BCFT Corporate Parenting Strategy 2025-2026

• To act in the best interests, and promote the physical and mental health and wellbeing of children and young people
• To encourage children and young people to express their views, wishes and feelings
• To take into account the views, wishes and feelings of children and young people
• To help children and young people gain access to, and make best use of, services provided by the local authority and its relevant partners
• To promote high aspirations, and seek to secure the best outcomes, for children and young people
• For children and young people to be safe, and for stability in their home lives, relationships and education or work
• To prepare children and young people for adulthood and independent living

Our Corporate Parenting Strategy sets out Bradford’s shared commitment across the public sector and the local community and business sectors to supporting our children in care and care leavers, the priorities that demonstrate how we will improve outcomes for and with them, and the governance arrangements which explain how we will measure success and hold ourselves collectively accountable.

Co-production and engagement have been key to the development of the strategy. At its heart is the voice of children and young people in care and leaving care who have told us what is important to them and our Promise. It has been created in partnership with organisations across the District including Bradford Children and Families Trust, the Council, West Yorkshire Police, Integrated Care Board, Health Services, and Third Sector organisations as the forerunners to the widest possible support network for our children and young people.

Our Vision

In Bradford, our vision is for each and every child in care and care leaver to experience the love and care that all good parents offer their children to support them to be themselves and achieve their potential.

We are committed to being a caring and loving corporate parent. We are ambitious for our children in care and care leavers and for their futures. We want our children and young people to be safe, happy and healthy, to grow up in stable and loving homes, to have a good education, and to be well-prepared for adult life. We want them to dream big and achieve their ambitions.

Holding this aspiration for our children has some big challenges. In Bradford, as in the rest of the country, children in
care and care leavers are at risk of poorer outcomes than their peers in many areas of their lives, including health, housing and employment. This disadvantage persists, with care experienced adults being overrepresented in many indicators of social exclusion throughout their lives.

Despite their challenges, our children in care and care leavers have many strengths and skills that we want to celebrate and enhance. However, do need the right support and nurture to deal with the losses and traumas many have
experienced.

We have a number of positives to draw on in Bradford, and we are confident that together we will achieve our vision for our children and young people. Across the Trust, Council and partner agencies, we are determined to “act as one” to improve the lived experience and life chances of our children in care and care leavers. In addition, we are immensely proud that Bradford is the UK City of Culture 2025 and of our Child Friendly Bradford initiative, both of which will be key to bringing sustained success to the District and to achieving improved outcomes for our children in care and care leavers, now and in the future.

Our aim to be an ambitious corporate parent for our children in care and care leavers is embedded within our priorities, which have been developed through:

Implementing recommendations from the National Advisor for Care Leavers and the Local Government Association Corporate Parenting Peer Review.

• Listening to what our children and young people have told us about what is important to them
• Our commitment to delivering on our Promise to our children and young people in response to what they have said we need to do differently to improve their experience of care
• Engaging with partners
• Understanding our data and evidence
• Linking with strategies and plans which impact children in care and care leavers

Priority One – For every child in care and care leaver to be safe and for us all to hold high aspirations for them to fulfil their potential.

Helping our children and young people to achieve in education and wider skills opportunities is key to enhancing their life chances. Children in care and care leavers need to feel safe and secure at home, online, in the community and at school to be able to focus on their learning and achieve their full potential.

What we will do

• Strengthen our contextual safeguarding and approach for children at risk of exploitation by developing a Risk Outside of the Home Pathway for children in care
• Use the themes from Return Interviews to understand and address the ‘push/pull’ factors that lead to children going missing from care
• Provide children in care and care leavers with the knowledge and support to be safe online
• Provide targeted support at home and at school to drive progress for children in care across all of the Key Stages and improve GCSE and other academic outcomes
• Strengthen the early identification and rapid assessment of SEND through the graduated approach to meeting needs
• Strengthen care planning at the point of children entering care or moving to different care arrangements to maximise their access to education provision
• Build capacity and culture with education providers to promote a trauma-informed and care aware approach to support children’s attendance and learning
• Develop a love of learning in children by encouraging and celebrating their participation in extra-curricular activities
• Promote a District-wide ‘Aspiration Bradford’ approach with our partners and local businesses to create opportunities for volunteering, work experience, apprenticeships and employment to support our children and young people to achieve their ambitions
• Celebrate our children and young people’s achievements

How we will know it is working

• Number of children going missing from care decreases
• Number of children at risk of exploitation reduces
• Over-representation of children in care in the Criminal Justice System decreases
• Children in care and care leavers report feeling safer online
• Children achieve a good level of development by the time they leave nursery
• Shared reading for children under the age of 7 increases
• GCSE outcomes improve
• Number of children missing out on education reduces
• Number of fixed-term exclusions reduces
• Children and young people report feeling happier at school

Priority Two – For children in care and care leavers to have a strong sense of self, with
safe, loving and lasting relationships.

Children and young people need to feel loved, valued and respected as individuals, to have a sense of belonging to their family and community, and to have adults in their lives who never give up on them. It is our role as corporate
parents to make sure that our children and young people have a strong sense of their identity, that they understand their history and their journey, that they have safe, loving and lasting relationships with special people for them and a network of support to draw on, so that they grow up to be resilient adults, safe in the knowledge that they can get help when they need it.

What we will do

• Promote children and young people’s identity and heritage so that they feel proud of who they are
• Care for brothers and sisters together, unless there is an assessed need to separate them
• Provide more flexible and rapid support for children and carers under pressure, to build relationships that can be sustained in high pressured times
• Support children and young people to understand their life story and their journey into and through care
• Support children and young people to reconnect with family and those who care about them by developing a lifelong links approach within our Family Group
  Conferencing Service
• Create a dedicated team within our Care Leavers Service to promote and champion the specific needs of separated migrant children and young people
• Work with our partners to develop befriending and mentoring for children in care and care leavers
• Stabilise the workforce so that our children and young people experience fewer changes of social worker/personal advisor

How we will know it is working

• Number of siblings placed together increases
• Children in care and care leavers have at 2 trusted adults in their lives
• Number of children with completed life story work increases
• Number of children in care with an Independent Visitor increases
• Children experience fewer changes of social worker
• Number of children going missing from care decreases
• Stability for children who are cared for in family or foster care arrangements increases
• More children maintain or rebuild relationships with family members that are right for them

Priority Three – For children in care and care leavers to enjoy good physical and
emotional health.

Many children in care and care leavers will have experienced adverse childhood experiences before coming into care and we now understand that this is linked to poorer health outcomes in terms of both physical and emotional health. We also know that children in care are more likely to meet the diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit disorder. When children come into care, and throughout their time in care, we must work to reduce health inequalities and support them to sometimes live with longlasting health difficulties. Added to that, we want our children and young people to enjoy a healthy lifestyle and grow up trying new things
and having fun in a way which is all their own.

What we will do

• Understand and respond to children and young people’s health needs when they come into care and throughout their time in our care through timely health assessments
• Provide a named children in care or care leaver nurse to oversee health needs and provide health promotion advice
• Improve access to timely assessments, including neurodiversity assessments, and follow-up support for children and young people
• Promote the Healthy Minds website to children and young people and their carers
• Work with CAMHS and partners in the Third Sector to enhance our support offer to children and young people and their carers, including more timely and flexible emotional health support and flexible physical health support for those who are reluctant to engage with mainstream services
• Enhance our enrichment offer, including group work and social activities
• Increase children and young people’s access to sport, music culture and the arts through championing children in care and care leavers across leisure services, Bradford 2025 and the Literature Festival
• Promote the FYI website to children, young people and their carers

How we will know it is working

• Number of children and young people having a health assessment within 20 days of coming into care increases
• Length of time children and young people wait for assessments, including neurodiversity assessments, decreases
• Number of children accessing timely emotional and mental health support increases
• Number of children whose health needs are agreed as being met in statutory reviews increases
• Placement stability increases
• Children and young people report (and care plans /pathway plans evidence) that they take part in social activities hobbies and have hobbies and interests

Priority Four – For children in care and care leavers to have a voice, be heard and
influence decisions.

We believe that care experienced children and young people are experts in their own lives, and we value their
voices in helping us to shape and develop the services
we deliver. In Bradford, we have a proactive CiCC who,
with support from the Participation Team, represent children in care and care leavers and make sure their voices are heard by leaders across the Trust, Council and
partner agencies; children in care and care leavers are
interviewing key managers and staff across the Council
and BCFT; care leavers feed back on their experience of care through an exit interview; and care leavers have been involved in improving the Pathway Plan document. We know, though, that there is more to do to make sure
we hear from more children and young people, and that we use language that children and young people understand and feel comfortable with.

What we will do

• Carry out a widespread consultation with our children in care and care leavers so we understand more about what is important to them and what would improve their experience of care, and co-produce a Delivery Plan with the CiCC and our partners to address areas for development
• Embed Language that Cares across the Trust, Council and partner agencies
• Strengthen our approach to feeding back to the CiCC on actions to address the Takeaway Themes from young people led Corporate Parenting Panels
• Support the CiCC to develop training for members and officers about their experiences
• Embed the Mind of My Own App to help children and young people express their views, wishes and feelings and contribute to decisions that affect their lives
• Champion a Children’s Rights approach by providing children and young people with clear and accessible information about the Participation Team and Children’s Advocacy Service, and the different ways they can have a voice and influence decisions
• Develop our approach to co-production so that children and care leavers have active opportunities to co-produce service development and delivery

How we will know it is working

• Children report that they feel listened to
• The voice and influence of our children is evident in strategies and plans, including children’s own care plans which are co-produced
• Children’s contributions are evidence in their own case records
• Annual publication of a co-produced “You Said, We Did” document to demonstrate children have helped improve services and create change
• Number of children and young people using the Mind of My Own App increases
• Schools and colleges are care-friendly
• Number of children accessing advocacy support increases

Priority Five – Achieving permanence and making sure children and young people
have safe and secure places to live.

When children need to come into care, we are committed
to making sure that they have a plan for permanence and
that reunification continues to be proactively considered
throughout their time in care. We will exhaust all options
for children to be cared for within their extended family by
the people who love them and know them best. When this
is not possible, we will do our best to make sure that where they live and are cared for is the right place to meet their needs. For most children, this will be family-based care, but we know that we need to increase the range of options available to deliver high-quality care that is well-matched to our children’s needs and backgrounds. We know that coming into care can be a difficult time for our children and it is important that those caring for them understand their needs and can support them to build trusting relationships in their new homes so that children feel loved, safe and secure.

What we will do

• Strengthen permanency planning by embedding the Permanence Panel and regular tracking
• Develop a robust reunification practice approach so that children who return home do so with the right support
• Understand and respond to the specific needs of kinship carers
• Provide training in trauma-informed approaches for social workers, foster carers and residential practitioners and implement the learning from the Fostering Connections research study
• Increase the number of constellations in the Mockingbird Family Model to enhance the support to foster families, including kinship carers
• Implement the recommendations from the Fosterlink Diagnostic to support the recruitment of new foster families
• Continue to develop our Bradford children’s homes to offer the best care for those who need it.
• Develop a joint-funded therapeutic residential provision for children with complex emotional needs

How we will know it is working

• Children report feeling safe where they live and that a special person for them is always close by
• % of children with a permanence plan by their 4-month review increases
• % of children achieving permanence through SGO increases
• Number of care orders discharged remains stable or increases
• % of children in foster care increases
• Number of mainstream foster families increases
• Number of children placed within 20 miles of their home address increases
• Long-term stability improves
• % of children experiencing 3 or more moves decreases
• Number of children in unregulated settings decreases

Priority Six – Ensuring a smooth and positive transition to adulthood for our care leavers.

When young people leave care at 18, they can
feel alone, isolated and unprepared for living independently, particularly if they have lost
connection with their family and community. They
are likely to have experienced more trauma than
other young people their age and this can affect their
confidence and sense of wellbeing making living up
to the expectations placed on adults to hold down a
job, run a home, pay the bills all the more difficult to
achieve; and the challenges only increase for care
leavers who are parents. It is our role as corporate
parents to make sure that our young people leave
care knowing that they are loved and cared about,
and that they can rely on us for support when they
need it.

We know that preparing our care leavers for adult
life starts while they are in our care and that it means
making sure they have positive experiences and
relationships to draw on, and equipping them with
not only the practical skills, but also the emotional
resilience they will need to become successful adults
with the confidence to achieve their dreams. More
than that, we recognise that we need to work with
our partners and use our shared resources to give
our care leavers the same support and opportunities
that any good parent would want to give their adult
children.

What we will do

• Review and enhance our Local Offer for Care Leavers and develop an Enrichment Officer role within the Care Leavers Service to promote the offer and connect care leavers with opportunities and support
• Develop a Hub approach to delivering services and support to care leavers
• Develop Tenancy Support to support care leavers to have a stable home when they are ready
• Ensure a proactive offer from our Family Hubs and evidence-based interventions for care leavers who are parents and develop a Corporate Grand parenting role and offer
• Use evidence-based tools to complete a co-produced review of services and support for care leavers with young people and our partners to identify areas for development to inform strategic planning (e.g. housing, mental health services, transitions planning) and improve service delivery
• Improve transitions planning and start it earlier to reduce the cliff edge at 18
• Explore becoming a Care Leavers Covenant partner to create opportunities for care leavers locally and identify opportunities for young people living out of area
• Create more opportunities for care leavers to access education and training, highquality work experience, and employability skills training and support
• Develop and embed transitional safeguarding practice so that care leavers are safeguarded from exploitation and abuse into adulthood
• Meet our commitment to recognise care experience as a protected characteristic

How we will know it is working

• Number of care leavers accessing work experience/employment in the “family firm”
  and in local businesses increases
• Number of care leavers accessing apprenticeship schemes increases
• Range of housing and support options available locally increases
• Flexible health support for those who do not meet the threshold for adult provision such as adult mental health increases.
• Timeliness of Adult Social Care involvement at 18 improves and starts earlier so that no child faces a cliff edge drop-in support in their transition to young adulthood

Leadership & Governance

The leadership of corporate parenting must be motivational and inspirational in support of children in care and care leavers. All senior leaders of services in Bradford are committed to work and support children and young people in this way, through taking action on important issues having first listened to those most affected. Good governance checks that this promise is being honoured

Corporate Parenting Board

The Corporate Parenting Board (CPB), chaired by the Lead Member for Children and Families provides strategic and political leadership in relation to corporate parenting and drives the implementation of this strategy. Membership of the CPB includes elected members and senior officers from the Trust, Council, and partner agencies. This formalises arrangements for promoting co-operation between partners to improve the wellbeing of children in care and care leavers.

Board members understand their role and responsibilities as corporate parents and are well-informed and passionate about the needs of children in care and care leavers. They have completed training delivered by the LGA which emphasised the importance of being ambitious for our children and ensuring that they have the same opportunities, or better, than their peers. The Board receives reports on progress against our priorities and high-quality performance information, both of which give insight into the experiences of children in care and care leavers. This means that elected members are wellplaced to hold officers to account and be assured that the Trust, the Council, and partners are doing all they can to support our children and young people to live happy, healthy and fulfilling lives.

Voice and Influence

The CPB also hears directly from the CiCC about what it feels like to be in care and agrees to take responsibility for addressing the Takeaway Themes aimed at creating change that are identified at young people led meetings. In this way, the CPB not only listens to children and young people but also makes sure that their views, wishes, and feelings are acted upon, so that they understand that they have a voice and that their voice has influence.

As the priorities set out in this strategy respond to what children and young people have told us will improve their experience of care and to the commitments we have made to them in our Promise, they are meaningful and help the CiCC to hold us to account for what we said we would do. This makes the CiCC integral to the governance arrangements for corporate parenting in Bradford.

Partnership Parenting Advisory Group

In recognition of our commitment to working together to deliver the best outcomes for our children in care and care leavers, we have agreed to call the group responsible for developing delivery plans which will drive progress against our strategic priorities, the Partnership Parenting Advisory Group. The group is chaired by the Assistant Director for Corporate Parenting in the Trust and is made up of leaders from the Trust, the Council and partner agencies.

We are working with our partners to identify the actions and performance indicators, and a refined data set that specifically relates to the priorities set out in this strategy, all of which will help us to evidence and achieve our shared vision for corporate parenting in Bradford. Existing groups that provide oversight of specific areas of work (e.g. Virtual School Governors Group, Residential Steering Group) will report on progress to the Partnership Parenting Advisory Group, and new working groups will be developed as needed.

The group will provide reports on progress against our priorities to the Corporate Parenting Board and the actions taken in response to the Takeaway Themes. It will also identify barriers to progress and enlist the support of the CPB to help unblock them.

Partnership Parenting Network Meeting

We are committed to making corporate parenting everybody’s business. Partnership Parenting Network Meetings provide an opportunity to engage leaders and staff across the Trust, Council and partner agencies with the corporate parenting agenda by sharing our vision and priorities and asking them to consider how they can champion the needs of children in care and care leavers at an individual and organisational level. The meetings are also a forum for attendees to celebrate the achievements of our children, and to identify gaps in services and share research/what works well in other areas to inform strategic planning.