The Corporate Parenting Panel of Durham County Council were scheduled to meet on Friday 17 October 2025 to discuss Ofsted updates, the Children in Care Council, the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board Children in Care Annual Report, the Full Circle Annual Performance Report, the Fostering Annual Update, and the Private Fostering Annual Update. Also on the agenda was a discussion of Regulation 44 visits to Aycliffe Secure Centre and Maple House, but this discussion was scheduled to take place with the exclusion of the public and press.

Ofsted Inspection

The panel were scheduled to receive a verbal update from the Head of Children's Social Care and Interim Head of Strategy, Assurance and Specialist Service on Ofsted. They were also due to discuss a report from Rachel Farnham, Head of Children's Social Care, Durham County Council, on the 'Inspecting Local Authority Children's Services (ILACS)' short inspection.

The ILACS framework focuses on the effectiveness of local authority services and arrangements:

a) to help and protect children, and enable families to stay together and get the help they need,

b) the experiences and progress of children in care wherever they live, including those children who return home,

c) the arrangements for permanence for children who are looked after, in stable, loving homes, including adoption; and

d) the experiences and progress of care leavers.

Item 5b - ILACS - Report

Inspectors judged the impact of leaders on social work practice with children and families to be outstanding. The experiences and progress of children who need help and protection was judged to be good, and the experiences and progress of children in care and care leavers was judged to be outstanding. Inspectors identified two areas for improvement, relating to contingency planning in child-in-need and child protection plans, and the inclusion of children's needs as young carers in child-in-need and child protection plans.

Children in Care Council (CiCC)

The agenda included a presentation by young people from the Children in Care Council (CiCC) on their work. The CiCC representatives, Cory and Louie, and Robert Johnson from Investing in Children, were scheduled to provide an update on the CiCC session supporting the Next Steps team, and fun and educational summer activities. The Next Steps team supports young people aged 16-18 preparing to leave care. In August, seven CiCC members developed and delivered a training session for the team, which focused on the challenges of trust for care-experienced young people, and ways for the team to build trusting relationships with young people. Four CiCC members also participated in the interview selection process for eight Social Work Trainee positions with Durham County Council.

North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (NENC ICB) Children in Care Annual Report

The panel were scheduled to discuss the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (NENC ICB) Children in Care Annual Report. The report was prepared by Karen Watson, Designated Nurse Safeguarding and Children in Care, NENC ICB, and Jo McCarthy, Deputy Designated Nurse Children and Children in Care. The purpose of the report was to provide an overview of the NENC ICB's response to statutory responsibilities for Children in Care, and to set out the NENC ICB's achievements for 2024-2025 and the priorities for 2025–2026 for Children in Care. The NENC ICB is the Responsible Commissioner for health services provided to NENC Children in Care, and the ICB's role is to meet the health needs of Children in Care and Care Leavers. At the time of reporting NENC had 592,017 children within its footprint, 6719 children are in care and 4589 young people have left care aged 18-25. There has been a continued increase in numbers of unaccompanied young people since 2022 when the national transfer scheme became mandated, and these young people often have complex unmet health needs. Key achievements of the ICB include the development of a CiC and Care Leavers Benchmarking Tool to identify and reduce unwarranted variation across the NENC footprint, and facilitation and leadership of a Care Leavers Conference across a week, in conjunction with the regional Children in Care Council, to share best practice across the region. Priorities for 2025 2026 include supporting ICB colleagues in the development of a trauma informed safeguarding and children in care workforce, and working with ICB commissioners to map NHS mental health provision for CiC and Care Leavers across the NENC footprint.

Full Circle Annual Performance Report

The panel were scheduled to discuss the Full Circle Annual Performance Report 2024/2025, a report of Rachel Farnham, Head of Children's Social Care, Children and Young People's Services, Durham County Council. The report outlines the activity and development of The Full Circle Service, which is a specialised, integrated children's mental health service for children who are in our care, placed with relative carers under Special Guardianship Orders¹ and adopted children, who have experienced complex trauma through neglect and abuse. Over the past year, Full Circle has delivered direct therapeutic interventions, expanded its training and consultation offer, strengthened multi-agency collaboration, increased service reach, demonstrated measurable impact, responded to rising emotional wellbeing concerns, enhanced income generation, celebrated national recognition, and maintained a strong focus on service development. In 2024–25, 610 referrals were received, up from 588 the previous year, and 99% of children showed improved Children's Global Assessment Scale (CGAS) scores, indicating enhanced psychological and social functioning. The Full Circle service is integrated with CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service), and the Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Clinical Psychologist and Clinical Nurse Specialist are all employed through TEWV (Tees, Esk and Wear Valley) NHS Trust, with their posts in Full Circle funded by the Local Authority. The Full Circle and Virtual School have continued to collaborate to extend the Service Level Agreement (SLA) aiming to improve the educational outcomes for children who are looked after.

Fostering Service Annual Report

The panel were scheduled to discuss the Fostering Service Annual Report 2024/2025, a report of Rachel Farnham, Head of Children's Social Care, Children and Young People's Services, Durham County Council. The annual report serves as a comprehensive, strategic communication tool providing stakeholders with a clear overview of the Fostering Services performance over the past year. The report provides a summary of the fostering care offers, showing the usage of inhouse foster carers and increasing numbers of family and friends' carers, as well as the use and management of independent fostering agencies, to support children in our care. The report gives an overview of recruitment and retention activity, including Durham's partnership with Fostering with North East, as well as highlighting national and regional trends. The report details Durham's commitment to the support and retention of foster carers, strengthened by the Durham Cares Board project. The report provides an update on progress against key priorities of 2024/2025 and highlights key priorities for 2025/2026. Durham's Fostering Service continues to deliver high-quality, child-centred care through a robust framework of statutory compliance, carer support, and strategic development. A strong emphasis on collaborative working with foster carers and care-experienced young people has informed purposeful service delivery, and their lived experiences have directly shaped service delivery, support structures, and service development. The report details progress against the service's strategic priorities and national trends, highlighting successes such as the strengthened commitment to permanence for children in our care and the development of a comprehensive retention offer for foster carers. Areas for further development are also identified, including targeted recruitment and the expansion of support through the local offer, delivered in partnership with the Durham Cares Board.

Private Fostering Annual Report

The panel were scheduled to discuss the Private Fostering Annual Report 2024/25, a report of John Pearce, Corporate Director of Children and Young People's Services, Durham County Council. Private Fostering is an arrangement that occurs when a child under the age of 16 (or 18 if disabled) is cared for by someone other than their parent or a close relative for 28 consecutive days or more. At the end of March 2025, there were eight children and young people living in Private Fostering arrangements, which is two less than the previous year. However, 20 Private Fostering arrangements commenced during the year and 21 arrangements ended, which is the largest increase in a year. All children and young people subject to Private Fostering arrangements have been visited by their Social Worker and had an assessment completed of the suitability of their arrangements and their carers. All Privately fostering files have been audited twice this year by the Service Manager and Strategic Manager. An awareness raising campaign across the partnership and for the public has been implemented over the last year with the DSCP². Public information leaflets have been updated and briefing sessions have been held for partners and Social Workers. Meetings have been held with some Private Schools to continue to raise awareness and maintain relationships.