GM Looked After Children Programme. Returning Internal Fostering to Growth

We are looking for an organisation/ individual with fostering experience and expertise deliver specific pieces of work as part of the GM Returning Internal Fostering to Growth programme. This will involve working as part of a broader project team to facilitate the engagement of fostering leads from across the GM local authorities and to deliver against key milestones and project timeline. Background The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) covers the Greater Manchester city-region, an area with a population of over 2.8m. GMCA is made up of the Mayor of Greater Manchester and the ten Greater Manchester councils (Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Trafford, Tameside and Wigan), who work with other local public services, businesses, communities and a range of other partners to improve the city-region. The GM Children and Young People's Plan (2019-22) sets out an ambitious programme of reform across multiple challenges facing children, young people and their families. Further to this, the GM Sufficiency Strategy has brought together, for the first time, an understanding and analysis of the numbers, needs, and placement types for children and young people. Through this analysis GM senior leaders have identified internal fostering as a key priority in improving local sufficiency and improved outcomes. The focus of this work sits within the priorities of Looked after Children, this includes; • Children coming into care are provided with a quality placement which meets their needs, ensuring permanence is achieved at the earliest stage. • There will be an integrated approach to placement types and availability, including the recruitment of foster carers, to deliver a robust and sustainable sufficiency strategy. This work is underpinned by an established fostering community of practice, bringing together the fostering leads from all ten Local Authorities. A programme of fostering proposals has been presented to the 10 Directors of Children's Services with agreement to progress to the next phase of business case development and/or implementation. ***********For further details and access to tender documents please register and search The Chest Portal https://www.the-chest.org.uk/ ref DN561833*****************