Issue - meetings

This report will  update members on the Safeguarding and Support Services within the Children and Young People’s Service.

The independent member of the Children’s Safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee provided the Committee with information on Section 47 of the Children’s Act 1989 which set out the regulatory framework which Local authorities were obliged to follow for safeguarding children.   There then followed a report on the Safeguarding and Support service which puts into practice these obligations.  It was noted that the Safeguarding and Support team is separate to the First Response and Children in Care teams and delivers services to the most vulnerable in the borough. This service will be responsible for children that are subject to Child Protection Plans, Children in Need Plans and Supervision Orders. It was noted that there were 326 children and young people subject to Child Protection plans; this was an increase of 47% from two years ago. There were 141 children under 5 subject to CP Plans in the borough   and this was an increase of 50% from Feb 2009. These increases were not dissimilar to those seen by other boroughs.

The report set out the procedures and functions followed for Child Protection Conferences, and the Committee noted that according to London Safeguarding Procedures children and young people subject to these plans should be seen every 6 weeks.  The Council were ensuring that children were seen every 4 weeks and looking to reduce this further to visits every two weeks. The report went onto explain the duties followed by Social Workers in Child Protection Plans and the additional role of the Safeguarding Panel.  It was noted that there were 253 children and young people as at 28 February subject to child protection plans.   Although there was no definitive time for a child or young person being subject to a child protection plan, key factors were the timing of services provided and the family’s engagement with the process.

The Committee were advised that there were 350 children/young people on Children in Need Plans.  These children did not meet the criteria for a section 47 safeguarding investigation but would meet the criteria to receive a service from the Children’s Social Care through Haringey’s Consortium of Need and Intervention. 

Following the Baby Peter case, understanding was sought by the Joint Committee of the improvements in safeguarding in the following areas:

• Social Worker  numbers and case loads
• Supervision of Social Workers
• Sharing of Information among agencies
• Legal case work
• Auditing

The Joint Committee noted that there was a significant increase in the number of Social Workers and managers in the service with a majority of them Haringey employees which made a difference to the stability and efficiency of the service. The improvements in information sharing were easily apparent by the knowledge held by Social Workers of the contact points in service areas such as Adults and Housing.

A key issue, which was heavily emphasised by the service, was having a full knowledge of the visitors and residents to a child’s home.  The audits undertaken on child protection plans would also check the frequency of the visits made  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4