leavingcare.org

Benchmarking forum

The National Leaving Care Benchmarking Forum began in 2000. It is a national network of local authorities. Its aim is to promote the development of quality leaving care services in member authorities through a process of benchmarking and shared learning.

The Forum is supported by the National Leaving Care Advisory Service who bring their national policy and practice perspective on best practice to the work of the Forum.The members of the Forum have also been members of the What Makes the Difference? partnership. Authorities have worked with WMTD? on a range of work programmes designed to improve the education, training and employment outcomes for care leavers.
Benefits of Membership
There are currently 45 members, many of which have been members since 2000. Feedback from them has shown: 
  • The Forum has provided valuable help in helping local authorities make significant progress since the implementation of the Children (Leaving Care) Act and Every Child Matters.
  • The sharing of information and experiences has increased the efficiency of policy and service development.
  • The process of standards development has made significant contributions to local authority’s own development of standards and performance measures.
  • The process of benchmarking has highlighted the service areas and issues to be prioritised in future service development. Action planning from this gives managers a clear way forward.
  • The regular meeting with fellow managers has provided personal peer support and opportunities to debate and resolve difficult policy and practice issues.
 NLCAS and the members of the Forum are now seeking to expand the membership. This will increase the opportunities for mutual sharing, learning and support.

What do members get?
  • Access to a complete set of leaving care quality standards that can be adopted for local use.
  • Invitation to four two-day meetings of the forum each year
  • An induction visit to introduce the forum methodology
  • Assistance with taking part in Benchmarking processes and action planning.
  • An e mail enquiries service and collated replies to enquiries from members.
  • Access to networking opportunities with other similar local authorities.
  • Access to e mail networks.
  • Regular mailings and policy and practice updates.
  • Exclusive access to private web site pages.
  • Individual visits to discuss links between practice, service delivery and action planning
  • 4 additional themed days each year
 The Forum provides access to the national public policy framework for leaving care. Members were involved in meetings with representatives of the DCSF Strategy team responsible for the writing of the White Paper, Time for Change. Members have also been involved in the development of revised national standards in leaving care and will be responsible for their ongoing maintenance along with NLCAS.
Becoming a Member
In order to make the Forum accessible to as many local authorities as possible membership is offered on two levels.
Core Members
Core Group Members meet four times a year for two-day residential events to:
  •  Work on the development and revision of Standards.
  •  Take part in issue based workshops and networking with managers from other local authorities.
  •  Be responsible for the development and monitoring of the work programme of the Forum.
 
Network Members
Network Members will receive all the benefits of the work of the Forum other than the residential events. They will however, be invited to attend one meeting each year to share the results of the year’s work and discuss some of the policy and practice issues raised.
How to get involved?

To discuss membership further please contact Mike Sutcliffe on 07793 365161 e mail mike.sutcliffe@raineronline.org

For a formatted version of this information click here

To access the Benchmarking Forum members pages click here