Outcomes Tracking for Children and Young people in Care Vivianne McKay Service Delivery Manager Commissioning Vulnerable People

Background – So What? Why did we decide to measure outcomes? Who did we start with? Dedicated residential contract 1 st August, 2013 Pilot Reviewed and made amendments following feedback

Monitoring how effective services are for children in care Child/young person – via 3 key data sets: Outcomes tracker, SDQ score, education attainment and attendance Provider against service specification

Outcomes Tracked Under the every child matters outcomes: Be Healthy Staying Safe Enjoy and Achieve Making a Positive Contribution Economic Wellbeing Linked to the Providers service specification to ensure that everything the provider needs to do has a positive effect on the child/young person.

Scoring and Methodology Benchmark figureIdentifying achievement N/A This outcome is not relevant for the child – Provider must have received contact from the Child’s Social Worker that this outcome is not relevant for this child. 0 The child is currently not working on this outcome - Provider must have received approval from the Child’s Social Worker to not work on this outcome. If requested the Provider must be able to evidence this. 1Provider is fully helping and supporting the Child 2 The Child has learnt the basic skills for this outcome with the support and prompting from the Provider 3 The Child has advanced in their knowledge and skill and receives some support and prompting from the Provider 4 The Child receives minimal prompting and support from the Provider 5The Child has fully met this outcome, and is able to continue to achieve the outcome without any prompting or support from the Provider  A meeting with Child/young person, their social worker and their key worker (provider)  Child/young person gives a score  Social Worker and Key worker give a score  Agree together what the overall score is.  Opportunity for child/young person, social worker and key worker to give their comments on progress.

Stakeholders Views What has the young person said? What has the Provider said? What has the IRO said? What has the Social Worker said? What has the commissioner said? Why do they repeat most questions, nothing else to say. Want to use the tracker in their other homes – to focus the key working sessions. Difficult at first to explain to young people and their social workers, the more we have used it the better we are at explaining. We will ask what impact the tracker has had on the care plan – has it been amended Outcome statements do not always link with the scores narrative. To be able to pilot an outcomes tracker and amend as we learn has been valuable to both us and the Provider

Benefits of the Tracker  Administration process  Continuity of Care  Progress on delivering against the service specification (commissioning)  Aides discussion with key worker, social worker and cyp  Key worker can ascertain key actions to work on in next key working sessions  Social worker can measure the child/young person’s progress and can inform care plan, challenge the provider on service delivery  IRO’s will ask at Review if the tracker has made any effect on the care plan.  A ‘tool’ to monitor Provider’s service – it is an indicator of a level of performance.

Performance data

Future use of Outcomes Trackers To have an outcomes tracker for each type of service: Residential Fostering Supported accommodation The tracker will follow the child/young person to their next placement to help give the new provider an understanding of the key areas of child/young person progress

Challenges Subjective Child focused – difficult to compare like for like Triangulation of data – where to store for easy access Larger LA’s with higher volume of children in care Needs differentiation for disabled children/complex needs Outcomes achieved may not necessarily be a result of Providers input Outside influences impact on the tracker

Evolution Working together (commissioners, Providers, Social Workers and Children and young people) to:  improve the process  the format and content of the outcomes tracker  measure the providers performance  how we use the information to improve outcomes for children and young people