020 to 30 August 2020
17
2. The number of children who started to be looked after within 1 week of birth during the period 01 March 2019 to 30 August 2019
13
3. The number of children who started to be looked of all ages during the period 01 March 2020 to 30 August 2020
190
–And please provide a breakdown showing how many were
— aged under 1: 37
–aged 1-4: 36
–aged 5-9: 35
–aged 10-15:59
–aged 16+: 23
4. The number of children who started to be looked of all ages during the period 01 March 2019 to 30 August 2019
203
–And please provide a breakdown showing how many were
— aged under 1: 35
–aged 1-4: 32
–aged 5-9: 28
–aged 10-15: 72
–aged 16+: 36
5. The number of children who had a care order made (their legal status on the 903 system became C2 full care order) during the period 01 March 2020 to 30 August 2020
48
6. The number of children who had a care order made (their legal status on the 903 system became C2 full care order) during the period 01 March 2019 to 30 August 2019
57
Where relevant, can you please describe any special measures you took to support families involved in these care cases during the height of the pandemic – the time period identified?
We have continued to provide a service throughout this period and continued to provide support services to children and their families dependent upon their individual plans. The Vulnerable tracking Covid reporting framework and tools became available in April, it provides activity data and has filters to drill down to teams and children. This has enabled us to immediately see the vulnerable rag rating that we have given a child, the timeliness of visits to them and how often we have reviewed our rag rating. It has been an essential framework to track the vulnerability of children open to our service and our response to them.