Agenda item

The Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Children's Services and Neighbourhood Working and the Joint Assistant Director, Commissioning, Performance and Inclusion attended the meeting to provide a summary of the impact that the  Pause Rotherham Practice, a project that worked with women who had experienced, or were at risk of, repeat removals of children from their care, had had on its first cohort of women since its launch in July 2018. 

It was noted that the Rotherham Pause Practice had been recognised by the national team as delivering good practice.  The report noted that women from the current cohort had achieved many positive outcomes as a result of the assertive intervention of the Rotherham Pause Practice in areas such as debt management, dealing with housing issues, registering with a GP, ending abusive relationships, re-establishing contact with children, making new friends and completing college and university courses.

The Joint Assistant Director provided information about some of significant achievements made by the women who had participated in the project, including:

·       One woman has had just completed her first semester at University, where she was studying for a BA in Zoology.

·       One woman had obtained 9 GCSE’s and a Level 3 in Health and Social Care; and was being supported by Pause to explore Open University options.

The report stated that 39% of the women in the cohort were moving forward in their lives by gaining new skills and employment opportunities. It was noted that these outcomes were particularly positive in the context of the distance travelled from the point at which the women on the project engaged with the programme until graduation.

The Joint Assistant Director provided information on the financial impact of the project, noting that due to the nature of the project in influencing the potential future behaviour of the participants, the financial impact of the project had been measured in terms of cost avoidance. The Joint Assistant Director advised that the cost avoidance associated with 20 women on the programme taking a pause from pregnancy and the associated avoided births showed that the immediate avoidance would be £1,292,599 with the potential for avoiding £2,088,480 over a five-year period – of which £1,631,683 would be cashable cost avoidance.

Members welcomed the positive outcomes that the project had made on the women who had participated in helping them move forward with their lives and noted their satisfaction that the project would continue in Rotherham with a second cohort of women.

Members expressed their appreciation and thanks to Lindsey Knight, Pause Project Lead who was leaving her job supporting the project for all the work that she had put into making Pause in Rotherham such a success and wished her success in her new role at the Council.

The Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Children's Services and Neighbourhood Working noted his agreement with the comments of members and thanked members of the Improving Lives Select Commission for their support of the project from the outset and the role that they had played in getting others to see it’s benefits in order enable the initial implementation of the project to happen

The Vice-Chair, on behalf of the committee thanked the Deputy Leader and the Joint Assistant Director, Commissioning, Performance and Inclusion for attending the meeting answering their questions

Resolved: -

(1)  That the report on the impact of Pause Rotherham since its launch in July 2018 be noted.

(2)  That a further report on the impact of Pause Rotherham be brought to the Improving Lives Select Commission after May 2021.