Agenda item

The Council, at its annual meeting on 23 May 2019, agreed the following Terms of Reference:

(a)  To champion the life chances and rights of Children Looked After; Children in need; Care Leavers and children and young people in the criminal justice system across the Council, with Elected Members and partners.

(b)  To actively promote real and sustained improvements by ensuring that there are mechanisms in place to:

• ascertain and have regard to the child or young person’s view, wishes and feelings, so far as reasonable practicable;
• have regard to the importance of promoting and respecting the child or young person’s dignity;
• have regard to the characteristics, culture and beliefs of the child or young person;
• have regard to the importance of providing appropriate support to enable the child or young person to participate in decisions that affect them;
• have regard to the importance of promoting the upbringing of the child by the child’s family, in so far as doing so is consistent with promoting the child’s well-bring;
• Where the child is under the age of 16, ascertain and have regard to the views, wishes and feelings of those with parental responsibility for the child, in so far as doing so is consistent with the well-being of the child, and reasonably practicable
• That there is a follow on provision for young people leaving care that meets the need of young adults

(c)  To develop and undertake a programme of consultation, listening and engagement events with Children Looked After, Children in Need and Care Leavers as well as visits to services providing support and advice to those children and young people.

(d)  To recommend ways in which more integrated services can be developed across all Council directorates, schools and other stakeholders to lead towards

·       Improved education attainment and achievement for Children Looked After, Children in need and Care Leavers;

·       Emotional and Mental Health and Well-being Support for Children Looked After, Children in Need, and Care Leavers;

·       Improvements in services for children with disabilities

·       To encourage Looked After Children, Children in need and Care Leavers to become active citizens.

(e)  To ensure performance monitoring systems are in place, and regularly review performance data to ensure sustained performance improvements in outcomes;

(f)    To benchmark and learn from best practice of other Local Authorities

(g)  To receive all relevant Children’s Services inspection and annual reports, including: Children’s Homes Quality of Care Report; Child Practice Review Themes, Fostering Annual Quality of Care Report; Adoption Fostering Annual Quality of Care Report; 4C’s Commissioning; Out of Area Annual Report; Education Report; Children’s Complaints reports; and Advocacy Annual Report;

(h)  To develop, monitor and review a corporate parenting strategy, and ensure its effective implementation through work plans and corporate parenting training programmes;

(i)    To submit an annual progress report to the Cabinet and make recommendations where responsibility for that function rests with the Cabinet;

(j)    To report to the Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Committee as necessary;

(k)  To recommend the appointment of co-opted members to the Committee for approval by Council;

(l)    To submit an Annual Report on the work of the Committee to full Council.

(m)All Members of the Committee will be required to undertake relevant training to enable them to properly discharge their duties.