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Improving Data on Looked After Children Suzanne Murray - Information Systems Administrator. East Lothian’s data recording re looked after children pre 2007 – 2008. CarePlace implemented April 2003 to record placements and legal statutes of all children looked after away from home
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Improving Data on Looked After ChildrenSuzanne Murray - Information Systems Administrator
East Lothian’s data recording re looked after children pre 2007 – 2008 • CarePlace implemented April 2003 to record placements and legal statutes of all children looked after away from home • Details of Home Supervision included in CarePlace from April 2004
Care plans recorded elsewhere and not connected to Carefirst • Through and Aftercare details recorded (More choices, more chances and accommodation moves) added to Carefirst from April 2006
Pathway Co-ordinators and the existence of a Pathway Plan added in 2006 (no details of the plan recorded electronically) • Scottish Candidate Numbers added to looked after children’s records where possible
‘Sketchy’ recording of respite on Carefirst • All payments to carers made by Softbox • All payments for residential placements via BACS and recorded on locally held Excel sheets
Scottish Government Funding • An employee already familiar with CareFirst and CarePlace given extra hours to add information to system and check quality of existing data • On hindsight we should also have requested finance for a dedicated server
OLM and CF6 • OLM installed CF6 with enough functionality to run and validate the 3 CLAS reports (LAC, TAC and Short Term) • CLAS reports pull relevant information from a dataset of extracted data
Ability to search on individuals or certain criteria within report (e.g. missing disability status etc) • Validation report highlights whether child record is invalid (e.g. LA not responsible for child) or episode invalid (e.g. missing discharge codes) • Click of a button produces XML
ProcXed • Set up on a shared network folder • Easy to use with a little knowledge of Access • Ability to add notes re exceptions (but best practice would be to amend data held in CareFirst)
Impact on Culture Change • Practitioners more aware that the recording of placements must be accurate and up to date • More information now stored centrally and electronically (e.g. paper details of respite visits now recorded on CareFirst), reducing the fragmented paper trail of a young person’s life
Communication • While working towards submission of the report, internal relationships have improved between Social Work and Education • Many employees have worked together from statisticians, practitioners, IT, team leaders, to support services • Involvement from OLM has been great, with EL keeping them back at times! Health check from Fiona Nicol invaluable • ScotXed have responded quickly to queries and Michael (whodeserves a pay rise) has accepted criticism of the database graciously and fixed any bugs as they are found
Issues to be addressed for 2008/09 For EL: • Integrity of data to be checked on a regular basis to reduce last minute, end of year rush For ScotXed: • Inaccuracies of QA tables to be corrected For OLM: • Fix problem with end dates outwith year end • Reduce the duplication and double keying involved For all: • Keep lines of communication open For Gary: • Keep away from the CP survey!