Professional

Background information

The focus of our joint inspection - children and young people subject to compulsory orders and living at home with their parents

Over the past four years, the Care Inspectorate and scrutiny partners have undertaken 14 joint inspections of services for children and young people at risk of harm. We will shortly be publishing an overview report. Aside from joint inspections, we also undertook a series of thematic reviews on specific topics including secure care; cross border placements; services for disabled children and young people and services for care experienced young people.

The last time that we carried out joint inspections of services for children who are looked after was between 2018 and 2020, in our joint inspections of services for children in need of care and protection. In our overview report we noted that:

Children and young people subject to compulsory supervision orders and living at home with parents experienced the least improvement in their wellbeing, when compared to children looked after away from home in kinship, foster or residential care.

Partnerships struggled to find the evidence to demonstrate tangible improvements in the wellbeing of looked after children and young people and in understanding performance trends concerning different looked after groups.

There had been some progress in narrowing the educational attainment gap between looked after children and their peers, however, it remained too great.

Not all care experienced children and young people had the same opportunities to share their views and meaningfully influence service delivery.

The collaborative leadership of child protection was much more robust and embedded than that for corporate parenting.

There are also a range of other evidence sources that indicate there is a need for further exploration of the impact of services for children and young people subject to compulsory supervision orders and living at home with parents. In particular, Scottish Government’s publication: “Educational Outcomes for looked after children 2022/23” evidences lower school attendance rates, higher school exclusion rates, lower positive destination rates and poorer attainment rates for children looked after at home, when compared to the wider group of looked after children.

By considering the experiences of children who are subject to compulsory supervision orders and living at home with their parents, we aim to better understand what is helping to improve outcomes for children and young people and what is getting in the way.

Our three key lines of enquiry are:

Children and young people are well supported to live with their families. This support helps to keep them safe, overcome difficulties and makes a positive difference in their lives.
The services children and young people receive are well planned and delivered in a way which is compassionate and by staff who put children and young people at the heart of decision-making. People in the workforce ensure that children, young people and parents are meaningfully listened to, heard and included.
Leaders and managers work well together to create and maintain a joined-up system of care which delivers the right services to each child at the right time. This provides children and young people, their parents and the workforce with help, support and accountability.

The activities that we will undertake

During the inspection, a team of inspectors from the Care Inspectorate, Education Scotland, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary Scotland and Health Improvement Scotland will:

speak with the staff
speak with children and young people and listen to their views
speak with parents and carers
read information about the children and young people.

This gives us the chance to find out if children, young people and their families are getting the help that they need and if services are making a difference to their lives. What individual people tell us during inspection is confidential. Our reports do not include any information about them or their family, or anything that could identify them. However, we do have a duty to pass on information if there are concerns about someone’s safety.

Surveys – we have surveys for children, young people and families and we use and safeguard the data gathered from these in the same way as we do with what you tell us in person. Our approach to participation during inspection reflects the importance we give to hearing from children and young people. We also have a staff survey which also enables us to maximise the feedback we get from those working across services.

After our inspection, we publish a report on our website about what we found for the area. Our inspection reports set out what works well and what could improve. We expect the community planning partnership to take action on any recommendations we make for improvements.

What will we look at on inspection

Our three key lines of enquiry are:

Children and young people are well supported to live with their families. This support helps to keep them safe, overcome difficulties and makes a positive difference in their lives.
The services children and young people receive are well planned and delivered in a way which is compassionate and by staff who put children and young people at the heart of decision-making. People in the workforce ensure that children, young people and parents are meaningfully listened to, heard and included.
Leaders and managers work well together to create and maintain a joined-up system of care which delivers the right services to each child at the right time. This provides children and young people, their parents and the workforce with help, support and accountability.

In our inspection report we will consider these three key lines of enquiry. We will evaluate four quality indicators from our quality framework using the six-point scale. These are:

Quality indicator 2.1: Impact on children and young people
Quality indicator 5.3: Care planning, managing risk and effective intervention
Quality indicator 5.4: Involving individual children, young people and families
Quality indicator 9.2: Leadership of strategy and direction

Children and young people have told us about the importance of being able to experience sincere human contact and enduring relationships.  Our approach therefore looks carefully at how well services and systems are organised so that children and young people can experience continuity in their care and develop and sustain lasting relationships. Our inspections also consider whether legal measures are being used appropriately to achieve security and stability for children.

Staff who are well trained and who feel valued and empowered, are more likely to be able to provide high quality services for children and young people. We therefore explore how well staff are supported to carry out their task. Our joint inspections will look at the services provided for them by health workers (for example school nurses, health visitors and doctors), social workers, police officers and lots of other people who work with them and their families.

We know that partners recognise that assessment and planning are critical to ensure the safety of, and improving outcomes for, children and young people. However, we also know that performance in assessment and planning is not as consistently strong across the country as it needs to be. We will look to see if robust quality assurance and high-quality reflective supervision are in place to support these important processes.

Strong collaborative leadership is essential and challenging in the context of providing high quality public services in an integrated landscape. We consider the effectiveness of leadership and how well leaders can demonstrate what difference they are making to the lives of children and young people.

How long these inspections will last

Our inspections last for a number of months. We collect information about the area before we visit it. This helps us to understand what happens there and what is affecting the way that services are being provided inspection timeline

Preparation (weeks 1-4)

Week 1 - notification
Week 2 - meet coordinator and participation lead
Week 3 - submission of pre-inspection return
Week 4 - submission of document return
Week 4 - arrange and open surveys

Gather and analyse evidence (weeks 5-10)

Week 5 - professional discussion 1
Weeks 4-8 - children and young people, and parents and carers' surveys
Weeks 4-7 - staff survey
Week 6 - inspection team analyse written evidence
Week 8 - review of childrens records

Onsite acticity and final analysis (weeks 11-14)

Week 11 - professional discussion 2
Week 12 - onsite engagement with staff, children, young people and famileis
Week 13 - inspection team final anaysis

Reporting and publication (weeks 15-21)

Week 15 - professional discussion 3
Week 17 - quality and consistency panel
Week 17 - partnership recieve first draft of report
Week 20 - partnership receives embargoed report
Week 21 - report publication and video publication
After week 21 - post-inspection follow up

Information for staff

One of the foundations of the Promise is about supporting families to stay together and emphasis is placed on the importance of providing timely support to ensure children can stay in their families wherever it is safe to do so. By considering the experiences of children who are subject to compulsory supervision orders and living at home with their parents, we aim to better understand what is helping to improve outcomes for children and young people and what is getting in the way.