Local Safeguarding Children Board – Review 2008/09 & 2009/10 Work Plan

Contents

Introduction

National Context

Local Context

BwD LSCB Structure

LSCB Committees

Review of 2008-09 Action Plan

Budget & Resources

LSCB Work Plan 2009-10

Introduction

Welcome to the 2008-09 annual review and 2009-10 action plan for the Blackburn with Darwen (BwD) Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB). The aim of the review is to provide an update on the progress in implementing actions by the Board and by LSCB member agencies. The action plan sets out the key business priorities for the current year.

There has been significant progress and success in implementing the actions from the 2008-09 action plan including the launch of the continuum of need and response framework, development of a borough wide e-safety strategy and extensive training for staff in LSCB agencies and schools. The Children and Young People’s Trust has focused on improving preventative services, increasing access to parenting courses, reducing risk taking behaviour by young people, improving road safety, and improving the response by all agencies to the needs of children and young people. The partnership work of the Board and Trust has been reflected in the ‘good’ rating for safeguarding in the 2008 Joint Area Review.

The progress and success is in the context of wider membership of the LSCB at both Board and committee levels. In response to Lord Laming’s 2009 report, BwD LSCB has already included on its Board providers of adult mental health and drug/alcohol services. Commitment and passion by all member agencies has led to good attendance at meetings, good contributions to partnership work and higher attendance rates of frontline staff to multi-agency safeguarding training.

To further develop the work that the Board undertakesand to regularly assess the Board’s work against national guidance, an annual Board development day is now held. The 2009 development day assessed the Board’s progress in the past year and highlighted new challenges for all LSCBs. The most significant challenge for LSCBs and its member agencies is to implement the recommendations of the Laming Report (2009) following the tragic death of Baby Peter.

Finally, may I take this opportunity on behalf of the LSCB to thank all the agencies and their staff for their commitment and hard work to improving the safety of children and young people in the borough. Challenges and pressures remain, but I am confident that our shared commitment and passion to further improve safeguarding outcomes for children and young people will allow us to deliver upon the actions in this document.

Laurence Loft

Independent Chair, BwD LSCB

National Context

The Children’s Act 2004 requires each local authority to establish a Local Safeguarding Children Board. Since the implementation of the Act, there have been various national developments, publications and government guidance setting out how LSCBs and partner agencies carryout their duties to safeguard children and young people. The recommendations from Lord Laming’s Report (2009) will require additional adjustments to be made to the legislation and are planned for approval during 2009.

The Government published its new Children’s Plan in December 2007. Chapter 2 of the Children’s Plan is concerned with the vision that safeguarding children becomes everyone’s responsibility.

A national ‘Staying Safe’ consultation took place in July 2007, with the ‘Staying Safe: Action Plan’ launched in February 2008. The key messages from the consultation and ‘Staying Safe’ action plan were:

  • It is everyone’s responsibility to keep children and young people safe
  • In many ways children and young people are safer than ever before, but there are new challenges and risks
  • We must strike a balance between keeping children safe and giving them the freedom to explore and develop the resilience to keep themselves safe.

‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ (2006) sets out the current statutory guidance on making arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children under Section 11 of the Children’s Act (2004). As part of the government’s response to Lord Laming, the 2006 guidance will be reviewed and amended to fully reflect the new challenges and requirements for effective safeguarding practices and procedures.

The 2008 Joint Chief Inspector’s report on safeguarding arrangements (Ofsted, 2008) examined four areas of safeguarding arrangements:

  • Safeguarding framework – Boards and strategic partnerships are proving effective in monitoring safeguarding arrangements but are not in a position to demonstrate how safeguarding services and practice have actually improved outcomes for children and young people
  • Safeguarding role of all public services – there is widespread evidence that preventative services and early intervention services are being effectively developed to improve safeguarding duties of wider public services, but understanding of domestic abuse and mental health services and their contribution to improving safeguarding arrangements remains weak
  • Safeguarding of vulnerable groups – progress to improve safeguarding arrangements for vulnerable children and young people remains slow and Ofsted remains concerned that LSCBs do not have a full picture from all settings of safeguarding practice
  • Child protection - Nearly all LSCBs had policies and procedures in line with ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ (2006) but concerns remain through this report and Ofsted’s evaluation of serious case reviews about child protection practice across the LSCBs statutory partners, about understanding and application of thresholds, undertaking quality assessments across partner agencies and accessing child protection training.

In 2008 the DCSF commissioned the University of Loughboroughto evaluate the effectiveness of LSCBs, and the findings and recommendations from this report will also direct the work and organisation of LSCBs nationally.

As already mentioned, Lord Laming’s progress report on child protection reported in March 2009, and the key messages include:

  • Policies, processes and structures serve as a means of securing better life opportunities, but it is the robust implementation of policies and procedures that keeps children safe
  • Whilst the safety of children is a matter for all agencies, the heavy responsibility is rightly placed with the key statutory agencies who need to ensure safeguarding actually happens
  • Sudden and unpredictable outbursts towards children cannot be always prevented, but a failure to protect children already identified as being in danger of deliberate harm is unacceptable and is a ‘reproach’ to all agencies
  • There needs to be a step change in arrangements to protect children from harm:
  • leaders need to effectively translate legislation, guidance and policies into practice;
  • senior mangers in all public services need to understand their personal accountability for child protection;
  • agencies to understand the importance of providing early intervention and prevention services as soon as children are recognised as ‘children in need’;
  • frontline staff in addition to knowledge and skills to undertake their safeguarding roles also require effective training, supervision, case load management and services responsive to their work management needs; and
  • ensure good practice becomes standard practice.

Taken together, the national context marks the beginning of a period of transformational change that all LSCBs will be expected to manage and provide strategic direction for partner agencies. This will prove challenging but through close partnership work and a real focus on the key strategic priorities, BwD will meet this challenge.

Local Context

Children’s Plan

The Children and Young People's Plan (CYPP) is an important element of the Every Child Matters (ECM) reform programme. Locally it has been a powerful force in driving forward better local integration of children's services and the development of local partnership arrangements.The most recent national Children’s Plan ‘Building Brighter Futures’ was published in 2007 and under the heading of ‘safe and sound’ central government has outlined the key improvements for LSCBs over the 2008-11 period.

The 2009-13 Children’s Plan from Blackburn with Darwen Children and Young People’s Trust has the following headline priorities for safeguarding:

  • Further strengthening child protection practice and provision in the borough
  • Improving stability and outcomes for children in our care
  • Enhancing safeguarding of all children and young people, including children in need, children and young people from vulnerable groups, and all children and young people who experience bullying
  • Improving universal awareness of safeguarding children and young people through the LSCB

In Blackburn with Darwen, work to establish an integrated process for early intervention to assist families and safeguard children has continued through the Common Assessment Framework, and will be further supported by embedding the Continuum of Need and Response framework.

LSCB Self Assessment

The Blackburn with Darwen LCSB undertakes an annual development and review day and this is informed by the use of a self assessment and improvement tool (SAIT) developed by Morrison & Howarth, 2008. The SAIT has been developed to address the nationally recognised need for LSCBs to measure the effectiveness of their safeguarding arrangements and services.

Annually completing the SAIT was an informative process for the LSCB members, giving insight into how the Board needs to develop, and its current strengths and effectiveness. Moreover, it usefully allows the identification of the strategic priorities, action planning and the key areas of improvement for the Board and its agencies.

BwD LSCB Structure

The LCSB has the following member organisations that attend the Board meetings and/or attend the committee groups:

  • Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council – Children’s Services, Community Safety Team, Legal & Democratic Services, Adult Services, Culture Leisure & Sport
  • NHS Blackburn with Darwen (PCT)
  • EastLancashireHospital’s Trust (ELHT)
  • Lancashire Constabulary
  • Lancashire Probation Trust
  • Children and Family Courts Advisory Support Service (CAFCASS)
  • CXL (Blackburn Connexions)
  • Primary & Secondary school head teacher’s representatives
  • National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC)
  • Lancashire Council of Mosques (LCM)
  • Council for Voluntary Service (CVS)
  • Brook Advisory Service
  • Greater Manchester West Mental Health Trust
  • Lancashire Care Foundation Trust
  • Lifeline

LSCB Committees

The committees are chaired by members of the LSCB, they eachmeet quarterly and report into the Board through the Chair’s group.

A brief summary of the roles and functions of each committee is given below:

  • Performance Monitoring committee - to monitor and evaluate on behalf of the Boardprogress against the outcome measures and safeguarding performance indicators.
  • Policies and Procedures committee - to translate legislation and guidance into relevant local policies and procedures. For new service initiatives, to advise agencies on appropriate safeguarding procedures.
  • Learning and Development committee – to develop and facilitate multi-agency training for all safeguarding practice areas. To identify learning needs based on the practices of agencies working in safeguarding. To commission, deliver and quality assure training to ensure that it meets the needs of professionals, children and carers.
  • Quality Assurance committee – to undertake quality assurance and audit of multi, and inter-agency safeguarding practice and management standards. To ensure that inter-agency and multi-agency safeguarding procedures are incorporated into practice through annual audits of each agency. To undertake multi-agency case reviews of cases that do not meet the criteria for serious case reviews.
  • Communications committee- to develop communications that promote the welfare issues of children and young people throughout organisations working with children and young people and in the wider community and society.
  • Serious Case Review committee – to determine the terms and recommend where cases meet the criteria for a serious case review. To monitor regularly actions from serious case reviews. To update local guidance on conducting case reviews.
  • Strategic Safe Workforce committee – to provide a lead on handling allegations against people working with children. To develop policies for all LSCB agencies that allows them to fulfill their duties of recruiting a safe workforce.

Review of 2008-09 Action Plan

LSCB Strategic Function Area / Progress 2008-09
Development of Policies and Procedures /
  • Procedures updated for child abduction, child trafficking, asylum seeking children and domestic abuse
  • Work commenced on updating policies and procedures for safeguarding children with disabilities, referral pathways for mental health and referral pathways for parental substance misuse
  • Development of a borough wide e-safety strategy and policy for school e-safety.

Planning of services for children and young people /
  • Implementation of the Continuum of Need and Response framework with extensive programme of training for agencies
  • Development of the neglect toolkit and training with UCLAN and delivered across LSCB agencies
  • Integrated safeguarding training needs analysis (ISTNA) developed and disseminated across the LSCB and Children’s Trust partners
  • Development of modular and evening courses on safeguarding
  • Development of new training programmes on safeguarding for child neglect and risk taking behaviour
  • Investment in Children’s Centre services and rolling out of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) across a wide range of services ensuring that preventative and early intervention services meet the needs of children
  • Services to improving road safety, anti-bullying, reducing risks from substance misuse and sexual activities and reducing accidents in homes have all received resources from the LSCB to initiate or continue projects
  • Strategic Director of Children’s Services leading a political reference group to co-ordinate improvements to safeguarding services in the black and minority ethnic (BME) communities

Promotion of welfare and community safeguarding /
  • The LSCB organised ‘Stay Safe’ week in October 2008 and contributed to the multi-agency campaign ‘summer nights’

Procedures for co-ordinated responses to child deaths /
  • BwD and Lancashire established the a joint Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP) to analyse all child deaths in the county
  • First annual report produced by the CDOP which has reviewed all the deaths of children and young people in 2008-09

Monitoring effectiveness of safeguarding services /
  • More robust dataset produced to analyse sexual crimes against children
  • Regular reporting to the Board on key safeguarding indicators and progress of the LSCB action plan
  • Section 11 audit toolkit developed and agreed with partners

Serious Case Reviews /
  • Three serious case reviews initiated and completed
  • Lessons and actions from serious case reviews monitored quarterly
  • Lessons from the serious case review process were the subject of two special Board meetings from which local guidance, templates and training have been produced

LSCB Strategic Development /
  • Draft induction pack produced for all new LSCB members
  • Capacity of the Board increased with new LSCB posts created
  • Annual Board development day included in the LSCB calendar to assess, plan and review Board business.

Budget & Resources

(£) / 2009/10
Contributions
Children’s Services / 71,400
NHS BwD / 30,600
Lancashire Probation Trust / 6,120
Lancashire Constabulary / 13,260
CAFCASS / 550
Schools / 22,200
Reserves / 85,370
Total Contributions / 229,500
Expenditure
Employee costs / 138,000
Training / 60,000
Serious Case Reviews / 20,000
Consultancy / 1,500
Communications / 10,000
Total Expenditure / 229,500

During the year the Board will agree the use of reserves to support the shortfall identified above and any new initiatives and priorities that are identified.

The Board will continuously review resource contributions made by all LSCB agencies to ensure that the costs of the Board’s work are fully resourced by equitable contributions from all statutory and responsible agencies.

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LSCB Work Plan 2009-10

Action / Anticipated Outcome(s) / Lead committee / Timescale / Progress
Development of policies and procedures
Produce procedures and provide guidance on how agencies shall respond to situations where domestic abuse is an issue and children and young people are in the household / Procedures for domestic abuse are multi-agency and intrinsically linked to MARAC procedures and the Domestic Abuse Strategy
Contribution to the review of the Borough’s Domestic Abuse Strategy / Policies & Procedures (P&P) Committee / March 2010
Contribute to the development of policies and procedures in relation to safeguarding children with disabilities / Improving safeguarding practice for children with disabilities
Policies and procedures are line with national guidance / Children with Disabilities Task & Finish Group / March 2010
Review guidance in relation to safeguarding young offenders, those leaving custody and those living in the community 16 plus / Improving safeguarding practice and highlighting safeguarding issues for children and young people who offend / Youth Offending Service / March 2010
Review guidance in relation to children for whom illness is fabricated or induced / Staff have access to updated guidance about children whom illness is fabricated or induced / P & P Committee / January 2010
Review and update missing from home protocol / Improve practice across agencies in recording and responding to children and young people’s needs when they go missing or run away / Pan Lancashire Missing from Home Steering Group / March 2010
Update policies and procedures in dealing with Forced Marriage & Honour Based Violence / Children and young people facing FM or HBV are safeguarded effectively / P&P Committee / March 2010
Development of local multi-agency drugs & alcohol referral pathways / Improving access to alcohol and drug services for children, young people and their parents / P&P Committee / March 2010