Concerns over housing for children in the care system have been sparked with young people having to wait longer than they should for repair works in accommodation.
During the inaugural meeting of the Corporate Parenting Board at Wigan Council, chair Coun Laura Flynn expressed her concern at how care leavers living in council-run housing are not seeing priority for repair works. Jacqui Hardman, Service Lead Children in Care & Care Leavers, explained that the team have identified that when a ticket is raised for a void or repair to a home, there is no indicator to inform them that this is a care leaver and so this is not being prioritised.
With 92 young people approaching 17 and will be in need of accommodation, this is something the housing team are urgently trying to address, the meeting at Wigan Town Hall heard.
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This comes in the wake of a motion passed by full council in December to ensure children in care and care leavers are not discriminated against. Coun Jenny Bullen's successful motion to make care experienced a protected characteristic in the equality assessment.
“We are working on making sure there is a marker so they get priority status for things like housing and care,” Ms Hardman told the board. “What happens is that communication is not working as effectively as it could in indicating who is in care and who is not.
“We have people in IT working on that and there is acknowledgement that there are areas that are not working as well as they could be. The marker on the system is a relatively quick fix I am told.”
Communications in the system are an issue when it comes to indicating care leavers, with some instances of housing officers being informed a couple of days beforehand that a care leaver requires accommodation. Providing a reason for these delays for young people, a report stated that general repairs are taking months due to recruitment issues across housing but also the availability of properties is having a huge impact.
Despite this negative point, the board was heaping praise on the varying teams for their work in regard to promoting children in care’s voices.
