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Contents

1. Care Planning Panel
2. Membership of the Panel
3. Threshold for Access to the Looked After System
4. Specific Duties in Relation to Looked After Children
5. Cases that Need to Come to the Panel
6. Booking a Slot at the Panel
7. Who Should Attend
8. Decisions

1. Care Planning Panel

The Lewisham Care Planning Panel will meet weekly with the aim of aligning decision making processes for children with complex needs, promoting a preventative approach enabling more children and young people to remain living at home or in their local community, and ensuring that their needs are met as early as possible across all agencies.

The panel will begin by reviewing all the current Looked After Children to ensure that their placements are meeting their needs and are providing value for money.  It will also be the forum where new requests that children should become Looked After should be brought. 

All allocations of service provision will be reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that desired outcomes are being met. Children Service commissioners will form part of the Panel.

The Panel will also want to look at all requests for placement moves before they happen to look at means of keeping children in their current placements where this is appropriate, including the usage of support packages.

The Lewisham Care Planning Panel will play a critical role for children services in the management of its Looked After population by:

• Managing the threshold for access to the Looked After System and providing alternatives to becoming Looked After
• Agreeing funding and monitoring resource intensive or preventative strategies in relation to value for money principles
• Monitoring exit and transition strategies
• Monitoring areas in which clarity and/or risk sharing is required in child care planning
• Reviewing all current placements

2. Membership of the Panel

• Chair - Director of Children's Social Care
• Service Manager for Quality Assurance (vice- chair)
• A representative from the Placement and Procurement Service
• A representative of the Fostering Service
• Children's Service commissioners
• Health representatives
• Education representatives
• Other members will be invited where appropriate.  Other members of the Panel may join at later dates.

3. Threshold for Access to the Looked After System

The Panel will ensure a  consistent approach to managing the number of children who access the Looked After System. For the Threshold for access to the Looked After system to be met, the Panel must consider:

• The proposed plan will bring substantial benefits to the child's long-term well being in terms of health, development and education achievements
• All potential alternative placements within the family have been considered and found to be unsuitable
• The partnership route for the provisional service has been exhausted
• The legal threshold for significant harm is met (care proceedings only)

N.B. clearly where there is immediate substantial risk to life or limb, there will be no delay in proceedings through this criteria.

4. Specific Duties in Relation to Looked After Children

• Every effort will be made to provide services that will enable children and young people to remain within their own family or community
• Service will be provided in a planned way responding to individual needs with identified outcomes and not constrained by the type of services which are easily available and include economic well-being
• The Panel will ensure that before a decision is made about a child or young person who is being looked after, or in the process of being looked after; that so far as it is reasonably practical, the wishes of the child or young person, his/her parents, anyone who is not his/her parents, who has Parental Responsibility for him/her and anyone else whose wishes are within the local authority that are considered to be relevant have been ascertained on the issues to be decided

5. Cases that Need to Come to the Panel

• Where an assessment identifies that a child or a young person's needs may require full-time looked after placement or a residential school placement
• Where an assessment identified that a child or a young person's needs may require crisis intervention to avert the accommodation and to use legal proceedings as a last resort
• Cases that require a care package, including contact with a cost of over £500.00 per week
• Children requiring CAMHS Tier 4 services
• Children with complex health needs who also use children's social care services

6. Booking a Slot at the Panel

• To book at the Panel, you will need, at the first instance, to complete a referral form and email this to the Panel administrator (Vinicia.Bellamy@lewisham.gov.uk) and an appointment will be sent to you via email.  If you have any queries in regards to appointments, please phone Vinicia Bellamy.
• All application forms must be agreed and dated by social worker and team manager/head of service.
• Request for consideration of legal proceedings must be agreed by a Service Manager.

At the time of bookings, you will be asked to email:

• the referral form
• a copy of the Core Assessment (It is not expected that any child will become looked after unless a core assessment has been completed)
• A copy of the PIR for when a child has had to be accommodated in an emergency
• A copy of the last Looked After Statutory Review and Looked After child Care Plan, if the child is already a looked after child

Where a specialist placement is being requested, the information provided must include evidence that:

• Those with Parental Responsibility and key partners in other agencies, particular health and education have been consulted
• This could include social, racial, emotional cultural health and education needs for the child will be met
• There is a clear plan of identified tasks which could include planning to return the child or young person to the their home, or for children in residential placements, to a foster home (an exit strategy)
• The child's wishes have been included and assessed
• Arrangements for contact have been agreed
• The proposed placement is the best option to meet the child or young person's needs at this time
• Where the needs indicate an extension or change to an established placement, a report from the provider should be made available

7. Who Should Attend

The allocated professional who has completed the application form should attend the Panel.  His/her team manager may also accompany but this is not mandatory.

On occasions, other people may be invited to attend the Panel for a particular discussion on a case, e.g. a representative from adult services for a particular transition package or work with parents with learning disabilities is needed

8. Decisions

Decisions should be made on the day in most cases but where this is not possible, clear timescales for decision will be made.

Decisions will be recorded on the Decision part of the application form, typed and signed by the Chair and then emailed to Panel members and social workers and others who may have attended.

The completed decision sheet should be scanned and placed on the child's record within Meridio. A note should be made on the ICS record.

Normally all service provision agreed at the Panel will be subject to review and review date will be set on the date of the decision being made.

It is the responsibility of the allocated social worker to inform the parents / carers and the young person of the decision of the Panel. Any feedback about the decision including disagreement should be discussed with the social worker's team manager and not with Panel chair or members.

End