The Group Manager – Placement and Provider Services presented a report on the revised statements of purpose for the current children and young people’s residential services provision in Bridgend County Borough Council.

He explained that Bridgend County Borough Council currently has four children’s residential homes delivering services to children and young people aged 0-19 years:

• Maple Tree House provides a service for children and young people aged 8- 18 years who require a period of assessment to establish a long term placement plan. The assessment period is 6 months. Maple Tree house also has two emergency beds which provide accommodation for up to 28 days.

• Sunny Bank provides a medium term to long term service for children and young people aged 8-18 years who display complex needs and have been assessed as requiring a residential placement.

• Bakers Way provides a short break service to disabled children and young people aged 0-18 years. Page 43 Agenda Item 5

• Harwood House provides a medium to long term 52 week residential service for up to three children and young people aged 8 – 18 years with complex needs, including a learning disability. However continuing provision will be considered for young people aged up to 19 years who continue in educational placements.

The Group Manager – Placement and Provider Services explained that in the Autumn of 2018 all of our services were registered to meet the requirements of the new legislation. Each in-house service provision has its own statement of purpose which is attached as an Appendix as follows:

Appendix 1 – Bakers Way

Appendix 2 – Harwood House

Appendix 3 – Sunny Bank

Appendix 4 – Maple Tree House

In line with Regulations the Statements of Purpose have now been subjected to their annual review. Changes to the statement were listed at 4.4 of the report.

The Leader welcomed the report and stated that the statements of purpose were an everchanging document that reflected the needs of the children and young people that were living at these facilities. He was pleased to welcome the change of age that a resident can stay in Sunny Bank to 7 days after their 18th birthday but that did not mean that support would stop after this time as support packages were put in place once that person moved on. 

The Group Manager – Placement and Provider Services highlighted that all children from 16 years old who are residents at one of the homes, will have a plan put in place for them so that they were prepared for their departure. They had an advisor assigned to them which was available past the age of 18 and up to the age of 25, giving them as much support as possible and said that it was important that care experienced children did not experience homelessness. The Leader stressed the importance of this as the children in care were the most vulnerable of children and support was very important for when they leave.

The Deputy Leader asked what the staffing situation was like in the service area and what work was being done around ensuring the service continuity. The Group Manager – Placement and Provider Services explained that the situation surrounding staffing was much improved in recent months. Aside from staffing illness, there was currently full staff at Sunny Bank as well as Maple Tree House, with 2 vacancies at Harwood House at a senior level that were due to be filled shortly. He added that there was a number of vacancies at Bakers Way for some time, however 3 of those posts had recently been filled.

The Cabinet Member Communities asked in relation to the part time posts that had been vacant for some time, had this limited a potential candidate from filling the posts due to it not being full time and had it been considered to merge the posts into 1 full time post. The Group Manager – Placement and Provider Services explained that while ordinarily a full time position would be more beneficial, due to the situation surrounding rota patterns in care homes, it was more beneficial to have higher part time posts instead. The Leader added that it was clear a lot of work had gone into discussing the rota situations and the recruitment and changes had been made which had proven beneficial.

RESOLVED: That the Committee noted the content of the report and approved the statement of purpose for each of the residential services provision.