Issue - meetings

The Committee has asked the Independent Member to complete an audit of a sample of new referrals from a particular week in December, specifically looking at the thresholds of need  that are being applied.

REPORT TO FOLLOW

 The Independent member had examined  a particular week in December where there had been  a higher than average number of referrals .  A sample of 25 cases had been audited  using the Framework I system. The  Independent member explained to the Committee that  she was withdrawing her comment  on a culture of  close working at  this was concluded as a result of looking at the number of visits made and  there was a section on the framework I system  which displayed this but was not  accessed by  the Independent member at the  time of the audit.

 Initial observation were as follows:

 There seemed to be more resources to signpost  children to from the ages of 0-5  in comparison to resources available for 5-9 year olds. It was expected that once the 54000  programme was embedded there would be  an increase  in resources available through the Help Strategy.

 In terms of the source of referral,  a high proportion came from health,  and the Police . A good indicator, next year, to how the help strategy was progressing, was to see referrals from other sources  such as neighbours and community organisations.

 There was discussion about the  whether the service were treating contacts as a referral too often  but in this sample of cases  looked at  there was a case for more referrals to be treated as contacts.

The Deputy Service Head for First Response  provided some further context to the period in which the audit was undertaken. It was important to note that  the rate of referrals for December 2012 was considerably lower than compared to December 2011. 

 The Chair asked the Independent Member whether there were any circumstances seen where cases were allowed to ‘drift’ . The committee  were assured that there  all urgent cases were addressed in good time  but the service  could not be complacent on this issue.  The Assistant Director  advised that the service were continuing to look at the ‘Front door’ to the service  as currently the  there were too many cases coming through the social work  pathway which was a more authoritarian style of intervention and  there  was more to be done to be to  see children as early as possible.

 There was a need to consider whether the   when assessing contacts they  are subject to a higher threshold  when this is not needed . There could be a high level of assessment