TWO essential children’s services provided by Clackmannanshire Council have received good reports from the Care Inspectorate.

The Adult Placement Continuing Care and the Family Placement Team Fostering Service received a joint inspection in October last year.

The two services are linked, with the findings being released this month and showing that inspectors were generally pleased with what they saw.

Inspectors assessed the two care services on four areas – wellbeing, leadership, staff team and care and support.

On a six point scale, where 1 is unsatisfactory and 6 is excellent, the two units received 4 – good on wellbeing, leadership and staff, and scored 5 – very good on care and support.

Key messages highlighted in the report included: “Children and young people experienced enduring and loving relationships with their carers.

“Management have led a significant programme of improvement. Carers have increased confidence in the vision of the service.

“Support for carers has been more consistent.”

The report also highlighted that action had been taken to meet areas of improvement within the Adult Placement Service that had been earmarked at the last report from 2022.

Areas of improvement included: “To ensure all children have a clear understanding of their past, the provider should improve its approach to life story work.

“To ensure that young people experience a positive transition from continuing care, the service should improve pathways planning and information available.

“To support care giver and children’s wellbeing, learning and development, the provider should ensure that all staff are sufficiently confident, supported and enabled to develop a team culture.”

The report states that these requirements have been met, with the two practices adapting their way of care to meet them.

The feedback continued: “A staff member has recently completed accredited Life Story training and the service is implementing a digital system to store and record life story information for children.

“Work is being undertaken to develop clear processes on support for children leaving care but a transition policy is not yet in place. This area for improvement will be repeated.”

The two services are provided by Clackmannanshire Council, making up two of the three units within the Family Placement Service, the other being the Adoption Service.

A spokesperson for Clackmannanshire Council said: “Clackmannanshire Council’s Family Placement Service comprises of three registered services: Fostering, Adoption, and Adult Placement Continuing Care. Each service is regulated and subject to inspection, with the most recent inspections in the autumn of 2023.

“The inspections recognised significant improvements that have been made in both Fostering and Continuing Care as a result of a redesign and improvement led work, with both services receiving evaluations of Very Good and Good across key areas.”

The full report can be found at careinspectorate.com.