Issue - meetings

A presentation will be given by the Chair of the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board.

The Trust received a verbal report from the Chair of the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCB) on the key lessons to be learnt from the Serious Case Reviews (SCRs).

Serious Case Reviews: Overview

The Trust was advised that there were five key contributory factors identified as being common to SCRs:

Drug or Alcohol Abuse

Domestic Violence

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Research into SCRs also showed that there were four common areas where organisations failed:

• Lack of capacity
• Competent and well managed staff
• Communication between agencies
• Ineffective governance structures and lack of leadership

Lessons from the Baby Peter SCR

The Trust was advised that the key criticism of the initial SCR into the death of Baby Peter, Chaired by the Director of Children’s Services, was that it had lacked challenge. In order to provide the critical eye required it was generally expected that an independent Chair should be appointed to lead SCRs.

It was recognised that in many cases where a child was abused or died the parents were superficially seen to be cooperating with Social Workers and were often highly adept at deceiving the agencies involved in monitoring the child.

Greater scepticism and less optimistic approach taken when dealing with parents carers was required and all agencies should be more prepared to challenge what they were being told, particularly if there were clear indicators that that contradicted what they were being told.

Another key finding issue to emerge was that the Safeguarding of children needed to better embedded throughout all organisations including schools and that information needed to shared and passed on where appropriate.  The perceived ‘hierarchy’ of proceedings often caused a delay or prevented information to be shared and this needed to be addressed.

The Chair of the LSCB concluded by advising the Trust that copies of the second SCR would be circulated and asked them to look at the section contained within this document that set out the lessons to be learnt.

The Chair thanked the Chair of the LSCB for his presentation and noted that there were lessons to be learnt by all of the agencies involved. At present the Chair was highlighting safeguarding issues with Head Teachers and school Governors.

The Chair also noted that it was important ensure that social workers and the other agencies involved in Adults Services were mindful of safeguarding children.

RESOLVED:

That the presentation be noted.