Devon County Council works to improve care transitions but accepts faster progress required

The council is trying to improve how it readies young people who receive some form of support from them about potential changes and challenges they might face as they turn 18.

Devon County Council has acknowledged that it needs to move faster to ensure children in its care or with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) are properly supported as they progress from children’s to adult services.
The council is trying to improve how it readies young people who receive some form of support from them about potential changes and challenges they might face as they turn 18.
Council officers told the adult health scrutiny committee that important work had been carried out, and that a relatively new team had been making vital progress, but more needed to be done faster.
“One of the key messages in the report is that we are not going as quickly as we would like, but we have had sustained progress, and ask members to bear that in mind,” said Tandra Forster, director of integrated adult social care and health.
“We are all here to try and make these transition pathways as positive as possible, whether that be into adult social care or independent living; transitions are some of the most crucial work and are a moment in young people’s lives that will set the course they take and their outcomes could be impacted depending on how a transition works.”
Chief executive Donna Manson accepted that the council had not always consulted the people most affected. “The bigger thing is that we have not been listening to young people as well as we should have been,” she said.
“It should have been embedded, but we didn’t listen to them enough. But a few days ago we sat down with some young people and listened to what it felt like to go through the system, and Tandra and I are working on a case with someone with a disability and how the transition had not worked for them.
“The voices of young people has been a massive gap, but we are improving and we now understand we need to include the voice of young people and their families even more after our talk with Ofsted this month.”
Ms Forster said the council is trying to meet children at the age of 14 to begin discussing how their support might change once they become 18, and what challenges and opportunities they need to be aware of.
She also acknowledged that Send transitions were a “significant area of spend” for the authority, with around 40 per cent of all Send budget going on its 16-25 cohort.
“Evidence also suggests that a young person that successfully transitions to adulthood costs adult services on average £200 less per week than those that do not,” she added.
Each year, the council deals with 700 youngsters who reach adulthood.
It is hoped that a single ‘roadmap’ will be developed to show young people and their families what they can expect as they move from children’s to adult services, and also ensure that the relevant teams from the council become involved earlier to that they become known to the young people they are working with.
Cllr Tracey Adams (Labour, Pinhoe & Mincinglake) said she hoped this work had already been done. “One concern to me is that it feels like something new, and I don’t know why it hasn’t been going on previously,” she said.
“What have been the blocks before to this kind of thing happening and how will they be overcome in future so that we can progress this swiftly?”
Cllr Linda Hellyer (Conservative, Bideford East) said it was a welcome start as previously young people just “suddenly got a new social worker when they turned 18”.
“It is good that this will be happening beforehand now but do we have the social workers?,” she asked.
“About 47 per cent of our children’s social workers are agency, so there is a question of stability.”
Ms Manson acknowledged that the council’s culture had been a barrier to handling transitions better, but that this had changed significantly.
“Our organisation needs to work as one, and we now do that,” she said.
She added that there was now a clearer structure around governance of children’s services and better monitoring of progress.
Cllr Richard Scott (Conservative, Exmouth) suggested the report put before the committee needed more detail about the council’s goals and how well it was working to achieve those.
“Every part of this council needs to lean in to children’s services,” he said.
“I think we are bottoming out, but I think we need an honest conversation; this is not a helpful document for scrutiny members to be able to ask sensible questions from, and so we need to think how we frame reports for this committee.”
Cllr Jess Bailey (Independent, Otter Valley) agreed the report made it difficult to scrutinise the process. “I’m happy to note the report but I would be asking for a further one to be brought back,” she said.
“It’s not clear what’s going on, and whether things like complaints are going down.”
Ms Manson emphasised the council now had a performance directorate which would look at how every department is performing.