Equality Impact Assessment
Directorate:
Service:
Name of Officer/s completing assessment:
Date of Assessment:
Name of service/function or policy being assessed:
1.
What are the aims, objectives, outcomes, purpose of
the policy, service change, function that you are
assessing?
Children, Schools and Families
Children’s Social Work & Psychology Services
Jack Cordery
30/04/2013
Helping and Protecting Adolescents on the Edge of
Care
This Equality Impact Assessment is being undertaken in
line with the policy of the Council to consider the impact
of any proposed change on particularly vulnerable groups
and those who are likely to experience discrimination.
Young people in care and those on the edge of care are
both vulnerable and likely to be discriminated against.
The aims, objectives, outcomes and purpose of the
proposed change can be summarised as follows:
A. To improve outcomes and life chances for young
people on the edge of care.
B. To strengthen the help and protection we provide to
adolescents 11 years plus who are on the edge of care
due to the impact of poverty, recession and the
welfare reforms on their families.
C. To develop specialist adolescent teams, an adolescent
family centre and alternative care arrangements from
existing resources.
D. To prepare for the tougher test of the new inspection
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2.
Who implements or delivers the policy, service or
function? State if this is undertaken by more than one
team, service, and department including any external
partners.
regime for Child Protection, Looked After Children and
Care Leavers.
E. To reduce the trajectory of spend on low volume/high
cost/poor outcome care placements.
At the end of the change programme:
 Two of the larger homes will be closed
 3 specialist adolescent support teams using evidencebased practice will be in place,
 There will be fewer residential care placements, which
will be replaced with specialist adolescent family
placements,
 There will be emergency overnight accommodation for
adolescents
 There will be a specialist adolescent centre for direct
work with young people and their parents/carers
Children’s Social Care in partnership with other services:
 Multi-Agency Referral Unit
 Assessment Teams
 Children in Need Teams
 Child Protection and Court Teams
 Children in Care Teams
 Children in Care Services (Residential and Fostering)
Together with:
 Locality Services
 Youth Offending Service
 Community Health (eg school nursing, designated
Child Protection and Looked After Children health
professionals
 Police
 Housing Services
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3.
Who will be affected by this proposal? For example who
are the external/internal customers, communities,
partners, stakeholders, the workforce etc.
4.
What are the likely positive or negative impacts for the
group/s identified in (3) above? What particular groups
are affected more than others and why?
5.
Have the impacts indentified in (4) above been
 Community Safety (esp Domestic Violence team)
The following will be affected by this proposal:
 Young people 11 years+ who are on the edge of care
due to growing and repeat family crises that bring
them to the brink of family breakdown.
 Young people with behavioural, emotional and social
difficulties, including additional and special educational
needs.
 Parents carers of adolescents, where families are
under pressure and relationships are fragile.
 Teachers and other professionals working with
adolescents on the edge of care.
 Staff working with adolescents on the edge of care and
in residential care settings.
 Residents living in close proximity to the two
residential homes earmarked for closure.
The positive impact of this proposed change is as follows:
 More effective help and protection to remain safely at
home, within the wider family network and community
 Access to specialist adolescent family care placements
rather than residential care placements
 Improved outcomes and life chances that come with
greater stability and security
 Less risk to reputation associated with failed
inspections of residential settings
The negative impact of this proposed change is as
follows:
 Job losses
 The cost of voluntary redundancies
Yes – the proposal is based on:
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assessed using up to date and reliable evidence and
data? Do you need to engage or consult with any
identified group/s? If in doubt ask the Community
Intelligence Team for guidance.
6.
Are any of these identified groups considered to be
vulnerable? If so have you engaged with or plan to
engage with any relevant representative organisation.
For example if the impact is likely to affect people with
a disability have you engaged with Disability Cornwall?
If staff are affected have the unions or staff forums
been involved?

The views and wishes of young people expressed
locally and nationally (Meetings with Children in Care
Council and Reports of the National Commissioner for
Children and Young People). In the main young
people say they would rather live at home as long as
the situation changes, if that cannot happen then with
members of their wider family, and if that cannot
happen with a family. Most young people are highly
anxious about living in a group situation. No
significant concerns have been expressed about
closing the homes.
 Performance and outcome data for children in care and
particularly children admitted to care as adolescents
(report to Overview & Scrutiny Committee December
2012). The outcomes for children admitted to care as
adolescents are generally poor across a range of
measures: educational attainment, physical and
mental health, social adaptation and integration.
 Independent review of residential care following the
closure of Penelvan (report available on request).
Yes – the review outlining these proposals have be
discussed young people and other key stakeholders,
namely residential managers and staff, trade unions, and
colleagues working in partner agencies.
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7.
8.
What plans do you have in place, or are developing,
that will mitigate the likely identified negative impacts?
For example what plans, if any, will be put in place to
reduce the impact?
Do you have plans in place to monitor the impact of
the proposals once they have been implemented? The
full impact of the decision may only be known after the
proposals have been implemented.
Careful management of the change process to avoid the
potential impact on service delivery and holding vacancies
to avoid compulsory redundancies.
Yes – the impact of the changes will be monitored
through the Quality Assurance and Performance
Framework for Children’s Social Work and Psychology
Services (reported to the Children’s Trust Board and
Safeguarding Children Board) and a full review (and
potential independent evaluation) after 12 months.
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What course of action does this EIA suggest you take? More than one of the following may
apply

Outcome 1: No major change required. The EIA has not identified any potential for discrimination or
adverse impact and all opportunities to promote equality have been taken

Outcome 2: Adjust the policy to remove barriers identified by the EIA or better promote equality. Are
you satisfied that the proposed adjustments will remove the barriers identified?
Outcome 3: Continue the policy despite potential for adverse impact or missed opportunities to
promote equality identified. You will need to ensure that the EIA clearly sets out the justifications for
continuing with it. You should consider whether there are sufficient plans to reduce the negative impact
and/or plans to monitor the actual impact (see questions below)
Outcome 4: Stop and rethink the policy when the EIA shows actual or potential unlawful discrimination
Summary of your proposals (Copy and paste into any report for CLT, Cabinet and Council)
 What are the key impacts – both negative and positive
 What course of action are you advising as a result of this EIA
 Are there any particular groups affected more than others
This proposal is based on re-investing revenue costs currently committed to residential care in 3 specialist adolescent
teams, a specialist Family Centre for adolescents and their families, including emergency overnight accommodation, and
funding specialist family placements for adolescents as an alternative to residential care.
One of the main aims of this proposed change is to help and protect some of the most vulnerable young people in
Cornwall and to support them to achieve better outcomes and life chances. Many of these young people have
experienced significant disadvantages in their childhood arising from poverty and associated family problems such as
parental mental health problems, parental alcohol and substance misuse and domestic violence. Providing specialist
support to these young people and their parents/carers will help them to close the gap in their outcomes compared to
their peers in the general population
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DEAG Sign - Off
Name: Anna Mankee-Williams
Date: 18 July 2013
Comments/Action Required:
(For Corporate E & D use only) Published date:
When the Equality Impact Assessment is completed send to equality@cornwall.gov.uk for publication
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