/ getting it right
for every child in Lanarkshire

STAGE 2SYSTEMS CHANGE

Group 1.Universal Record of Concern / Request for Assistance

The delivery of children’s services through single agencies has brought us to the point where there are many and varied ways of recording concerns about children and young people and different ways of trying to get support from other agencies when it might be needed. This has created a number of difficulties:

  • a complexity of systems that practitioners and families find difficult to understand
  • capacity issues of filling in different forms for different agencies
  • different language / terminology / labels / categories / thresholds
  • the notion of referring from one system to another has also created difficulties in responsibility, accountability and resource management
  • a child or young person can become lost from one system as they become involved with another.

One clear way of streamlining systems is to create a shared language around concerns based on a common framework of understanding. This can then be used to record concerns across every agency. It’s important to note that although concerns may be registered and recorded, they may not always result in a request to another agency for help. It might be that appropriate help in some circumstances is to provide support from within a single agency. The national guidance requires every possibility to be explored within single agencies before we ask another agency for help. So part of recording concerns must be a way of recording what action a practitioner will take in response to the concern and sometimes that will include asking for help from another agency.

Getting it right for every child encourages the replacement of “referral forms” from one agency to another with a “request for assistance” as a contribution to build a culture of co-operation.

The practice model and core components of Getting it right for every child make it clear that the universal services of health and education should remain the focal point for children and families and no matter what their needs for other kinds of help, it should be co-ordinated wherever possible from these two anchor points in their lives.

Lanarkshire is being asked to develop a universal record of concerns which includes sections on recording action and a section which can be completed to request assistance. In order to comply with the national practice model and guidance, this record of concern must be based on the indicators of well-being.

TASK OF GROUP 1. CONCERNS / REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE
  1. Spend time carefully considering the materials provided which include the Domestic Abuse Pathfinder Concerns Form from Dumfries and Galloway and an Exemplar for discussion. Discuss and record some of the issues that need to be taken into account or resolved in order for Lanarkshire to create a common record of concerns.

Issues discussed in regard to D&G Forms:
  • Acronyms used
  • No telephone contact for child
  • Parent name should be at the front
  • Needs to be online and paper based
  • Very busy
  • Emergency contact missing on front
  • should be in 1.2 as core information
  • Education doesn’t include home schooling / travelling children
  • The CP message at the top implies a different set of forms
  • The order of information is not helpful to staff to make assessments
  • (all forms should be designed as a core dataset).

General issues about use of universal record of concerns:
  • Very definitive systems for information sharing required – not everyone needs to know all the information / access filters
  • Consent required issue of information for each request for assistance
  • Access should be agreed by the Named Person.

  1. List the benefits of recording concerns using a common framework of understanding.
  • Don’t need to talk to lots of agencies
  • Simplifies it for families and practitioners
  • Increases transparency
  • Involves family early
  • Easily transferrable to another worker
  • Easier to find key information
  • Better use of resources
  • It will provide a chronology tracker
  • Less paperwork & more face to face contact with children and families translates to actual workers
  • Builds information sharing into the culture.

  1. List all the services that could be included in a common approach to requesting assistance.

Police / speech and language / social work / public health / GP / midwives / mental health / education / nursery / audiology / allied health professionals / housing / A&E
Discussion about voluntary sector
4. Consider the exemplar provided as a possible single records of concerns / request for assistance. List the changes that need to be made to make this exemplar into something that could be tested.
Exemplar
  • Needs tick boxes for attachments (for traceability)
  • Although we are reducing the number of various forms, there is still a need for a flow of increasing information required as you get further round the spiral of GIRFEC
  • First section – don’t like ‘someone else told me’ needs more information about person, can’t class the parent as ‘someone else’, tick all that apply needs to be included
  • Re urgency at the start – should highlight by agency CP procedures? Is this a daft place to ask this question?
  • Would parents also be able to fill this in to present to agencies to request assistance?
  • e-form could offer drop down list for any options within the form
  • Second section want more of a narrative
  • Need the issue to be defined here
  • S7 positive / concern – introducing more language, why not use vulnerability / resilience matrix?
  • Concern about layout – boxes in S7 are not useable if a lot of text inserted then having to read it in a big long column
  • Need to be brief but also meaningful – balance of practitioners using it vs enough information for receiving agency
  • This is an overview document the receiving agency would do their own enquiries?
  • Hard to have one form fits all need across universal and more targeted services
  • If practitioners have to fill in every box @ S7, they need to understand the importance of doing so – suspect it might lead to areas of information being scant for timesaving
  • S8 Is this a prompt or a question?
  • S9 & 10 what can I do? We thought this form was used when all intra-agency work was exhausted? Should it be what am I doing?
  • Agree the five questions aren’t in a useful place on the form S10 would be best as a prompt prior to ever completing a request for assistance
  • S12 Discussion – is this lead person / not necessarily – we can’t dictate who uptakes the action. To be completed by receiving agency
  • (overall – can we pluralise the concern to concerns – you won’t be writing a new form for multiple concerns
  • S13 Change to ‘what stage is it at?’ so agencies can tap in and check and feed back to clients. To be completed by receiving agency
  • S13a Same
  • S14 Is the family informed? Receiving agency to complete next stage
  • S15 more to end of S7.
LAST PAGE
  • S1 ok
  • S2 ok
  • S4 remove
  • S3 prefer D&G form design
  • +S5 segregating levels and person consent
  • S3 6 happy with them but think the background could be S6 or attached box area here.

5. Consider the process of accepting a referral from each of the agency perspectives represented within the group. Is there information specific to particular concerns that is needed when receiving a request for assistance? List specific information that might need to be considered.
Not sure if this question was considered
6. Discuss and record information you would want to see in practice guidance about a common record of concern/ request for assistance
Information on the wheel, well-being indicators
Cascading / training well-being indicators
Be specific within the guidance what action / information some agencies would require
  1. Any other comments your group would like to make that don’t fit into any of the other sections. Please also list any areas of discussion you could not agree upon.

Other suggestions for Universal Request for Assistance
  • Common unique identification number (CHI no )
  • Emergency contact on front
  • Parent on front
  • Use core data set if it’s already been agreed for Lanarkshire
  • Need training on well-being indicators / well-being wheel first
  • Could be based on the single shared assessment model
  • Electronic version would give a real time picture of who is involved e.g. tick box visibility
  • ISP status? need this logged
  • Some fields could be controlled drop down lists instead of freetext, for stats extraction purposes
  • Core data should be able to populate all agency basic information
  • Relevant background should be attached and a tick box section to indicate what.

Participants in Group
Chair Andrea Batchelor
Facilitator Liz Kearney
Participants
Anne Heyn, Operational Manager EVA (Domestic Abuse)
Tracy Stephen, CAMHS
Sharon Graham, Children and Families Social Work
Fiona ?, Social Work South
Margaret Gibson, (Education South)
Margaret Devenney, Team Leader Public Health
Anne Marie Stewart, Children and Families Manager SW
Molly Gibb, Speech and Language Team Leader
Davy Jones, Children’s Reporter South
Mary Mullan, Public Health Team Leader East Kilbride