Decision details

To Deliver in-house supported accommodation with both 24/7 provision and floating support.

• To be able to control our own placements and decision making and provide supported accommodation on a wider scale ensuring our most complex young people are not declined a service from contracted providers.
• Quicker referral and decision making processes and a more responsive service
• The service can confidently work with safe uncertainty and complex risk in a positive and pro-active way which will open the service up to a wider range of young people and result in no young person under 18 experiencing evictions. Instead, a process will be put in place to support young people who are found to require care rather than support to transition positively into a care placement if Supported Accommodation isn’t meeting their needs.
• Deliver faster decisions and access to placements through in-house provision reducing homelessness and short term emergency placements.
• Safe Stay beds will allow young people 16/17 in crisis to remain in their accommodation and receive support from staff during the day unlike Provider 1 emergency provision that requests young people leave the placement and offer no support between 9am – 5pm.
• To provide a more cost effective use of financial resources and potential savings to the child placement budget of around £140k
• Safe stay beds will provide an increase in the number of available bed nights
• The in-house provision will provide a regulated placement option that will divert some 16/17 year olds who are assessed as requiring support rather than care from high cost and highly sought after placement options such as a NWD children’s home placements or bespoke packages of care. This means that those beds can be kept available for the use of the children and young people who require them the most. This will also lead to cost avoidance as some external provision won’t be required as a result