The role of Corporate Parents has long been recognised, and The Children and Social Work Act 2017 states that when the authority becomes a corporate parent, they must encourage looked after children to express their views, wishes and feelings, and take them into account, while promoting high aspirations and trying to secure the best outcomes for them.
The term has recently been back in the press as the Welsh Government launched its Corporate Parenting Charter, which aims to ensure that care-experienced children have access to the same opportunities as other children living in Wales.
The charter lays out promises for corporate parents when supporting looked after children, including:
- We will take time to listen to all care-experienced children and young people and ensure their views, wishes and feelings are heard and actively considered in all decisions made about them.
- We will involve all experienced children and young people in decisions that are made about them.
- We will keep all care experienced children and young people informed about our involvement with them and explain our actions to them.
- We will work with all care-experienced children and young people to help them achieve their goals.
As Corporate Parents, it has never been more important to evidence that you have listened to children and young people by documenting their thoughts and feelings throughout their care journey. That’s exactly why we developed our new and improved Kids App, which gives looked after children and young people a new way to use their voices!
Giving Looked After Children and Young People a New Way to Engage With Their Care
Through the app, young people can provide feedback on their care delivery, communicate with staff, ask questions, and even earn rewards for contributing. By providing a platform for all of this and more, the Kids App makes young people feel heard by giving them more input when it comes to their care, and more control over their own destiny.
Young people can also post feedback about any area of their care where they wish to contribute. This could include commenting on a procedure, asking a question, talking about a bad day or just requesting something simple like a trip to the shops for some new school essentials.
In some cases, a young person may find it difficult to communicate in-person with staff – whether it’s down to anxiety, lack of confidence or simple difficulty in finding the right words. Communicating via the Kids app gives young people the time and space to collect their thoughts and to articulate them the way they want to, without feeling pressure to explain themselves or worry about who else might be listening.
When a young person engages with the Kids App, this information is automatically stored within the Clearcare system, and notifies you of all comments, ensuring nothing is missed.
Better Monitor Outcomes and Evidence Care
Accurate information gathering and reporting is essential for regulatory compliance. Our unified approach to case management helps to standardise the recording of actions or incidents, which makes it easier to comply with statutory regulations and children’s care quality standards.
Clearcare’s social care software has a reporting system, making it easier to study behaviour patterns, identify trends and trace incidents. The information is presented in graphs, tables or lists offering a clear overview of a particular situation, for example school attendance.
Outcomes tools such as HoNOSCA and the Outcomes Star also measure and support young people’s well-being and their progress towards goals.
Providing a Greater Sense of Stability
Through the Kids App, the rota functionality empowers looked after children with the ability to view staff shift rotations. Knowing which staff they might expect in their home on any given day provides a greater sense of predictability and structure, making them feel more secure in their environment. If, for example, a young person feels most comfortable confiding in one particular staff member, the ability to see when they are next on shift can do a lot to ease anxiety.
Bespoke Software That Adapts to Your Regulatory Body
With customers across the UK, our bespoke software is easily adapted for your regulatory body, including Ofsted, Care Inspectorate Wales, Care Inspectorate Scotland, and TUSLA.