Agenda and minutes

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The Chair will consider the admission of late items of urgent business. Late items will be considered under the agenda item they appear. New items will be dealt with at Item 11 below.

There were no items of  urgent business.

A member with a personal interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is being considered must disclose to that meeting the existence and nature of that interest at the commencement of the consideration, or when the interest becomes apparent.

A member with a personal interest in a matter also has a prejudicial interest in that matter if the interest is one which a member of the public with knowledge of the relevant facts would reasonably regard as so significant that it is likely to prejudice the member’ judgement of the public interest.

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To consider the minutes of the meeting held on 11^th April 2011.

The minutes of the 11 April 2011 were agreed as an accurate record of the meeting.

It was noted that Graham Badman, the Chair of the LSCB, had been unable to attend this meeting due to annual leave arrangements. Members were informed that he had been invited to the next meeting of the committee  on the 13 September .Members  were asked to consider an earlier start time  to the meeting to enable  the attendance of this  key partner  to provide information on the role of the LSCB and how various safeguarding groups fit together . His Input would aid a wider  discussion on the safeguarding context in Haringey. The meeting would also include a  presentation from the Deputy Director for Children and Families on the safeguarding plan  and a separate report on the safeguarding monitoring framework. It was agreed to  ask the Chair of the LSCB if  he could  attend at 6.30pm.   It was further agreed that the previous action of inviting  a representative from health  to this discussion  should be followed up.

Members of the Committee to consider a summary  of  the Munro Review  into  Child Protection from the Independent Member.

The Committee noted that Eileen Munro had been commissioned by the Coalition government to undertake a review of child protection and make recommendations on how the system could be improved.  Munro had compiled two previous reports, the first  report   was  a system analysis  of the current child protection system  and how it had evolved and been shaped  by  key driving forces. The second report had  looked at  how the system could be reformed to  keep focus  on the child’s experiences from needing help to receiving it.  The final third report from Munro brought together the issues arising from the first two reports. The Independent Member of the Committee had compiled a summary of Munro’s final report which contained proposals for changes to the child protection system. The key components of these recommendations were developing social work capacity; ensuring children were communicated with, and that the child  was at the centre of the organisations process.

 The Committee further learned that Munro had found the current Child Protection system to be reactive instead of proactive. The performance management culture had the impact of an organisation focussing on process and targets rather than outcomes for children and families. Also the current system did not take account of a child’s experiences. The following key recommendations from the Munro report were set out by the Independent Member:

• A new system for child protection which is child focused
• The family is the best place to bring up children
• Helping children and families involves working with them – Social workers will enter the field of social work with the aim of helping families and the system should allow the social worker to do this in a better way.
• Early help is better for children – prevention and early intervention is the best way to help children in the long run
• Children’s needs and circumstances are varied  so the system should be flexible and offer variety good professional practice is informed by knowledge of the latest theory and research -  workforce needs to be informed by the latest knowledge and research  -
• Uncertainty and risk are features of the work –  there was a need to assist social workers exercise their authority
• The measure of success of child protection systems is whether children receive effective help. -  There should be a focus on principles that underpin good practice and it should be clear what children services and social workers are accountable for.  The should also be better ways of helping staff working in child protection understand when the systems should be improved.

 The review also outlined the following areas for reform:

• Value given to professional expertise
• Clarification on accountabilities and creation of a learning system
• Shared responsibility for the provision of early help
• Developing social work expertise
• Organisation supporting effective social work practice

In considering the information from the Munro report the Independent Member advised the Committee that it was important to keep in mind that there was not an exemplary children’s service structure   for local authorities to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16.

The committee to consider proposals from the Independent Member  on topics and areas for audit  in the coming year.

The Committee had, since its inception,  undertaken a number of audits into  safeguarding practice.  They had been useful in highlighting practice issues for both Members and officers  and had been part of changing practices and improving communication with service users and other agencies. The independent Member of the committee completed the audits on behalf  of the Committee.

There was an audit plan put forward for the Committee to consider  which proposed that referrals  to the safeguarding team  from a particular week  in  July were examined  by the Independent Member and findings reported back to the  committee in September.  The Chair  agreed that referrals received in the week beginning the 11^th July were examined.

It was agreed that  there would be a  domestic violence related audit that would focus around under two year olds  living in households where domestic violence was a feature.  The findings of this would be reported to the November the 3^rd  meeting. 

There would be a follow  report on the progression of the case referrals  considered in July  to the December 12^th meeting.

 At the January meeting the committee would consider an audit of cases where the child was subject to a  child protection plan . It was agreed to decide the audit theme  for the  March meeting  in the new year.

The report sets out the key areas for activity to continue the work of improving the quality of our services in respect of Safeguarding and Children in care. The report sets out the key tasks and ‘milestone’ reports on progress.

The Committee considered the progress against key tasks and milestones for safeguarding and children in care following the most recent Ofsted inspection.

In relation to  action 1.2, arising from the Ofsted recommendation that  the attendance of children at child protection review medicals should be reviewed and monitored,  Paediatricians were  now able to review Framework I  files and speak with social workers  to ensure that they were aware of the these appointments  to help ensure the child’s attendance at them. The Head of First Response, as a secondary monitoring measure, was also examining, on a quarterly basis, the attendance levels at these appointments. 

Assurance was sought by the Committee that children with a disability were being given equal attention by the service following communication in the report that quite low numbers of children with disabilities were subject to child protection plans.   The Committee were informed that staff from the disabilities team participated on a regular basis with the First Response team, the multi agency team which considered all referrals and contacts related to concerns about children, to provide advice on referrals relating to disabled children. There had also been training with staff on helping identify children with disabilities that were experiencing abuse.    There were detailed results available on the a recent  benchmarking exercise, conducted by the LSCB,   which had  looked at the number of children with disabilities  subject to child protection plans  which was available to the Committee . There was also a pilot project between the DCT and First Response team to monitor the referral route for disabled children. Phil De Leo the, Head of Services to Children & Young People with Additional Needs & Disabilities , could  be asked to provide an email explaining the work of the service in working with disabled children   and identifying abuse.  The Committee were asked to take account of the added complexities of working with and communicating with disabled children. To increase the Committee’s understanding of this service’s communication initiatives, it was suggested that the Head of Services to Children & Young People with Additional Needs & Disabilities could be invited to a future meeting of the Committee to discuss this work.

Attached to action 23 was the milestone to embed and enable a culture committed to supervision. The Committee were assured that supervisions were undertaken at least very four weeks with a social worker and additional sessions also held if needed.  Information on the latest progress with this milestone would be emailed to Committee Members.

 The Committee considered the areas for improvement identified from the inspection of safeguarding and looked after children undertaken in February.   A key point noted by the Committee was that all assessment work had the input of a fully qualified social worker.  The actions relating to case recording , staff supervision partnership working ,  quality control  and assessments  were crucial  given that the services was expecting an unannounced visit by Ousted   to the First Response team in the near future.  The Committee noted that unannounced inspections of children’s services were one of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18.

 The Committee to discuss the findings of  a published Serious Case Review.

The Committee received a presentation from the Head of Service for First Response about the key findings of a serious case review into a domestic violence incident in which a father had caused the death of a mother  which had led to a family of children coming into the care of the local authority. The executive summary of the serious case review was published on the LSCB website and the consideration of this case provided the Committee with an understanding of the impact of domestic violence on children. The Committee considered the: background and circumstances around the case, the agencies involved, the communication lines between agencies. Members further noted that the lack of a full picture held by the agencies involved in the domestic violence case had led to a series of misunderstandings. Members noted the recommendations of the review, which included a joined up approach to domestic violence across the partnership.

 In terms of meeting child protection requirements, there had been key practices implemented following the recommendations of the review with partners now looking in more detail at domestic violence incidences to ascertain whether there were children or unborn children in the household. There was more recognition that,  children may  not be experiencing physical abuse and  therefore be signalled to services through  the usual routes of schools or GP’s. The SCR highlighted  that children  could be  passive recipients of  domestic violence and will develop mechanisms for dealing with this which  will not  always be  explicit and therefore detectable by  schools, General Practitioners or other services.   Partners were taking on board this advice form the SCR and where  there were reports of domestic violence  received with children in the household, there was now an immediate referral to children’s social care teams.  The Committee noted that often domestic violence was under reported, however there would follow a review of  Merlin, this was the police notification system where referrals were held which did not reach a crime threshold.

The serious case review had highlighted issues about the involvement of Adult Health and Mental Health Services and the connections they make with children services and other agencies.  The Committee discussed the health links in the case and comment was made on the amount of responsibility and pressure placed on General Practitioner’s to identify underlying issues when meeting patients and then making necessary referrals to adults and children related services.  In this case the father   had not been registered with General Practitioners in his adult life but had contact with mental health services, probation and MARAC.  These services were reported in the SCR to have been adult focused and not communicated their work with the father to Children’s services.  The Committee discussed the type of focus given by services and agencies  to males and to their responsibility in the family unit. There had been a recent article on the paradox of father presence and absence in child welfare which the Head of First Response agreed to circulate to Committee Members.

The Committee sought understanding  ...  view the full minutes text for item 19.

That the press and public be excluded from the meeting for consideration of items12-15 as they contain exempt information as defined in Section 100a of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended by Section 12A of the Local Government Act 1985): paras 1 & 2: namely information relating to any individual, and information likely to reveal the identity of an individual.  

To consider any required exempt items of business.

Date of next meeting :

13 September 2011 7.30pm

 Joint meeting with Corporate Parenting on 11^th October 2011

 The date of the next meeting 13^th  September 2011.