Agenda and minutes

There were no declarations of interest.

There were no questions from members of the public and the press.

Corporate Parenting Panel (CPP)

Councillor Cusworth provided Members of the Select Commission with a written summary of the last meeting of the CPP to be circulated by email.

Health Select Commission

Cllr Evans extended an invitation to members of the Committee to attend the next meeting of Health Select Commission on November 30^th at 10.00am for the agenda item on the Carers’ Strategy to raise issues relating to young carers. Details would be circulated by email.

Resolved:-  (1)  That the minutes of the previous meeting of the Improving Lives Select Commission, held on 12^th September, 2017, be approved as a correct record for signature by the Chair subject to the following correction:

Present: Councillors Cusworth.

Resolved:- That under Section 100(A) of the Local Government Act 1972, the Public be excluded from the meeting for Minute No. 90 on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 2 of Part 1 of schedule 12(A) of such Act indicated, as now amended by the Local Government (Access to information) (Variation) Order 2006.

The Chair welcomed Jules Hillier and Ellen Marks from the Pause Project who gave a presentation outlining the work of Pause, its aims and impact. Also in attendance was the Strategic Director for Children and Young People’s Services and Acting Head of Service, Transformation Lead, Early Help and Family Engagement, who reported the outcomes of the scoping exercise undertaken in Rotherham.

The presentation referred to evidence about the number of women who have children removed from their care in a repeating pattern of care proceedings. The experience of practitioners in Rotherham indicates that this pattern of recurrent care proceedings was present locally; this has been confirmed by the scoping exercise. 

Whilst Children and Young People’s Services will intervene to protect the child and seek the best long-term outcomes, there is often little or no cohesive support for the women who are affected following the removal of a child

Pause was a national charity that supports a network of local Pause Practices across the country, working with local authorities and other agencies. Pause is a voluntary programme which works with women who have experienced - or are at risk of - repeated pregnancies that result in children needing to be removed from their care.  The programme gives women the chance to pause and take control over their lives with the aim of preventing repeated pregnancy. As a condition of beginning this voluntary programme, women agree use an effective form of reversible contraception for the 18 month duration of the intervention.

In November 2016, Cabinet asked for Pause to be commissioned to carry out a scoping exercise to provide detailed data and analysis of repeat removals of children from their mother’s care in Rotherham.  The scoping report provides robust information upon which to base decisions about how to respond locally to this issue.

Jules Hillier, Chief Executive and Ellen Marks, Director of Practice & Learning outlined the findings of an independent evaluation commissioned by the Department for Education (DfE). The remit of the evaluation was to assess the impact of programme delivery and processes across seven Pause Practices for 125 women. The findings indicated that Pause generally had a positive and significant impact on the women engaging with the project, with the analysis suggesting that Pause was extremely effective in reducing the numbers of pregnancies during the intervention.

Who are the women who work with Pause?

-       As of September 2017 167 women had completed the Pause programme and a further 173 were going through it;

-       Between 1 and 13 children removed (average 3.2);

-       Age of women: between 21 and 43 (average 31);

-       53% of women were under 20 when they had their first child.

The Pause Practitioners observed the following improvements in women participant’s lives:

-       89% of those who identified skills and employment as a goal have made progress towards this goal;

-       73% of those women with mental health problems have seen an improvement;

-       88% of those with domestic violence issues have seen an improvement in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 90.

RESOLVED:-

That a further meeting be held on Tuesday, 14^th November, 2017, commencing at 5.30 p.m.