Agenda item

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Members referred to provision during the planned summer break, and the role of the Youth Service in the summery holiday plans, and that some older students leaving education as early as next month.  Members were advised that additional funding has been provided to increase open access provision which will help to with transition from lock down to the start of a 5 day week. As well as programmes such as Shep and the Fit and Fed programme which is a day time community programme, the Youth Service will be looking to bolster what they would usually offer over the summer but there is also additional open access provision which will carry on throughout the year. There are additional nights and different offers; there will be a flexible use of the outreach and street based teams and the Youth Service bus. Increased Welsh and Digital Youth provision will be accelerated. 

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Members noted the Universal Response during the short term, but queried the whether the additional funding would stretch beyond the 9 – 12 months if the needs are more deep rooted.  The Leader referred to the increased budget for Youth Services within the base and within the FRM.  The data from the summer programme will be analysed and monitored.  The capacity and willingness to do that is there.  The report is clear that Youth Services are being reviewed which will play into the review of next year’s budget.

Members noted that whilst the offer over the summer is universal; it is important to make sure that those harder to reach groups access the provision.  

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Members discussed the need for there to be flexibility around the needs of children and young people bearing in mind the impact of the pandemic will have affected them and their families differently.

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Members discussed to the importance of programmes being able to ensure our children understand how democracy works and how to make their voices heard in a political field and advocate for causes they believe in. 

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Members discussed a recent comment that young people doing drugs in Cardiff is normal and hoped that the new provision will  engage children more positively.  Members were advised that whilst drugs were more common than they should be, it should not mean that that is or should be normal.  There has been increased funding from the budget for the Youth Service; the current review off that service will be taken into account when arguing where funding is to be allocated.

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Members queried the  proportion of the projects referred to in the report which are not funded and what is the risk of them falling by the way side in terms of the current conversations ongoing with Welsh Government (WG).  Members were advised that Officers had been asked with ensuring that commitments made in the report were covered within the budgetary framework.  Members were advised that there has been an alteration today on one specific point, it relates to the grades being determined by schools; schools are currently going through a process of centre determined grades, once those grades are awarded the children can appeal.  The usual round of resits has not been built into the system so are waiting for advice from WG on how those young people, who do not achieve the results they would have hoped to achieved had it not been for the pandemic, are then able to address that gap.  

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Members asked whether there is a higher number of pupils presenting with wellbeing issues, anxiety and depression within schools and if so whether school based counselling will be expanded and will that be offered during the summer if required.  Officers advised that a universal tool is being looked which can identify the wellbeing of children and can feed into programmes within school.  Equally, consideration is being given to extending school based counselling provision and it will be available through the summer as part of the Shep programme. There will also be targeted additional mentoring. 

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Members were advised that there has been a significant increase in the number of children being admitted to hospital as a result suicide attempts and serious self-harm. There were a cluster of children approximately 5 or 6 weeks ago coming through the MASH and on contacting the hospitals were made aware that there were at least 9 – 13 children in paediatric wards at any one time.  Sadly there has been 2 suicides in Cardiff over the last 2 months and we do have a cohort of young people who are attempting suicide and serious self-harm attempts.  Meetings have been taking place with Health and Education about monitoring this small cohort of young people.  There is a lack of specialist resource in Wales to support these young people; this issue has been raised with WG.  This is going to get worse before it gets better.  In the longer term it is hoped to have joint commissioning, but in the medium term there needs to be wrap around service and through the Regional Safeguarding Board a refreshed strategy is being drafted in relation to self-harm and suicide prevention.

Members sought clarification in relation to the evidence officers have about the challenges facing schools in reaching their hardest to reach pupils and are there some schools facing a much stiffer challenge than others and is there sufficient capacity in the system to ensure the problem does not become deep seated?  The Assistant Director advised that there is big issue about the re-engagement of all pupils, not just hard to reach pupils.  Education and Children’s Services have worked very closely together to develop the vulnerable learner panel and identify early who those pupils and young people are to ensure that there is appropriate support around that. There are currently still 100 on that panel with whom support is continuing.  Some of the targeted provision in schools looks not just the vulnerable young people but also those with vulnerable families.  Focussed work has also been done with EOTAS pupils.

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Members queried whether schools attendance figures have

returned to normal and were advised that attendance figures have increased since Easter.  It is difficult to continue to track and in relation to reengagement issues there are no penalty notices in place at the moment and no way of enforcing that issue at the moment.  That issue is to be looked at by WG in the return to more normality from September.

It was noted that attendance is also being monitored closely with the Education Welfare service; figures as recently as this week have come through – it is steadily improving  It is being discussed on a fortnightly basis to track how levels are improving; there will still be some challenges whilst parents still have some discretion. 

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With reference to the school leavers in 2021 Members queried at what point will the data that will be useful to the service to intervene in particular ways be available.  Officers advised that the latest VAP to identify vulnerabilities has just been completed.  Schools will RAG their most vulnerable pupils for additional mentoring support.  There is a range of vulnerabilities that are considered.  Some will be more challenging this year.  This year there is an ability to link with the Youth Justice Service.  Year 11 destinations meeting have just started looking at those EOTAS pupils, they have their own specialised VAP which meets fortnightly with a range of professionals. 

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Members were also advised that there has also been some additional funding, details of which will be provided to Secondary Heads on Thursday, to look at the spend in terms of transition, particularly of Year 11 and 12 pupils to go on to either college or sixth forms. 

Members were pleased to see the joint working between the Directorates, particularly within Education and Children’s Services.