Agenda item

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 to a child’s home. The Committee were advised that these audits were designed to identify any issues with working practices and gain an understanding of the themes emerging.

The supervision of Social Workers and practitioners and level of challenge to their work was felt to be correct.  The quality working practices of the current Social Workers meant that they were more capable of dealing with challenging families. There had been training sessions around authoritative practices and ensuring that Social Workers were fully aware of the legal responsibilities around their roles.  The relationship between Children’s Services and Legal was reported to be very good with advice provided at the right time. There was also  casework planning meetings between Children’s services and Legal to challenge and scrutinise the process.  There were good comments noted from new Social Workers on the manageable caseloads.

In regards to families understanding their role in the child protection plan and the expectations of them, Social Workers were trained to be clear in writing in the plan what changes in behaviour were needed from the family. In those cases, where there were issues of neglect, and the circumstances had not changed after a specified period,  there would be a child protection conference  to agree  that care proceedings could be taken forward, this would be either through a legal order or by the family’s consent.

Members asked about the proposal to having fortnightly visits to children on child protection plans and whether this would create additional work pressures for Social Workers in the service. In response it was felt, with the improvements made by the service, this would be achievable.

 Members enquired about the process after a child/young person ceases to be the subject of a child protection plan and were advised that families   are sign posted to universal services.  It was noted that information on children and families, that have been  subject to child protection  plans and children in need plans, is required to be kept on record by the service for the positive reasons, that  in the event  the family  require more support in the future, there is an understanding of their dynamics . This information may also  be required in later years or be required by another borough if the family are moving and require support or signposting to relevant services.  There would also be efforts made to obtain the family’s views after the plan has ceased to counter against the feelings of stigma at having been the subject of a Child Protection Plan.

In relation to Children in Need plans, more clarity was sought on the time period of the plans and the types of issues that would necessitate this plan as opposed to a Common assessment Framework (CAF). It was explained that some families will need a co-ordinated approach to accessing universal services as sign posting will not be sufficient. Therefore a Social worker will be assigned to co-ordinate this access for the family.

The report and information received was noted by the committee