Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Cllr Amin.

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 for the Committee to consider.

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.

There were no declarations of interests put forward.

To consider the minutes of the meeting held on 13 September and the  minutes of the Joint meeting  of the Children’s Safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee with the Corporate Parenting Advisory Committee held on the 11 October 2011 – To follow.

 The minutes of the 13 September were agreed as an accurate records of the meeting.

 The minutes of the  joint meeting  between the Children’s safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee and the Corporate parenting committee were tabled. It was agreed that any comments or amendments be put forward to the clerk.

This is a briefing paper from the  Head of Services to Children & Young People with Additional Needs & Disabilities responding to the Committee’s previous queries about safeguarding  Disabled children in Haringey.   

When recently considering the Safeguarding and Looked after Children Action Plan the Committee had remarked on the low number of disabled children in Haringey subject to a child protection plan and had wanted to find out more about the safeguarding of disabled children in Haringey. This was  to be assured that  the disabled children that needed the attention of the safeguarding service were being identified.

The Head of Services to Children & Young People with Additional Needs & Disabilities attended the meeting and presented a briefing paper on how the service worked to safeguard disabled children living in Haringey.  The service was mainly responsible for disabled children with high levels of need (tier 3 and 4 on the threshold of need) Work with disabled children involved a multi agency approach due to the range and complexity of support required by the child. The briefing note contained information about :

• How  disabled children are referred to the service
• The evaluation of safeguarding referrals received by the team
• The connections with  safeguarding services and bodies
• How the DFE guidance is followed
• The development of practices and policies for schools and professionals working with disabled children

The vulnerability of disabled children was a key concern of the Committee and the Head of the Service showed  a recent leaflet that had been distributed publicly  advising numbers to contact if there was concern about the care of a disabled child.  

The  Committee further learnt that the service were continually self evaluating  the care given to disabled children  through the completion of  case reviews, challenging discussions about the attention given to the child . This would  allow better practices to be developed and inform training to schools and professionals.  There was engagement with present and past users of the service to develop and continually improve services to  disabled children.   In relation to disabled children  that a re subject to a child protection plan there was analysis of their journey, through these proceedings. There will be an analysis of  the thresholds of need considered by the service, the quality assurance work undertaken by the service,.

The Committee learnt further about the current tools used by professionals in contact with severely disabled children to support their communication with them.  These were a range of symbol cards in use by local authority and health professionals.

The Committee were provided with information  on the number of disabled children subject to a child protection plan in Haringey with some comparisons provided with other borough’s figures.

The Committee were interested in the number of parents of  disabled children  that undertake CRB checks given the level of responsibility they  have for  their child and as they will likely receive direct payment to  fund their care. The Committee noted that legally, the Council could not dictate to a parent that a CRB check was needed to care for their disabled child . However when working with parents there were  sensitive  approaches employed to ensure a CRB check was completed.  There were currently no parents without a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 39.

This will be a presentation from Deirdre Cregan (Domestic Violence Co-ordinator)  and Michelle Robson(Senior Practitioner for  Domestic Violence).

The Committee received a presentation from Deirdre Cregan, Domestic Violence Co-ordinator, and Michelle Robson, Senior Practitioner for Domestic violence on the subject of Domestic Violence.  The presentation enabled the Committee to obtain a more focused view about domestic violence which was currently a factor in 70% of child protection cases. This finding had led to the movement of the domestic violence team   from the policy part of the Council to Children’s services. 

Previously in 2001 a best value review had found a lack of co-ordination of services for women reporting domestic violence and escaping from a perpetrator. This led to the establishment of Hearthstone a centre providing support  for women wanting to escape  a violent relationship. Since 2002 there has been a strong policy message in the borough about the zero tolerance of domestic violence. There has been training programmes with partners and agencies to raise awareness. MARAC (Multi agency risk assessment conference) was established in 2008 where there were significant risks to the adult involved in a domestic violence and enabled a co-ordinated multi agency response. 

The Committee further learnt that:

• It is gender based violence 
• It has a  far reaching  impact on families
• Can be seen as  a non crime  as the   violence  has to result  in  serious injuries i.e. ABH for prosecution to occur
• Although there was a positive arrest policy  but it was felt by the practioners that this was not well embedded as a practice
• There was prevalence of domestic violence amongst young people and in particular Committee noted that 1 in 5 teenage women reported violence from a partner.

 A government survey into attitudes about domestic violence indicated that domestic violence was still seen as acceptable in relationships.

 The Committee asked about the reporting of abuse of the elderly and it was noted that there was now further research being carried out into elderly abuse as there was a current lack of services available to older victims reporting abuse. The organisation which was responsible for addressing reports of elderly abuse was SOVA (safeguarding of vulnerable adults)

The  Independent Member reported that,  prior to carrying out her audit of referrals which involved 2 year olds and   where domestic violence was a factor , she had  gathered some valuable insight and knowledge from the co-ordinator and practioner  on domestic violence  which had informed  the audit which  members were to consider in the next item.

That the press and public be excluded from the meeting for consideration of the following items 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.

The press and public were excluded from the meeting for consideration of the following item as it contained 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.

A  programme of audits has been established by  the Children’s Safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee in order to monitor good practice and performance in Children’s Social  Care , and identify areas of good practice and areas of improvement . The Independent Member of the Children’s Safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee was asked to examine case referrals, in a particular month, involving 2 years olds where domestic violence was a feature .

The Independent Member of the Committee introduced her report which set out the findings into referrals involving children under the age of 2 where domestic violence was a factor in their referral to the safeguarding team. 

A positive finding of the audit was the support being given to mothers to leave a violent relationship.   Although after care arrangements for mothers was continuing  to improve, the safeguarding service acknowledged the need to continue to focus on this area as feelings of  isolation  experienced in a new setting  could  often be a trigger for returning to  the violent partner.  The service was looking to encourage involvement in children  centre services and instigating introductions to community based organisations to help mothers feel independent and supported.  On a wider scale there was continuing work with SOLACE to develop long term practices for safeguarding children   living in house holds where  domestic violence was featured.

Although the sample of cases looked at was not significant in number, as this was a qualitative audit, the impact of a first child in a relationship was noted to be a key introduction point to domestic violence. Other risk factors, seen in the cases analysed for Social Workers to be aware of, were if the mother was not in close distance to her family and if there was a significant age gap between the father and mother of the child.

In the cases which involved unborn babies there was good evidence seen of midwives speaking with the mothers and detecting if problems in the relationship were of a violent nature.  The midwives knew the appropriate services to refer the mother to.

 The Committee had noted in the previous presentation that the Police receive a call per minute reporting domestic violence.  The Committee learnt that when the Police receive a call in Haringey reporting domestic violence notification is given (MERLIN) to the domestic violence team.  When the Police are visiting the address they will check if there are children living in the home and report this to the domestic violence team. If there are no children seen at the address but there is reason to believe that there are children living there, the Domestic Violence team will get the address details and make a visit to the property.

In general the quality of work on the cases was good there were 10 cases which the independent member made comments on for follow up action and there would be a response provided by the head of Safeguarding at the next meeting on the actions being taken.

 To consider the exempt minutes  form the meeting held on the 13 September 2011.

 The exempt minutes of the 13 September  2011 were agreed as a correct record.

To consider any items admitted under item 2 above.

None

The  next meeting  is  on the 12 December 2011.

The Committee agreed to cancel the next scheduled meeting on the 12^th December and defer the potential items on the CAF Action Plan, progression of case referrals from the July audit  to the meeting on the 26 January 2012.