Agenda and minutes

 There were no apologies for absence received.

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 Items 10&11 below.

 The chair had agreed to admit the report on Performance  Data management as a late item of business. This report had bee  distributed to members of the committee and was attached at  Agenda Item 7.

A member with a disclosable pecuniary interest or a prejudicial interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered:

(i) must disclose the interest at the start of the meeting or when the interest becomes apparent, and

(ii) may not participate in any discussion or vote on the matter and must withdraw from the meeting room.

A member who discloses at a meeting a disclosable pecuniary interest which is not registered in the Register of Members’ Interests or the subject of a pending notification must notify the Monitoring Officer of the interest within 28 days of the disclosure.

Disclosable pecuniary interests, personal interests and prejudicial interests are defined at Paragraphs 5-7 and Appendix A of the Members’ Code of Conduct.

Cllr Adamou declared a personal interest  as both her daughters  worked in Haringey,  one as a social worker f or children with disabilities and the other as a teacher.

To consider the minutes of the meeting held on 10^th July 2012.

 The minutes of the meeting  held on the 10^th July  were agreed as an accurate record of the meeting.

 The  Agenda plan was  tabled for committee members to consider and comment on. Since the  last meeting, in July, the Chair and  Independent Member had been  in discussion with Cabinet Member for  Children’s services about taking forward an audit  on late assessments.  Although there  was information  available about the number of assessments that were completed  out of timescales there was not an understanding about how  far out of scale assessments were completed and  the factors  contributing  to this.  The chair was in agreement with the Cabinet member that this was an area that required further exploration  . The findings of the Audit report would be considered at the next meeting  on November 22^nd 2012.

The committee further noted that the Independent Member had been  speaking with Adults Services  about  her proposed audit of cases where  substance misuse was an issue . From considering  these cases she would   in turn  consider the interface between  Safeguarding  and Adults service.  It had  now been agreed to defer this  report   to the meeting in   March  as there was an existing service audit of files taking place and instead there would be a  some questions added  to  instead depict these issues .

The joint meeting between the  Corporate Parenting and the Children’s Safeguarding committee was due to take place on the 29^th  October 7.30pm . The  items on the lessons learnt from serous case reviews  was proposed and agreed to be deferred to a later meeting . The  Independent Member had recommended to the Chair that  it would be worthwhile for the  both Children’s committees to consider Haringey 54000 project which was  about reducing the cost of LAC and  focussing  services towards early intervention . As this was a key area  which concerned both Children’s Committee areas of responsibilities  it was felt prudent by the Independent member that  this  should be dealt with in a  joint forum.

 Committee members requested this presentation at their meeting on the 19^th April and it will be provided by Deirdre Cregan, Domestic Violence Co-ordinator Senior Practitioner, and Michelle Robson, Senior Practitioner (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 gain a more focused view about domestic violence which was currently a factor (not the  overriding issues) in 70% to 80% of child protection cases. This finding had led to the movement of the domestic violence team from the Policy section of the Council to Children’s services. The DV practioners had a significant position in children’s services and now enabled the work on DV to be more child focussed. The practioners were also now able to link theory to real life cases and Social Workers did take the opportunity to call upon their expertise and guidance in dealing with cases where domestic violence was a factor.

 Previously in 2011 a best value review had found a lack of co-ordinated services for women escaping domestic violence. This led to the establishment of Hearthstone centre for the survivors of Domestic violence providing support with housing and access to services.  There has been training programmes with partner agencies to raise awareness of Domestic Violence. MARAC (Multi agency risk assessment conference) was established in 2008 to enable a co-ordinated multi agency response to cases where there was risk of significant harm to an individual. These have become more children focussed and there are monthly case conferences which included the participation of 25 agencies.

The Committee further learnt that Domestic Violence:

Is a gender based violence – mainly affecting women.

Has far reaching impact on families

There is a positive arrest scheme  where the police themselves can charge the perpetrators without the victims consent but this  can only be does if an injury is seen and therefore is rarely  used.

There is rehabilitation programme where perpetrators are encouraged in a group setting to talk through values and understand the impact of their violence. The attendance of partners at this scheme also contributed to the women feeling safer and more likely to accept support form agencies.

 It was recognised that   violence can happen in teenage relationships and there was a need to heighten concern where there is a large age gap i.e. where the teenage girl has a   much older male partner...

 Now developing partnerships across the borough and the council were taking part in a three day consultation  through the Home Office to review partnership working in cases of domestic Violence.

The DV court would be moving to a location in Tottenham to enable cases to be progressed more efficiently.

In October the Young persons advocate working in the First Response team would be working on DV cases involving teenagers.

The committee learnt that the Domestic violence practioners had discovered in their  training that there were even professionals that felt that there were certain situations where violence was  perceived as acceptable and therefore there was still  work to be done to challenge these perceptions and ensure that DV was seen as unacceptable whatever the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 89.

To consider any new items  of business admitted at item 2 above.

 The committee considered performance information relating to safeguarding performance for the month of July 2012.

OP 504 ( The number of child contacts received)  The committee   noted the increase in contacts  received  and that   this could be attributed to the prominence of the MASH team and also  was likely have been an increase in families moving to the borough.  also families living in HMO’s(Houses in multiple occupation ) also faced  added family life  pressures form living in  unsuitable living  spaces.   There was a short discussion about the child safety issues concerning children form Roma families who were often seen I living I poor housing conditions. The Children’s service had a Specialist worker working in the Roma community and they were now beginning to also and list the Roma families that lived in the borough.  Members were asked to contact he First Response team, should they have concerns about the safety of Roma children they had seen in their ward. The increase committee were further asked to note that the increase in contacts   would impact on the completion rate for assessments.

OP383 (Re-referrals within 12 months of the previous referral) the performance stood at 19% against a target of 16% which was still below the boroughs statistical neighbour boroughs.  It was not that the reason for referral was 10 to 11% housing related and similarly   could be due to   a significant change in circumstance for the family which they were not in a position to cope with.  Some cases were recorded s re-referrals as the FWI system could not support capturing the appropriate outcome and instead showed the cases as closed and o reopened, The service were considering ways to resolve this anomaly. The committee agreed that a short analysis of re-referrals be completed by the Independent member in time for the November meeting.

OP368(Percentage of referrals to children’s social care going on to initial assessment) The committee noted that  target had been revised  so that the council was on   aiming to achieve  performance levels on par with a  good and excellent services. Members questioned the increase in this target given that the previous target levels were not being met. This led to an understanding being sought on the strategy behind the completion of initial assessments and the reasons for their delay.  The committee learned that an initial assessment had to be completed before a core assessment could be progressed and also that the advantage to completing a initial assessment for the contacts deemed to require this was that it meant the child could be seen Boroughs which may not complete initial assessment for children meeting the social care threshold and would therefore have the disadvantage of not seeing the child.  It was contended that initial assessments were too detailed which could delay their completion and progression of the case.  The committee were advised of the benefit of completing an initial assessment comprehensively was that it would mean there was less information to collate at the core assessment stage.  This would  ...  view the full minutes text for item 90.

There will be a motion to exclude the press and public  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 )paragraphs 1&2  namely information relating to an individual , and information likely to reveal the identity of an individual.

The Committee heard on 19 April 2012 the recommendations for the audit plan for the Additional Needs and Disabilities service in conjunction with the Disabled Children’s Policy and Practice Review Group.  The audits have now been completed and the Committee  will  be asked to consider and  comment on the findings.

The committee had previously heard about two audits concerning the care of disabled child and had requested to consider the findings of the audits in line with their responsibilities for overseeing safeguarding practice and policy.

 The first of the audits was a learning based audit conducted by the Disabled Children Policy and Practice review group that was focussed on a specific child.  This involved six services reviewing their files and the child’s mother was also interviewed to gain her input on the care received by her child.  The committee noted that this multi agency group had been established for 2 years and were continually examining and challenging their approach to the care of a disabled child. The group had already started examining the safeguarding of disabled children and previously an action plan had been developed which was still relevant and applicable today. Key stakeholders of the group included an Independent Head teacher and, as well as looking at individual cases, the group looked at emerging themes and how services could respond to these.  The audits were also a method for examining if the agencies really worked well together.

The findings of this audit had also been considered by the LSCB quality assurance sub group this week.  The Committee were asked to note the gaps and learning form the audit exercise which were largely in line with the proposals outlined in the White Paper (support and Aspiration – progress and next steps).

The second audit was completed in partnership with the Domestic Violence Co-ordinator   and looked at recent cases referred to the disabled children’s team and the First Response service where the family of the child is known to both teams.

 There were only 6 cases   fitting this category, however the learning from this audit was important and included the need to classify a child as disabled at the first point of contact with the service, First Response.  The low numbers of disabled children identified as being affected by DV still warranted it being an area to keep under review because the experiences of this would have a detrimental impact on the emotional wellbeing and safety of a disabled child.

 The committee noted that work is underway to identify the children and young people who have Health’ blue folders , i.e. children who are know n to Social are but not subject to Child protection plans ,but who have an additional need such as speech and language e therapy  and are known t the First Response team service.  The outcome of this work would be ready for the committee to consider after December 2012.

 The committee learned that when completing the audit there was no existing research to call upon relating to Domestic Violence and disabled children.

To apprise Members of the extent to which the needs of younger siblings in a family group are assessed and addressed when the presenting issue relates to the behaviour of an older young person in the family.

 The committee had   previously asked for an audit to be completed to find out how the needs of younger siblings are assessed and addressed when the presenting issue to the behaviour of an older young person in the family. The committee noted that 14% of contacts  received by First response relate to young people  aged between 14-17  and are received from a number  of sources  including police, schools, and the Youth Offending service.

There were 7 cases reviewed by the Head of Safeguarding and Support and it was noted that in every case the family were referred or self reoffered at a point of crisis. Work with the families was over a 4 month intensive multi agency work, intervention and stabilisation followed by ongoing social work allocation.  Intervention for  these families at an early stage was  key area of improvement and cases  with similar situations would benefit  form the shift in focus from  having a majority of  statutory services to universal  and outstanding early help.   A key  factors was obtaining support for the older sibling including finding an advocate which  the young person  is able t o communicate with  such as a youth worker.  The shift to  early intervention will also  help younger siblings  in the family . This could be by having a youth worker  or mentor working alongside the  Social Worker,

To consider any new items of exempt business submitted at item 2 above.

There were no items of urgent exempt business.

Date of next meeting : 22 November 2012 7.30pm

Joint meeting with Corporate Parenting Advisory Committee : 29^th October 2012  7.30pm

22 November  2012 7.30pm.

Joint meeting with Corporate Parenting Committee 29^th October 7.30pm.