Issue - meetings

Background:

This report provided details of the Medway Parenting Support Strategy which set out a clear vision to work in partnership with parents and carers to continue to improve experiences and outcomes for children, young people and families across Medway.  The Strategy had been developed and co-produced with parents, carers and partner organisations across Medway.  It gave a broad overview of what the Council aimed to achieve in Medway over the next ten years, based on consultations, national and local policy and national directives.

The report also stated that this Strategy would support and sit alongside the Medway Children’s Services Action Plan, the proposed Medway Early Help Strategy and other key local strategy and policy documents.

The report was considered by the Children and Young People Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 9 June 2021 and the Health and Wellbeing Board on 17 June 2021 and their comments were set out in sections 8 and 9 of the report respectively.

A Diversity Impact Assessment had been undertaken on the Strategy, details of which were set out in Appendix 2 to the report.

Reasons:

The Strategy builds upon the work and recommendations of the Early Help (Parenting) Task Group. It will help to embed a cultural change to parenting support throughout Medway for a sustained period of time and to develop a whole system approach to parenting support that underpins the delivery of positive outcomes.

The Medway Parenting Support Strategy sets out a clear vision to work in partnership with parents and carers to continue to improve experiences and outcomes for children, young people and families across Medway.  The Strategy has been developed and co-produced with parents, carers and partner organisations across Medway.  It gives a broad overview of what we aim to achieve in Medway over the next ten years, based on consultations, national and local policy and national directives.

Discussion:

The Head of Public Health Programmes introduced the Medway Parenting Support Strategy which set out a clear vision to work in partnership with parents and carers to continue to improve experiences and outcomes for children, young people and families across Medway. It had been developed and co-produced with parents, carers and partner organisations across Medway.

Members then raised a number of questions and comments, which included:

·       Stop and search – the report stated that 1230 10-17 year olds had been stopped and searched between Feb and July 2020 and it was asked if this could be broken down by ethnicity, which officers undertook to investigate.

·       Medway Oral Health Strategy – officers undertook to ensure a copy of this was sent to Members of the Committee.

·       Target dates – it was confirmed these would be inputted into the programme of work (appendix 3 to the report) and once these had been inputted, this would be shared with the Committee.

·       Persistent Absences – officers confirmed that a child was recorded as persistently absent from school if their overall absence within a year was 10% or higher. It was added that one of the strategy’s priorities was to make pathways of help and access to support clearer and easier.

·       Teenage pregnancy – officers confirmed that this was on a continuum decline and now in line with the national average but still a focus for Medway.

·       Pregnancy and alcohol – comment was made about the importance of this and how damaging it can be to very young foetus.  Officers confirmed that it was difficult to measure this amongst pregnant women as it was reliant on self-reporting but a foetal alcohol syndrome disorder partnership had been established which had developed businesses cases to improve clinical practice around diagnosis and also to do preventative and awareness raising.

·       Resourcing – concern was raised about the resourcing needs for parent support. Officers explained that during consultation and preparatory work in drafting the strategy, they had found that there was a significant amount of support available but that it lacked co-ordination and an understanding of what was on offer by practitioners and families. Therefore, the first piece of work to be done would be mapping out all support available and developing a way to raise awareness and identify any possible gaps.

·       Medway wide strategy – it was emphasised that this needed to be a Medway the place strategy, beyond Medway Council and was a ten year strategy in order to allow time for the cultural change needed.

Decision:

The Committee recommended the Medway Parenting Support Strategy to the Cabinet for approval.