Corporate Parenting Strategy 2024-27

Foreword

In Devon we are working for a future where every child in care thrives in an environment of love, support, and empowerment. We commit to creating a Devon where our children and young people not only overcome challenges, but flourish into confident, capable individuals, equipped with the skills and resilience needed for a successful and fulfilling life.

We are dedicated to creating a nurturing space where our children and young adults feel valued, heard, and understood. Our vision is rooted in the belief that by providing holistic support, tailored to the unique needs of each child, we can break down barriers and unlock their full potential.

We will work together as a community which champions the rights of children in care and care experienced people and recognises and celebrates their diverse strengths. We aspire to be a catalyst for positive change, working collaboratively with families, carers, communities, and stakeholders to create a network of support that extends beyond immediate care, laying the foundation for a brighter and more promising future.

We aim to redefine the narrative for children in care, ensuring that they are not only cared for, but thrive. Together, we will build a Devon where every child in care is surrounded by love, opportunities, and the belief that their dreams are valid but achievable.

Please note that we are currently working on an easy-read version and a young person’s version of this strategy. Once ready, these will be made available on this page.

What is Corporate Parenting?

When a child comes into care they become ‘looked after’ and Devon County Council (DCC) becomes their corporate parent, a role which we share with our partner agencies. This means that anyone who works for DCC, in any capacity, its elected members and partners (health, education, police and housing) have an important responsibility in fulfilling the corporate parenting role.

As a corporate parent we need to meet the needs of our children and young people as any good parent would and utilise the levers at our disposal to promote their wellbeing. We need to show that we care both for and about our children and young people through providing them with a safe and nurturing environment where they can thrive. We must demonstrate that we have high aspirations for our children for the future and celebrate and champion their achievements. We should ensure that our children and young people have access to the life chances and opportunities they need to grow and reach their potential.

Context of our Corporate Parenting strategy

Our Corporate Parenting Strategy has been developed through participation events, surveys and discussions with children and young people.

The strategy sets out our learning from our partners who work with our children and young people who are looked after by us. It also reflects what care experienced adults have told us about their experience and how we can be better at listening and responding to identified needs. Our strategy is our commitment to how we will help children and young people to set their own goals and fulfil their aspirations.

It considers advice from the National Advisor for Care Leavers, learning from Ofsted, and our own self-evaluation. We recognise that Devon County Council has needed to develop focus and pace around our corporate parenting responsibilities and provides a scaffold for our improvement work.

The strategy builds on the seven principles which underpin Corporate Parenting as described in the Children and Social Work Act 2017 to:

act in their best interests and promote their physical and mental health and wellbeing
encourage them to express their views, wishes and feelings
take their views, wishes and feelings into account
help them to gain access to, and make the best use of, services provided by the local authority and its relevant partners
promote high aspirations, and seek to secure the best outcomes for them
be safe, to have stability in their home lives, relationships and education or work
prepare them for adulthood and independent living

We have also listened to the messages from the McAllister Review 2023 – Stable Homes, Built on Love, and as ambitious corporate parents, we have adopted the 5 missions of the review and want to ensure that our children and care experienced people:

leave our care with at least two loving relationships.
are prepared and supported to attend university if this is their wish.
have access to local apprenticeships across Devon County Council, the corporate parenting partnership and local commerce.
have strong access to health services that meet their needs from the point of entry into our care to improve their health outcomes.

Our vision for Corporate Parenting

Together, we will build a Devon where every child in care feels safe, is surrounded by love, opportunities, and the belief that their dreams are both valid and achievable. When they leave our care, they will feel prepared and supported for their onward journey and experience happiness and success.

What our children and Care Experienced People have told us

They want to feel loved in their care system.
They want to understand their care journeys and why they became cared for.
They want stable care and to feel sure about where they live.
They want to access hobbies the same way their peers do.
They want adults to notice if they are feeling unhappy.
They want strong peer groups.
They want support for their emotional and mental health if, and when they need it
They want smoother transitions into adulthood and adult services.
They want to have stable and suitable accommodation when they leave care.

What we know from external reviews and our self-evaluation activity

Young people need to know the plan for their permanence as soon as possible.
A clearer Special Guardianship support offer is needed.
Care planning needs to be stronger and progressed more effectively.
Where it is possible for children to return to family this requires stronger governance.
There needs to be a stronger lens on children who are living outside of Devon.
Safety plans and contingency planning need to be stronger.
Where care experienced adults are living in unsuitable accommodation, risk assessment and review need to be stronger.
Too many care experienced adults live in unsuitable accommodation including hotel accommodation.
There needs to be a collective response from the county and district councils in respect of care leaver homelessness.
Strong relationships with care experienced adults need to also include stronger and more aspirational challenge with young people that set higher aspirations for them.
Evidence is needed that young people can access their health histories appropriately.
There needs to be more work undertaken to reduce homelessness for care experienced adults.
There needs to be a stronger offer to care experienced adults around support for their emotional and mental health.
There needs to be a plan Devon response to support education, employment and training offers for care experienced adults.
There should be plans in the future to develop care leaver hubs to support delivery of services closer to where care leavers are.

Systems change

By listening to our children, partners, and external reviewers, we have developed a stronger understanding of ourselves. A change in how Corporate Parenting is delivered across Devon was needed. We decided to review our Strategic Corporate Parenting Board priorities and develop specific workstreams for children in our care and for care experienced adults, including the governance of work in this critical area of supporting the most vulnerable children in Devon.

We now have a “Champion Model,” for Corporate Parenting, with five Member-led subgroups and an overarching Strategic Board in place to drive key priorities, which are crucial in promoting the best outcomes for our children and young people. The five subgroups are: Care for Me; Talented Me; Healthy Me; Welcome and Support Me; Involve Me. Full details about these subgroups are set out below.

Our governance structure

Our subgroups

An overview of our subgroups

Care for Me – leading on sufficiency issues for children in our care, and care experienced people. It has a priority focus on the needs of young people who are 18 and over who have left our care, and their housing offers. The remit of this subgroup is to focus on supporting our young people currently in unsuitable accommodation and how they can be supported to move into suitable accommodation. The subgroup also has a focus on how to improve housing options for the future so that housing needs are better planned for from the outset with the understanding of needs at an earlier stage.

Talented Me – leading on issues relating to the education of cared for children in Devon and a focus on supporting Education, Training and Employment activity for care leavers.

Healthy Me – leading on the development of the support needs of cared for children in terms of their physical and emotional health, the partnership approach to this, and then transitional arrangements through to adult social care and health where needed. It also has a focus on the needs of care experienced people who have significant emotional health needs, but who sit below the threshold for adult services intervention.

Welcome and Support Me – leading on a focus on specific groups of young people for example, young people at risk of exploitation, young people seeking asylum, and Care Experienced People who may experience custody. The subgroup will consider and develop access to enrichment activities for children and young people. It will also review important activity that will support children and young people to heal and thrive such as life story work and lifelong links.

Involve Me – leading on ensuring that the voice of children in our care, and that of those who are care experienced is part of our service development and improvement journey. Involve me will also focus on the continuous development of the Devon Local Offer to our Care Experienced People, and the monitoring of the roll out of total respect training.

Care for me

Our goal

Children in our care will have homes where they feel loved and cared about, providing them with a solid foundation from where they are able to recover from previous trauma and then thrive. They will have stable relationships that endure into lifelong links. Housing options for young adults leaving our care will be individually right for them and enable them to move to long term tenancies of their own. Young people will receive the support that they need to enable them to maintain safe and long-term homes.

Children in our care

Through the “Place Called Home,” Programme we will drive permanent outcomes for children in care.
We will ensure that when children need to enter our care that they do so in a timely way, based on strong assessment.
Where possible they return to their birth family or live with extended family members.
Where this is not possible, we will ensure that children move to a permanent and settled place that they can call home as soon as possible through strong care and permanency planning.
Children who can be long term matched with foster carers will be, and where appropriate we will seek for this to lead to wider discussions about children leaving care via SGO (Special Guardianship Orders) to those carers, incentivised through our new financial offer to carers.
Though our sufficiency strategy we will ensure that children have stability.
We will create our own residential children’s homes that enable children to remain in Devon reducing the need for unregistered accommodation for children in our care.

Care Experienced People

We will work with our district housing partners to develop sustainable housing pathways for young people who are leaving our care.
We will develop systems that enable us to better predict the post 18 housing needs for Care Experienced People so that we can work with commissioners and district housing colleagues to consider future sufficiency needs and plan appropriately.
We will review our Housing Panel to ensure that the right partnership decision makers are engaged in planning for young people. This will enable a system that problem solves to ensure young people can be housed effectively with support structures that are at the right level. Where we become aware of a planned eviction from supported accommodation we will ensure that this is prioritised at Housing Panel to try to mitigate challenges or to ensure that there are smooth move on processes that do not lead to crisis accommodation being needed.
We will work with providers to develop team around the provider structures where issues such as contextual safeguarding, or themes around challenges faced by providers can be discussed and supportive solutions identified.
We will create a “team around the tenancy,” model that underpins support to individual young people to sustain their tenancies. This will draw on examples of national good practice.
We will deliver our Staying Close offer in Devon so that young people with higher support needs have a strong local and in house support offer of accommodation where needed.

We will work with social housing providers and reputable landlords to help prioritise Care Experienced People for individual tenancies.

Key deliverables

Deliver on our own residential children’s homes for Devon Children
Increase the number of children who are long term matched with foster carers
Improve stability for children in our care
Support children who can exit our care to do so
Ensure that all children who can be in a family placement are stepped across from residential care.
Reduce the number of care experienced adults who are in unsuitable accommodation
Increase and improve housing options for Care Experienced People
Co-produce a revised Homelessness Prevention Panel with young people and providers
Create Team around the Provider and Team Round the Tenancy offers to improve sustainable housing offers and reduce evictions
Deliver on and evaluate Devon’s Staying Close offer
Create more permanent homes for children in care in Devon through partnership working with local fostering and residential care providers

Our measures that matter

% Children with a Permanence Plan
% Children achieving permanence through SGO
% CLA with 3 or more placements in 12 months
% CLA in same placement for 2.5 years
% CLA where permanence is achieved
% CEP living in suitable accommodation
Number of CEP in Devon County Council Staying Close provision

Talented Me

Our goal

Children in our care will have access to strong educational offers that meet their specific needs. We will understand their goals, but also increase their ambitions though demonstrating our belief in them. Our care experienced people will be supported to access a range of further and higher education options, apprenticeships, and employment. We will make sure that they all feel that they can make a positive contribution to society and will know that we walk alongside them supporting their aspirations.

Children in our care

We will ensure that children in our care have access to aspirational Personal Education Plans (PEPS) that focus, not only on their current needs, but their future aspirations.
We will develop mentoring schemes that support children in care and then care leavers to thrive at different stages of their learning and journeys.
We will ensure that aspirations are captured from an early age in care planning and ensure that this is a focus of children looked after reviews.
We will create an Aspirations Officer embedded in the virtual school who will meet with all year 11 young people who are identified at risk of becoming NEET, (Not in Education Employment or Training) to identify bespoke plans and pathways to support them to engage in education, employment, or training.
We will work with Further Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE) partners to engage our children and young people early so that college and university are seen as places where they can belong.
We will ensure that children and young people in our care have access to hobbies and activities that they enjoy and are important to them and that enrich their lives.

Care Experienced People

We develop a “family firm,” ethos and offer work experience, ringfenced apprenticeships and employment roles for care experienced people right across the corporate parenting partnership .
We will work with our Human Resources (HR) colleagues to remove barriers to employment for care experienced people within the council, and where we can support candidates to increase their learning on the job, for example in securing functional skills, we will not let this be a reason for them not some person specifications for jobs they are interested in.
We will work with local employers, so they feel confident in engaging care experienced people into employment through our Positive About Care Experience initiative through providing bespoke support to employers.
We will nurture relationships with local businesses through engagement activity to encourage them to offer specific work experience and apprenticeships that are targeted to children in our care and care experienced people.
We will create and maintain a Talent and Aspirations bank to help us match the skills and aspirations of our children and young people with offers from employers and education providers.

Key deliverables

Timely ambitious and high-quality personal education plans that capture and focus on future life goals.
Increase the number of care experienced young people aged 16-25 who are in education, employment and training
Care plans that include a focus on enrichment activities and hobbies that broaden the horizons of all of our children and young people
Development of activities and events for our children looked after that help them to socialise, mix and develop key friendships.
Deliver on mentoring schemes for young people to support them to enter into and remain in education, employment, and training
Delivery and maintenance of our talent and aspirations bank
Delivery of the family firm apprenticeship and work experience offer across the corporate parenting partnership and across local commerce
Increase the number of employers and businesses offering apprenticeships and work experience tailored for our care experienced young people

Our measures that matter

% of children who have a Personal Education plan
% of children who have a reduced timetable
% of children looked after for 12 months who have at least one fixed term exclusion
% of Care Experienced People in Employment Education and Training
Number of Care Experienced People in DCC apprenticeships
Number of Care Experienced People in FE/HE
Number of CEP entered into TA Bank
Number of offers from employers etc in the TA Bank
Number of CEP finding education/work experience/apprenticeship/work through the Talent and Aspirations Bank

Healthy Me

Our Goal

Children in our care and care experienced adults will have the support that they need to lead lives that are healthy and that promote their physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

Children in our care

We will work with our health colleagues to maintain a robust performance in initial and review health assessments for all children in our care.
We will work with our Integrated Care Board to review pathways into local CAMHS and emotional health services, to ensure that we develop the correct pathways of therapeutic intervention for our children and that these are able to be accessed in a timely way that meets therapeutic needs.
We will use Strength and Difficulty Questionnaires to ensure that we identify the support needs of our children and respond appropriately.
Where our children require medical intervention, we will ensure that we track this effectively through reviewing our assessment of children’s needs appropriately and regularly and ensure that needs are tracked effectively through the children looked after review process.
We will think about transitions early for children who have complex needs and develop strong transitional pathways into adult facing social and health services.
Through engagement with our health colleagues, we will identify pathways to ensure that the dental health of our children and young people is regularly checked and where there are needs these are rectified.

Care Experienced People

Through pathway planning, regular health reviews, and a transitions panel, we will identify any transitional needs for our young people early.
Where there are mental health or emotional health needs, we will work with our CAMHS Services to effect stronger transition to adult facing services.
Through our partnership local offer, we will support our young people to engage in activities that promote their physical, emotional, and mental health needs.
We will develop specific embedded emotional health worker roles within the Corporate Parenting Service who can support young people directly or support the network around young people to ensure that services that are needed are identified and then accessed in a timely way.
We will work with our health colleagues to engage 16- and 17-year-old young people in creative ways when they may be reluctant to have review health assessments.
We will ensure that our offer and support to care experienced people who are pregnant, or already parenting is strong and promotes their right to a well-supported and thriving family life.

Key deliverables

Improvement on timeliness and quality of health assessment performance
Develop a trauma informed pathway with health colleagues that supports the emotional health of all children in care based on needs identified through the completion of strength and difficulties questionnaires
Increase uptake of dental and health assessment activity for young people aged 16 and 17
Improve transitional pathways to adult services and mental health services for young people
Develop a favoured approach for care experienced people to access emotional, trauma informed and mental health pathways
Develop a favoured approach for care experienced people through tenacious and proactive intervention for those vulnerable to substance or alcohol misuse
Develop and embed Emotional Health worker roles in the Corporate Parenting Service to support Care Experienced People
Ensure that our local offer includes access to activities which support healthy activity
Develop and improve our support offer to Care Experienced People who are pregnant and parenting

Our measures that matter

% Up to date Health Assessment
% Review Health Assessment
% children in care Dental Check
% SDQ 4-16
Number of CEP with access to Ask Jan App
% CEP registered with a dentist

Involve me

Our Goal

We will work with children and young people to jointly create plans for their care, and for when they leave our care. We will involve young people in our service development activity so that their lived experience informs our practice in the future. We will co-produce, jointly review and enhance our leaving care offer to ensure that our young people have the best opportunities that we can provide for them as they enter adulthood.

Children in our care

We will work with young people to redesign the Assessment and Report for Children Looked After Reviews to ensure that plans are more co-produced, and the voice of individual children is fully captured about their life.
We will create a Young Corporate Parenting Lead apprenticeship to ensure that young people’s voices have increased influence across the Corporate Parenting landscape.
We will lead on the completion of and assimilation into practice of messages from local and national surveys to ensure that learning about what children say about care experience influences practice.
We will review themes from complaints and IRO challenges around practice to ensure that messages from these are embedded in learning activity.
We will develop practice briefings that influence practice with children in our care based on what we learn about the lived experience of children and Care Experienced People.
We will review the Devon Promise to children in care to ensure it remains current and right of our children.
We will ensure that Total Respect Training continues to be rolled out across the Corporate Parenting Partnership so that there is a strong understanding of the lived experienced of children in care in Devon.
We will feedback the pledges of participants at Total Respect so that all Corporate Parents understand the changes that need to be made to our ways of working with our children and young people.
We will develop stronger feedback loops for children looked after and care experienced people

Care Experienced People

We will review and simplify the local offer to Care Experienced People in Devon, so that they are clear on what we guarantee them as their corporate parents.
We will ensure that there are specific offers tailored to key cohorts of Care Experienced People e.g. Young Asylum Seekers/young people who are pregnant and parenting/young people in custody.
We will develop practice development sessions that influence and enhance practice with Care Experienced People.
We will create and embed a Young Head of Corporate Parenting Apprenticeship Role. This role will ensure that there is a clear flow between the Stand up Speak Out (SUSU) council and the Corporate Parenting Strategic Board.
We will review participation activity with our Care Experienced People and consider how this can be developed, considering best practice from other local authorities.
We will consider with partners how to develop care leaver hubs in Devon where a drop-in service for our young people could be offered.
We will ensure that the individual needs, wishes and aspirations for Care Experienced People are captured in their pathway plans and that planning is smart and engages the wider corporate parenting partnership to create positive, aspirational, and sustained change for individual young people.
We will involve our young people in our review of housing pathways and housing panels, and seek their insights when commissioning housing services
We will consider the development of care leaver hubs in Devon to enable young people to be supported closer to their communities.

Key deliverables

Deliver high quality care and pathway plans that promote strong care plans for children and Care Experienced People
Co-production and embedding of a new assessment and review process for Children Looked After
Development of Young Head of Corporate Parenting and Social Work Academy apprenticeships to increase the lived experience voice in service development and training pathway design
Deliver quarterly feedback and learning loops so that we demonstrate to young people a “You Said, We Did,” mechanism
Develop, deliver, and annually review the Local Offer to Care Experienced People ensuring it meets the needs of all Care Experienced People
Develop and deliver care leaver hubs in Devon

Our measures that matter

Number CLA engaged with SUSU activity
Number of CEP engaged with SUSU
Number of CLA referred to advocacy services
Number of CEP referred to advocacy services
Number of complaints from CLA in 3-month period
Number of complaints for CEP in 3-month period

Welcome and support me

Our Goal

We will help to support and develop responses that focus on the needs of children and young people, to ensure that relationships are sustainable, caring and fun. We will look for opportunities to celebrate diversity, ensure that children understand their heritage, and how and why they are in care. We will focus on offers to key groups of children and young people and develop support tailored to specific identified needs.

Children in our care

We will review and improve how children and young people are helped to understand their journey into care, why we are involved in their lives and the role of our corporate parenting services.
We will ensure that children in our care have access to learn skills for living well prior to leaving our care, i.e. cooking, budgeting, swimming etc.
We will strengthen our partnership response to children and young people in our care where exploitation may be a risk.
We will develop a specific offer for key groups of young people to ensure that any specific needs are considered – i.e. young people seeking asylum
We will develop how we celebrate success for children in our care or leaving our care.
We will work with birth families, extended families, and people connected to our children to ensure that children and young people remain connected to the people that matter, even if they cannot reside with them.
Where it’s safe and appropriate, we will revisit family as care providers for children and young people and reunify them wherever possible in a planned and safe way.
We will ensure that children in our care develop lifelong links, ensuring that they have at least 2 strong and loving relationships as they leave our care
We will prepare young people for leaving our care working with carers and partners from the age of 13 to develop independence training supported by our co-produced promoting independence guidance “My Life, My Future” and then making sure that they are allocated a Personal Advisors at 16 years old

Care Experienced People

We will ensure that pathway planning is robust and timely and is revisited when there are changes of circumstances for our young people.
We will develop consistent community-based offers for young people across Devon (e.g. leisure passes)
We will review and strengthen our response to care experienced people where exploitation may be an issue of concern.

Key deliverables

Children who enter care understand their journey though access to life story work
Deliver on community-based offers across Devon that provide positive activities for children in our care and Care Experienced People
Ensure that where exploitation is an issue for children in our care and Care Experienced People that there are clear plans to mitigate community-based risks for them
Deliver careful planning to include lifelong links work to ensure that young people have at least 2 positive relationships when they leave our care
Ensure that any belongings of care experienced young people are stored safely and securely and are treated respectfully and returned promptly
Deliver a warm Devon welcome for asylum seekers supported by Devon County Council which considers their needs and supports integration into local communities
Develop a care experienced pre-birth and parents support offer linked to the HUGs programme
Develop community-based support networks to bring care experienced young people together in partnership with local community groups or through bespoke activity that stands alone from the existing participation team activities

Our measures that matter

CLA per 10,000 at period
CLA starts per 10,000
CLA ends per 10,000
% CLA with up-to-date
% CLs in Touch
Number of CLs remaining engaged with service post 21
% of all CLA with a missing episode
% of CLA with 3 or more missing episodes in 3-month period

Other important information

You may also be interested in reading the Promise – our list of commitments that we make to all children and young people in care in Devon – as well as our Local Offer for care leavers.