A Break ‘Silver Lining Award’ is recognition for a group, individual or organisation that has achieved outstanding results* for Break Charity through key initiatives, helping the charity to #changeyounglives. This year is the first of these awards, sponsored by Aspiration Europe and Smith & Pinching, in conjunction with Ruth Elizabeth Events. The 'Silver Lining Awards' will be presented to the winners at a special 'Silver Lining Gala Evening' on Friday 14 October at Sprowston Manor, Norwich. The award categories and finalists are as follows: 1. Fundraising ‘Team of the Year’ Awarded to a group of people, of three or more, who have gone the extra mile to support Break Charity. This category is not judged purely on income raised. The judges will use the following criteria to judge this category:
Alan Boswell Arnolds Keys Colemans Opticians Leathes Prior Scouts The Cottage Hair & Beauty 2. Award for Innovation Awarded to a group, individual or organisation that has implemented a new initiative that has helped to promote the charity’s work, added value and profile of a shared event or helped to raise funds. The judges will use the following criteria to judge this category:
Archant Chapelfield Dipples Forum Jarrolds Longwater Construction Stephen Bourne (Mill House) Riverside 3. Corporate Partner of the Year Awarded for an outstanding partnership between a business and Break Charity, working together across a broad range of initiatives over a period of time. The judges will use the following criteria to judge this category:
Aspiration Europe Adrian Flux Almary Green Brandbank Ridgeons Shredstation The Beeston Group: Tim Haye 4. Silver Lining Long Term Supporter Award Awarded to a group, individual or organisation that has supported Break for a period of more than five years; making a significant input into the charity in general and the fundraising team specifically to enable growth and sustainability Nominees: Bawburgh Golf Club/Barnard Charity Golf Day Clapham and Collinge Dipple & Conway Prospect Handling Ribs of Beef Stody Estate For more information please contact Sarah Bunn on 07826 893368 or emailsarah.bunn@break-charity.org Tables for this Gala Evening, hosted by Break Patron, Jake Humphrey, are £475 per table to include a wonderful three-course dinner,and dancing to Atomic. To book a table please click here or call 01603 670109 or email ruth.lowe@break-charity.org *Results are calculated as a combination of fundraised income and non-financial input from companies into Break (gifts in kind, volunteers and support at events), in the period of January 2015 to April 2016 (Long Term Supporter category is calculated from April 2011 to April 2016). Consideration has also been given to the size of the company in relation to the amount of support given. The judging panel is made up of a cross section of representatives from Break, including young people we work with. Source: http://break-charity.org The Alliance for Children in Care and Care Leavers is recommending a child-centred outcomes framework to promote children’s emotional wellbeing and their recovery from traumatic past experiences. We’ve published a new report on why this should happen and put forward some recommendations for Government. You can also read the Alliance’s A New Vision here. If you’ve been keeping up with our blogs, you’ll be aware that the vast majority of children who come into care have had to deal with neglect or abuse, as well as feelings of loss after being separated from relatives and friends. Unsurprisingly, these experiences can have a profound impact upon children’s healthy development, their relationships with others, their behaviour, and their ability to keep safe. They are also at increased risk of developing a mental health difficulty. Yet we are still not effectively supporting children to recover from the abuse and neglect they should never have had to suffer. For care to be the best it can possibly be, children must be helped to make sense of and move forward from such adverse experiences. This can be achieved through loving day-to-day emotional support with the help of specialist mental health services if needed. But how can we know if we’re doing right by the children in our care? How can we know if any changes have the desired effect? Measuring emotional wellbeing One solution is to start measuring looked after children and care leavers’ emotional wellbeing. This isn’t required at the moment, so we can’t answer the question, how good is care? We don’t know whether care in one local area is better than in others, or who’s doing a really good job and so could share great practice. By asking children and young people how they are feeling about the care they are receiving and making sure carers and social workers have a say about this too, we would have a way of assessing good quality care. It would also enable us to swiftly recognise when the care children are receiving needs to improve. What do we actually measure now? Mental health difficulties through the SDQ: At the moment, local authorities use the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) as a measure for emotional and behavioural health, primarily for children between the ages of 4 and 17. Results are included in national data collection. Questions that need to be answered as ‘Not True’, ‘Somewhat True’ and ‘Certainly True’ include:
Furthermore, the way in which it is used means the information it provides is not acted upon effectively. It is often not analysed, either for the benefit of the individual child or to create a picture of the needs of children in care in the local area as a whole. Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) do not always receive SDQ results, preventing an effective response to looked after children’s mental health needs. What do we need to measure? Wellbeing measures are not currently being captured by national datasets, which of course shape and influence the policies which are designed to protect and nurture them. And they are vital because they tell us about children’s own experiences of being in care, and how they are feeling. There are brilliant wellbeing measures available, such as the Outcome Rating Scale. This clinically validated tool measures children’s self-reported wellbeing, asking children to rate their own individual, interpersonal, social and overall wellbeing. What needs to change? The Government should:
Source: https://www.actionforchildren.org.uk Over the past 18 months, NAFP has looked in detail at the way a small number of local authorities cost their own 'in-house' fostering services. It is important to understand this methodology because local authorities need to be sure that they are spending their money wisely to best meet children's needs. But it's also important because there is a widely-held belief amongst local authorities than in-house placement are 'cheaper' than external placements. That assumption alone seemingly makes it acceptable to almost always look to place a child 'in-house first' before moving on to consider options for an external placement. We found that the methodology used to calculate and compare internal costs with external costs understates back office and support costs, and these are often attributed based on seemingly arbitrary assumptions. Little account is taken of differing needs of children when calculating cost comparisons. We know that, by and large, because of the widely used 'in-house first' placement culture, children placed with foster carers from independent and voluntary sector fostering providers (IFPs) tend to have greater needs. We might expect it to cost more to care for those children. However, the very rough in-house/external comparison homogenises children and assumes they are all more or less the same. When we drilled down and looked at the costs for certain cohorts of children, we found the in-house costs to be very similar to those of IFPs. Add to this the huge health warning coming from the National Audit Office about local authorities understanding of their costs and it's not just NAFP saying this (and we will be accused of having a vested interest here, of course). The NAO also said that the huge range of in-house costs quoted by local authorities means they can't all be right. My argument is that local authorities can't be sure of their own costs so how can they use this as the key reason for placing in a child in one placement rather than another? I wrote a blog recently called 'How much cheaper is enough?'. In that I also make the case that how much cheaper would one placement have to be than another to make it the 'right' one for a child? £10/week cheaper? £100/week cheaper? £500/week cheaper? What we don't have a firm grip on, in my view, is the the significance of a 'unit cost'. For instance, if one agency pay their foster carers less, and so are 'cheaper', is that good thing or a bad thing? Foster carers, like social workers, undertake their role for largely altruistic reasons. But, like the rest of us, they also need to pay their bills and feel valued. Paying them more may not make them better, but paying them less could undervalue them and risk losing them. And what of quality? What of outcomes? We live a world of hugely bureaucratic commissioning and procurement (only for external services; in-house services are the automatic 'preferred provider' without any procurement) that sees its role as getting unit cost down and prioritising those placements that have the cheapest weekly unit cost. In my view, we serve children best by finding the right and best placement for them. And, in the long run, that is how we provide best value for the public purse. So, yes, in this time of swingeing cuts to local authority budgets, let's understand costs, but it's only relevant when we understand how spending that money benefits an individual child. In my opinion, the kind of rough cost estimate that we use now is not about meeting children's needs or finding the best value. In my view, it's probably about an adult pre-conceived loyalty to a particular form of service delivery. And I understand that. But my pitch is that we start to make placement decisions that prioritise children's needs, based on much better data and information. I'm up for being a part of that movement. Source: http://www.nafp.co.uk We’re pleased to announce that Community Foster Care and Community Family Care have joined forces with five other organisations to develop a wraparound service to meet the needs of the most vulnerable people in society. Our partner agencies are Toucan, Young Gloucestershire, Gloucestershire Counselling Service, Fair Shares and Open House. Together we can offer a host of services such as family therapy, counselling, fostering, housing expertise, and education services. The aim is to identify the needs of our clients in a holistic way, and provide a bespoke service which suits the needs of the individual, rather than the service-provider. It’s about breaking down barriers and developing trust and makes Community Foster Care unique in fostering terms. Source: http://www.communityfostercare.co.uk |
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