Agenda item

Verbal update by Beverley Hendricks (Assistant Director for Safeguarding and Social Care).

The Partnership received a verbal update from the AD for Safeguarding and Social Care, Beverley Hendricks, around developing a repository for young people to protect them from gangs and knife crime. The AD for Safeguarding and Social Care also presented a flyer to the Partnership, as set out in pages 57-60 of the agenda pack, which provides advice and guidance about gangs and knife crime. The Partnership were informed that the community flyer was created in response to the loss of a 15-year-old from the Borough as a result of an incident and based on concerns and questions from parents on what needed to be done. It was noted that the community flyer was an opportunity to educate parents on the signs of gang involvement and who they might turn to for support. It was hoped that the information in the community flyer could be replicated to schools, and to move towards creating Community Safe Zones (CSZ), which would be a place young people could access support if they were unable to speak to professionals or their parents. It was further noted that there were ideas around developing an app for young people where they could click on their phone to trigger responses from MASH and other preferred providers to reduce the line between the incident and response. The AD for Safeguarding and Social Care sought the Partnership’s agreement on the concepts put forward in order for future representatives to work it up to a better proposal to come back to the Partnership.

The Chair welcomed the ideas proposed by the AD for Safeguarding and Social Care. 

The following was noted in response to the discussion of the update:

1. The AD for Safer Communities mentioned that safe havens were being set up along businesses on Wood Green High Road and suggested that the proposed work also tap into the safe havens project to ensure that young people who sought safety were signposted to the relevant information. In response, the AD for Safeguarding and Social Care agreed to build on the safe haven work, but noted that the businesses would need to have training to ensure they understood their role and close the gap to make sure the community was involved with the Council’s efforts around safeguarding.
2. In response to a question on who would be involved in the training, the AD for Safeguarding and Social Care agreed that it needed to be multi-agency. The Partnership were informed that there was a small working group to help identify which portfolios would do the different parts of the training.
3. In response to a request, the AD for Safeguarding and Social Care agreed to circulate the printed versions of community flyer to different partners (Action: Beverley Hendricks).
4. In response to a concern raised that the app on the young person’s phone could be scrutinised by senior gang members and make the young person vulnerable, the AD for Safeguarding and Social Care explained that the Social Care service were launching a Mind Of My Own (MOMO) tool for young people to send messages to their social workers and early help workers. Although currently only 10 young people had access to the tool, those young people wanted to use the tool and haven’t had anxiety about the risks. However, it was noted that this concern would be something for the team to think about. The Chair mentioned she believed that in domestic abuse cases, there was a way for the victim to send a text, which would then disappear from the phone to leave no audit trail. The Chair informed the Partnership that she would research this further to see whether there are ways in ensuring young people were not at risk through the use of an app/text system (Action: Chair – Borough Commander).
5. The AD for Safeguarding and Social noted that she was working on these proposals with the AD for Safer Communities, and she sought the Partnership’s assistance with the work. A paper was sent around the meeting for individuals that wanted to assist with the work to record their name. The AD for Safeguarding and AD for Safer Communities would agree timescales between themselves in regard to the proposed works (Action: Eubert Malcolm & Beverley Hendricks). 
6. In response to a question, the AD for Safeguarding and Social Care informed the Partnership that safeguarding training was on the Council’s website. 

RESOLVED

That the update was noted.