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Coram-i Blog
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Coram-i · Data analysis · Sharing Learning
Data visualisation in Children’s Social Care
The use of quantitative data in children’s social care is still in its infancy when compared with other sectors, and this immaturity means that developments in the various methodologies designed to act as an aid to human decision making, and indeed the understanding of whether our interventions work, is suboptimal.
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Adoption support · Creative Therapies · Evaluation · Events · Professional Development · Sharing Learning · Social Work · Young People
Is life story work working?
Sarah Taylor, Head of Coram’s Impact and Evaluation Team, reflects on a recent Coram conference on models of life story work and their outcomes Social workers, researchers, therapists and others gathered recently on Coram’s Bloomsbury campus to share new evidence and ideas on how life story work can and should…
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Coram-i · Fostering · Permanence · Sharing Learning
Coram-i and Croydon Council
We are pleased to announce that the contract between Coram-i and Croydon Council has now come to a successful end. In 2018 the London borough of Croydon decided to end its dependence on external agencies for the provision of its foster carers. The LA, with a looked after population of…
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Coram-i
Socially-distanced Adoption Activity Day
After months of lockdown and a few postponed Adoption Activity Days (AADs), we were delighted to run our first socially-distanced AAD at the Coram Campus on 30 July. With delays affecting every stage of the adoption system, the important work of family finding must continue. For many children attending an…
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Coram-i · Events · Permanence
The challenge of ‘permanence’
Over 100 young people and professionals came together at Coram’s event on how to achieve permanence for children and young people in care. The audience on 25 November 2019 heard ideas and experiences about the idea of ‘permanence’ – which is much more than just a placement. The audience…
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Coram-i · Data analysis
London Schools – did you know?
Our friends at SchoolDash have shared with us some interesting insights into London they have gleaned from the data they have collated for their SchoolDash product and we thought you might like to see it. Go to their website to see more! 1. London has the…
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Coram-i
Why are so many Roma young people excluded from school?
Earlier this year Coram published its report ‘Unfair results: pupil and parent views on school exclusion’ which contributed to the recent government review of school exclusions. We focused on hearing the views of parents whose child had been excluded and also children with and without personal experience of exclusion.
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Activity Days · Coram-i · Fostering
The child behind the profile – Activity Days for Fostering
Adoption Activity Days, an opportunity for prospective adopters to meet children awaiting adoption, are now a well-established means of family finding. However, facilitating the same opportunity for children requiring permanency via fostering is still a relatively new concept. On the 31st March 2018, just over 53,000 children and young…
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Coram-i
Missing looked after children
The latest data on children looked after in England (including adoption) was published in November 2018[1]. There are some continuing trends in the looked after children (LAC) data, including the continued fall in the number of LAC who are being adopted, which we have discussed in previous blog…
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Adoption · Coram-i · Data analysis · Matching
The Impact of the Adoption Register
Analysis has shown that there is a national shortage of adopters with a 7% decline in the number of people approved as adopters, according to a 2018 data recently published by the Adoption Leadership Board. Despite a rise in the number of children taken into care, the sector is facing…
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Adoption · Coram-i · Data analysis · Matching · Regional adoption agencies
Adoption data and Collective Matching
Last week the ASGLB published data on adoption covering the period 1 April to 30 September 2018 [1]. It is the first time in several years that the ASGLB has published the latest available data before the next round of data collection is completed, and is the closest…
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Data analysis · Fostering
Ofsted’s annual fostering data collection 2017/18
Data on fostering in England for 2017/18 [1] was published at the end of January and while it contains some interesting insights it raises a lot more questions than it answers. For a start the data is collected by Ofsted via an annual data return [2] and…
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Coram-i · Data analysis
Data Visualisation in Social Care
On Monday 10th December over 100 social care practitioners, academics and data experts gathered at Coram’s new Queen Elizabeth II Centre to share promising innovations and ideas about using data visualisation to improve the support for children who need help from local authority children’s services. Coram and its partners,…
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Family Drug & Alcohol Court · Parents & Carers · Sharing Learning
Family Drug and Alcohol Court
By Dr Sheena Webb Children with adverse experiences Most children involved with the Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC) have experienced a long period of instability and adversity prior to entering the service. Returning to a safer home environment, with parents who are no longer using substances, is clearly beneficial…
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Adoption · Coram-i · Data analysis · Matching · Regional adoption agencies
Adoption in England – can we predict the state of the system?
Adoption data for the financial year 2017/18 is now available and while some aspects look more positive, following revisions to previously published data, there are still causes for concern. In addition to my analysis of this data, this month I am going to make a prediction about…
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Adoption · Coram-i · Data analysis · Matching
Adoption in England – a system under pressure?
The latest national data on adoption in England has just been published[1]. A hard look at this data reveals that underneath some positive headlines there is clear evidence that more children are coming into the system now than leaving and there are now not enough adopters available to…
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Adoption · Fostering · Fostering for Adoption · Matching
‘Early Permanence’: Foster to Adopt Placements – the Approach and Benefits
Coram first set up a concurrent planning programme in 1999, placing babies with carers who were dually approved as adopters and as foster carers. The babies were all subject to care proceedings and were selected for this project on the basis that the prior family history and the assessments of…
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Coram-i
Introducing our new blog series
Coram-i is pleased to announce it is launching a new monthly blog series featuring opinion, insight and analysis from experts across Coram’s heads of departments, partners and associates. These blogs are an opportunity to share more detail about Coram’s different work strands, the issues that influence these areas, the…
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Coram-i · Fostering · Sharing Learning · Young People
Understanding why I was taken into care…
Coram-i has undertaken an innovative area of work supporting a local authority to complete Historical Letters for looked after children in permanent foster placements, similar to Later Life Letters in Adoption. Historical Letters in Fostering give older children access to the reasons why they were taken into care and factual…
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Coram-i
Adoption Activity Days in early 2018
Adoption Activity Days allow prospective adopters to meet a range of children waiting to be adopted in a safe, supportive and fun environment. You can see them in action by watching ‘Finding me a Family’ on the 4oD website. We already have three dates in the diary for 2018, so…
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Coram-i · Fostering · Sharing Learning
Permanency Planning and Long Term Fostering Innovation Project
In November 2017, Coram-i held a seminar as part of its project on Permanency Planning and Long Term Fostering, which is funded by the Department for Education’s Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme. The event brought together the four pilot sites involved in the project (Manchester City Council, Northamptonshire County…
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Coram-i
Adoption Activity Days
“We just knew that he was the child for us, older than we ever had imagined but his personality so shone through on the day.” Autumn is upon us and Coram’s Adoption Activity Days (AAD) team have been busy planning for the next run of these family finding events, which…
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Fostering
Activity Days for Fostering
Following the success of Adoption Activity Days, these events for fostering aim to focus on securing families for children who need to remain looked after under fostering arrangements. The ethos of the events remains the same, in that the emphasis is on bringing together children and young people who are…
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Adoption · Matching
Adopter sufficiency
There is a growing concern that there are not enough prospective adopters available for all the children who are waiting to be adopted. A high level analysis I conducted in January 2017 using published data for 2015/16 concluded that there would soon not be enough prospective adopters available and this has…
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Coram-i
Coram awarded innovation funding!
Coram has been awarded funding from Department for Education’s Social Care Innovation Programme to work with four local authorities to help them make better use of data to improve the stability of long-term foster placements. Renuka Jeyarajah-Dent, Director of Operations at Coram said: “We are delighted to receive this…
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Regional adoption agencies
RAA delivery models
I’d like to get your thoughts on what potential benefits there would be for a VAA that partnered with a local authority to form a Regional Adoption Agency Joint Venture. For a LA I think it’s relatively straightforward – they at least get an adoption service that meets their needs (hopefully!) For VAAs,…
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Coram-i
Coram-i website is now live
The website will be home to our resources so that you will be able to access them all in one place. The content has been organised into categories to make it easier for you to find what you are looking for. Some content will be available to everyone and some…