Consultations in East Sussex

Questions around how much the training supports your fostering, the split between online and in-person training, what we could do more of, how useful you find the training resources, and how you find the support groups. These were a mixture of scaling, multiple choice and free text questions.

64 East Sussex foster carers completed the survey and these results are based on all of their answers and a summary of what was learned.

Foster carers rated the training an average of 8/10 for how much it supports their fostering with 60.9% answering 8 or more out of 10.

45% of foster carers expressed a preference for online training, with 12.5% wanting in-person and 42% wanting both. This tips the balance from the last few years which has repeatedly come out at around 50/50 for in-person vs online training.

36% of foster carers rated the anytime learning resources including the anytime resource bank as between 8 and 10 out of 10. However, nearly 33% of those who answered the survey had not used any of these resources which are available for all foster carers.

In terms of the qualitative data, foster carers were mostly positive about the training venues we use. However, there was a common theme that parking can be an issue.

When foster carers were asked what we could be doing more of, those that answered were mostly positive. There were a few suggestions, including:-

• More evening and weekend options
• More bitesize training
• Training around caring for children with disabilities
• More research and evidence
• Differentiating between new and more experienced carers

Some of the other suggestions made, we already have in our training offer so communication remains important.

Regarding support groups, carers who answered the question were mainly positive but there was a theme around it being difficult to find the time to attend because of other commitments. There were also several n/a responses but the support groups are there for everyone, whether or not you are in need of support at that time. They are about carers coming together.

Further final comments were around more bitesize courses and more courses available in the evenings or at weekends. There was another theme around the difficulty finding time to attend training alongside other fostering and work commitments, especially for those fostering under 5s. Some carers commented on liking the e-learning. There were some that struggled with the number of portals. There were several very positive comments about improvements to the training offer which were much appreciated.  

• We have more online training planned for this coming year. We have increased evening training where possible and have more weekend options for first aid.
• We will include the anytime resource bank in more training and ensure we are speaking regularly to SSWs so that they can remind carers about the resource.
• Following the positive feedback from the responsive webinars, we will be increasing these to run monthly this year. They are 1hr lunchtime webinars that don’t need to be booked onto and they are on a specific topic each time, chosen by carers.
• We have this year laid out different expectations for those carers who are more experienced with a model of continual development, similar to that of Social Workers. This means carers are not expected to repeat training, other than first aid, except when they want/need to. The new ‘keep in the loop’ training will ensure experienced carers can remain up to date with developments in local Children’s Services and more nationally.
• Given that some carers have felt the support groups may not be applicable to them, we will use an alternative term of ‘meet-up’ instead.
• We will continue to send monthly training newsletters to highlight upcoming training, draw attention to helpful resources and to reduce the number of emails being sent out.

East Sussex County Council and its partners are working together to reduce and prevent childhood unintentional injuries. In East Sussex, the rate of hospital admissions due to unintentional and deliberate injuries in children aged 0-4 years continues to remain significantly higher than the England average, with Hastings and Rother having some of the highest admission rates in the South East. Often, we think of ‘accidents’ as events that are unintended, or things that just happen and therefore there is nothing we can do about them. However, the reality is that accidents are predictable events and are frequently preventable.

As part of our programme of work to reduce unintentional injuries in the under 5s within the home, we carried out a survey with local parents, asking them how they receive and access information about child safety. The survey has a range of questions which were designed to help us understand this topic further.

Survey responders were required to state what parenting and family topics they thought about the most. The top two were ‘my role as a parent’ and ‘my child’s development’. Interestingly, ‘reducing child accidents in the home’, although important, was slightly less important compared to other topics.

Respondents stated and/or agreed with the following:

• They receive information and advice about child safety from a very wide range of sources, including NHS professionals and family members.
• Health Visitors were stated as their preferred source of child safety information, followed by parenting websites and other family members.
• Parents don’t routinely, or only rarely, look for accident prevention and child safety information online.

Responders also stated and were more likely to agree with the following:

• They want to learn about dangers in their home which could lead to accidents and unintentional injuries.
• They want to understand how they can prevent accidents and unintentional injuries at home.
• They want to look for practical advice on how to make their homes a safer environment for children.
• They want to understand what their children are capable of at their age and stage of development.

Who took part

98 parents completed the survey. 90% were female and over 70% of responders had one child under 5 years old. 25% of responders had attended hospital with their child because they had an accident. 87% were White British, 5% were from other White backgrounds, and 3% didn’t answer the question. 93% were heterosexual and 3% were bisexual. 23% of responders stated they had physical or mental health conditions or illnesses lasting or expected to last 12 months or more.

We have learnt several key insights relating to how parents receive and access information relating to child safety in the home. We will use some of these insights, alongside the published evidence, to further develop our programmes to support families to reduce child accidents. This may include updating our child safety campaigns, and promoting the Start for life website and its free email subscription service.

One You East Sussex helps residents to eat well, manage their weight, move more, quit smoking and drink less. The contract for the service ends in March 2024. We asked what you thought about our plans to change the service model in future. 

The majority who took part agreed with the proposed change. You said that targeting those most in need is sensible and that the proposed approach is cost effective.

For the third of people who disagreed there were some clear themes when it came to your concerns, some of which were also shared by those who agreed or were neutral. The main feedback was:

• It is vital to have a range of contact methods.  
• Retain some flexibility around the type of support offered irrespective of whether an individual is in the target groups for the service.
• Those who cannot access online will be excluded.
• The approach should be led by individual need.

You also provided feedback on how we spend any budget saved from the changes and which programmes you think are most important. Your top choice for any money freed up by making the change was for it to be reinvested in providing mental health support that aids health-related behaviour change, while being more physically active and mental health to aid behaviour change were the programmes that were most important to you.

The proposed change to the service has been approved and will apply from 1 April 2024 when the new contract starts. All your comments and feedback have been reviewed and we have identified a number of requirements we can add to the new contract to address your main concerns and feedback.

It was always our plan that the provider would be able to be flexible in how they worked with people. In response to your feedback, we will make this clearer in the service model by making personalised care to meet an individual’s identified need one of the key principles of the service. The provider would also be expected to review decisions made about people’s support needs in the early stages to ensure they were correct. This would allow the provider to be flexible around contact methods, how support is offered and meeting people’s individual needs. It’s important to note though that people’s needs might be different to their preferences.

We will include a requirement for the new provider to help tackle digital inclusion, both through the work they do directly with people and through putting people in touch with other providers. This might include offering skills training, helping people to access technology and tackling barriers to digital inclusion such as motivation, trust and useability. 

The new service will include a focus on helping people to make behaviour changes by offering mental wellbeing support to those experiencing low to moderate anxiety, stress and depression. When it comes to physical activity, we will expect the service to develop a good knowledge of local health and wellbeing opportunities. This will mean that its staff can tell people about local opportunities that will help them to make and sustain changes to their behaviour.