AQW 36616/11-15 Written question to the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety
To ask the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety for an update on his Department’s targets linked to placement moves for young people who are in care; and to detail how these are monitored to ensure that they are being met so that young people in care are provided with as stable a living environment as possible
Asked by Claire Sugden MLA on 29 September 2014
- Answered
- Written
- Tabled
- 29 September 2014
- Answer due by
- 14 October 2014
- Answered
- 7 October 20148 days after tabling
- Department
- Department of Health
- Priority question
- No
Answer
Robust assessment of need, coupled with placement choice and stability are key to delivering improved outcomes for looked after children and young people. To underscore this, one of the key strategic priorities set out in the Department’s Commissioning Plan Direction for 2014/15 is to ‘ensure the most vulnerable in our society, including children and adults at risk of harm are looked after effectively across all our services’. To support this priority a target linked to placement stability has been set. The 14/15 target is to increase the number of children in care for 12 months or longer with no placement change to 85%, a higher target than set initially.
Table 1 below sets out the percentage of children in care for 12 months or longer at September with no placement change in each of the last 5 years by Trust.
| HSC Trust | Children in care for 12 months or longer at 30 September with no placement change | |||||
| 2008/09 | 2009/10 | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | |
| Belfast Trust | 79% | 83% | 84% | 84% | 78% | - |
| Northern Trust | 78% | 78% | 78% | 74% | 76% | - |
| South Eastern Trust | 82% | 78% | 81% | 79% | 78% | - |
| Southern Trust | 59% | 73% | 66% | 70% | 75% | - |
| Western Trust | 83% | 83% | 82% | 85% | 79% | - |
| Northern Ireland | 77% | 79% | 79% | 78% | 77% | - |
| Target | 82% | 85% | ||||
The target is monitored by the Department’s Community Information Branch using a child level information return completed by all Health and Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland. The return which is completed annually provides a range of data on looked after children in care continuously for 12 months or longer including placement changes during the year. The information collected from the return is published annually on the Department’s website in the statistical bulletin ‘Children in Care in Northern Ireland’. The 2013/14 statistical bulletin will be published in July 2015.