Protecting children and supporting families to give children the best start in life
Reduction in the number of children in care
Since the introduction of Coventry Family Valued, the number of children in the care of Coventry City Council, excluding Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC) has decreased year on year. UASC are excluded from total numbers because Coventry made the proactive decision to contribute to the national crises around this issue and therefore the overall number of looked after children is not a like-for-like comparison. On that basis, the overall number of children in care has reduced from 735 in 2021, to 684 in 2022 to 659 in 2023 and by the end of March 2034 fell to 627.
In summary, the number of children in care has reduced and is getting closer to levels in comparator LAs.
The Family Valued Strengthening Families change programme is designed to spread restorative practice across children’s services. A key element is the focus on Strengthening Families through Relationship Based Practice. There is a desire to empower and enable families to find solutions, to build their own networks and for families to make changes, build resilience and most of all to remain together. The Family Valued project seeks to safely reduce the numbers of children in care and improve the quality of children’s lives and future outcomes, by enabling them to live safely outside of care and within their family and community networks where possible. A key part of this work has been Coventry’s reunification work which has seen 38 children safely reunified to live with family from care.
Repeat referrals to children’s social care
The continued emphasis on embedding the Coventry Family Valued Project and the quality of support children and families in the city receive has maintained a re-referral rate (20.9%) below Statistical Neighbours (23.6%) and the England Average (22.4%). The MASH has a continuous development quality assurance programme which has a focus on re-referrals to improve our understanding of themes and trends. This identifies areas of practice improvement required to sustain emphasis on reducing re-referrals whilst measuring impact and outcomes for children and families.
Children in Care who have previously been in Care
The percentage of new children in care, who were previously in care has decreased dramatically from 9.6% in 2021/22 to 5.3% in 2023/24. This is an increase from 3.4% in 2022/23. This overall decrease reflects the impact of the Family Valued approach by ensuring that the right children come into care at the right time. However, the slight spike from last year reflects that for some children situations can still change suddenly and service needs to respond to risk appropriately.
Emily and Jason's story
Emily is 11 years old. Emily went into care when she was 6 years old. During her time in care, Emily lived in eight different foster homes. When Emily was in care she felt angry and her behaviour often showed how angry she was feeling. Emily's foster carers struggled with her behaviour, and Emily felt rejected by her foster carers. She came to expect that adults would eventually 'give up' and she would need to move again.
Jason is Emily's dad. He worked hard to make changes in his lifestyle. He worked with drug and alcohol services, he completed parenting courses, and he accessed emotional support. Emily wanted to live with Jason and said that her life as a looked after child was 'not normal'.
A reunification assessment was started, and alongside the assessment, the Reunification Project supported Emily and Jason to improve their relationship, increasing family times sessions as the assessment progressed. The assessment concluded that Jason could provide the safe and consistent care that Emily required, and after a short period of transition, Emily went home to live with Jason.
As part of the family's reunification plan, a Family Group Conference took place, and wider family were able to identify how they would support Emily and Jason, alongside the support which was offered from the Reunification Project to support the transition from foster care to returning home, family counselling.
Since Emily has returned home to love with Jason, she seems much happier, and school have said she appears settled, and is making really good progress.