The National Independent Visitor Network (NIVN) - Find a freedom of information request

I am writing to you to kindly request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 about Independent Visitor (IV) service provision for children and young people looked after by your local authority.

We look forward to receiving your response within 20 working days as set out by the Act.

The National Independent Visitor Network (NIVN) is joint funded by the Tudor Trust and Barnardo's children's charity and hosted by Barnardo's. NIVN aims to open access to a consistently high-quality Independent Visitor experience for children and young people in care across England and Wales.

The reason for this information request is to build an overview of how many children and young people are being provided with an IV and how these services are run. We will use the data to identify any themes, examples of best practice and areas for development, to contribute to improved life outcomes for children and young people in care. NIVN has spoken to individual Independent Visitor service providers about this information request. Please note this request is not extended to Independent Advocacy. Please can you respond to our Freedom of Information request via the link below. This will take you through to Microsoft forms. Please note you will need to have all relevant data to hand to complete the form. IV Freedom of Information Request

To support this process here is an outline of the type of data we are requesting:

This survey will request current information relating to:

• Number of Children and Young people matched (And number placed out of area)
• Number of Children and Young people waiting to be matched
• Length of match
• Number of 18+ funded matches
• Number of Volunteers matched
• Number of Volunteers waiting to be matched

It will also request information relating to the age, gender, ethnicity and disability of both children, young people and IV volunteers under the following categories:

• Gender Male/ Female/ Other
• Ethnicity White English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British, Irish
• Mixed or Multiple ethnic group White and Black Caribbean, White and Black African,
• White and Asian or Any other Mixed or Multiple ethnic background
• Asian or Asian British Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Chinese or Any other Asian background
• Black, African, Caribbean or Black British African, Caribbean or Any other Black, African, or Caribbean background
• Other ethnic groups Arab or any other ethnic groups

• Age This will relate to age groups of both children/young people and IVs:

Children and young people age groups will be: 5-8/9-11/12-14/15-17/18-20/21+

Volunteers age groups will be: 21-30/31-40/41-50/51-60/61+/Unknown

• Disability This is not differentiated further

Any information shared will be collected and stored to protect the personal data entrusted to us, by disclosing it only in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018.

Information shared will not be used to identify individuals or services, in the final publication of the report - this information will only be used to gather a national overview of Independent Visitor Services and will be compared to previous data collected through FOIs made in 2015 and 2018. If you would like to view our most recent data report see National Independent Visitor Data Report 2019 - National Independent Visitor Network (ivnetwork.org.uk)

Figures accurate as of the 16th of February 2022

Number of Children and Young People (CYP) matched - 10

Number of CYP matched out of area - 0

Number of CYP waiting to be matched - 2

Length of matches –

• 0-3 months - 1
• 3-6 months - 2
• 6 months to 1 year - 1
• 1 to 2 years - 0
• 2-3 years - 4
• 3-4 years - 2

Number of 18+ funded matches - 2

Number of Volunteers (IV) matched - 10

Number of Volunteers waiting to be matched – 1

Genders of CYP matched – 3 male, 6 female, 1 other

Ages of CYP matched –

• 9-11 - 1
• 12-14 - 4
• 15-17 - 3
• 18-20 - 2

Ethnicities of CYP matched – 10 white British or Irish

Any matched CYP with a disability – 1

Genders of CYP awaiting a match – 1 male, 1 female

Ages of CYP awaiting a match – 12-14 -2

Ethnicities of CYP awaiting a match – 2 white British or Irish

Genders of IVs – 10 female

Ages of IVs –

• 21-30 -3
• 31-40 - 1
• 41-50 -3
• 51-60 - 1
• 1-61 + 1 unknown

Ethnicities of IVs - 9 white British or Irish, 1 Eastern European

Any IVs with a disability – 0

Gender of IV awaiting a match – 1 female

Age of IV awaiting a match – 51-60 -1

Ethnicity of IV awaiting a match - 1 white British or Irish

Any IVs awaiting a match with a disability – 0