New members of the committee and existing members of the committee will be provided with refreshed information about a child’s journey through the safeguarding structure.
Minutes:
The committee received a presentation on the First Response and Safeguarding and Support services within Children and Families. Sylvia Chew outlined the team structure of the First Response Service, made up of the multi agency safeguarding hub (MASH), four duty teams, No Recourse to Public Funds team and Emergency Duty Team, and also gave details of the referral and assessment processes for the Service and relevant data and outcomes. Iain Low presented the team structure of the Safeguarding and Support Service, who the users of the Service were, and data and information relating to Children in Need, Child Protection, Haringey Contact Service and Family Intervention Project.
In response to a question from the committee, it was reported that, where a CAF (Common Assessment Framework) was completed and submitted, this was logged and uploaded onto Framework-I by the CAF Manager; this meant that if that child were to come into contact with safeguarding services in future, there would be a record of the previous CAF. It was acknowledged, however, that where a CAF was undertaken and not sent in, this would not necessarily be held by the Council. It was also reported that details may not always be available for CAFs undertaken more than two years ago.
The committee noted that the number of contacts was higher than for the previous year; it was noted that this could be as a result of new families moving into the borough, and also that the figures may reduce over the summer period.
In response to a question regarding the 33% of cases that did not proceed to a Core Assessment, it was reported for some no action would have been required, others would be referred to single agencies for monitoring and others may have moved to a Child in Need plan. Case closure letters would be sent to the family, and copied to the relevant GP, health visitor, school and the original referrer for information. The committee welcomed the confirmation that there were no longer any cases without an allocated social worker.
It was reported that the caseload for the four duty teams in First Response was approximately 500 families, which represented a caseload of around 15-19 families per social worker. It was acknowledged that this was high, and that an ideal caseload would be 15-16 families per social worker. It was important to monitor cases to ensure that they were not being retained within First Response unnecessarily; reports were run to identify any cases that had been within the service for more than 5 months, and an account was required for each case to ensure that cases were being passed on appropriately.
Hilary Corrick noted that Haringey did tend to hold onto cases in First Response for longer than in neighbouring boroughs, and that its figures for cases closed within three months was lower than for its neighbours. This was partly because Haringey made sure that cases had been picked up by the next agency when they had been referred onward, and kept cases open until this was confirmed. Sylvia Chew advised that it was the intention to move to a model where social workers were just one part of a network of professionals working with a family, and that at the appropriate time the social worker could withdraw from that existing network, rather than ‘hand over’ to a new network.
In Safeguarding and Support, it was reported that the caseload was around 15-19 children per social worker, although there were a number of newly qualified staff in the service with ‘protected’ caseloads and a higher level of supervision.
It was confirmed that details regarding a Child Protection Plan were retained on file for 25 years after the plan ended.
The committee welcomed that the number of looked after children, including asylum seekers, had reduced to 562, as this had previously been over 600. It was acknowledged that this was a very positive trend downwards, and was a result of a combination of factors including tighter case management, co-ordination of early support and young people being discharged from care at age 18.
The committee thanked Sylvia Chew and Iain Low for the presentation.
RESOLVED
That the content of the presentation be noted.