Decision details

Children's Partnership Board Representatives - Services Overview

Decision Maker: Children's Services Scrutiny Committee

Decision status: Recommendations Approved

Is Key decision?: No

Decisions:

Sarah Barraclough, Head teacher at Ashton Primary School

 

Sarah presented information to the Committee on Child Protection and Safeguarding (from a primary school Head teacher's point of view) with questions taken from members.

 

Sarah discussed some of the ongoing communication issues around children's social care referrals, information sharing and IT systems (functionality of schools portal and data protection). 

Although, where social workers were based in schools, considerable difference had been made to communication and information sharing.

 

Debra confirmed that a pilot was due to take place in Rossendale to look at the outcomes from referrals which would then be emailed to the safeguarding team in Lancashire Care Foundation Trust (LCFT) and if successful, this would be rolled out further.

 

Sarah also highlighted the issues around support services which included school nurses and the frequency of meeting attendance.

Debra reported that work was being undertaken by LCFT to look at the appropriateness of school nurses attending meetings which should help.

 

The Committee was informed that there had been general concerns around supervision for staff who worked with very challenging children which had yet to be embedded in schools, and this continued to be the case. 

 

Sarah confirmed that these concerns had been raised at the school cluster meetings (for West Preston), however the concerns may not be mirrored at the same level across the county as Ashton Primary School was based in a particularly challenging area.

 

Terri Hacking, Children's Services Manager for Action for Children

 

Members were informed that Action for Children was a childcare provider in Lancashire with two children's centres in Burnley.

 

Across the two children's centres, Terri reported the reach was in excess of more than 1000 children and that they had been required to register those children at the children's centres.  The average was reported to be at 108% (due to transient areas).

 

Terri highlighted some of the services currently available through the children's centres, which included:

  • Identification of families pre-birth through the health agreement in place
  • Working closely with children's social care to provide support to families
  • Link with Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) through referrals
  • Link with families and agencies through Common Assessment Framework (CAF)
  • Health visitors support through baby clinics
  • Engagement with BME communities through a diverse team of staff
  • Working with families through the Continuum of Need levels
  • Working with families with special educational needs and neglect

 

It was noted that children's centres formed a strong element of children's services, which was highlighted in the recent Ofsted inspection.  Terri confirmed that concerns had been raised that this could change as a result of the transformation as services became more targeted (with the exception of health visitors and school nurses).

 

Debra Wilson, Service Line Clinical Lead for Universal Services, Lancashire Care Foundation Trust (LCFT)

 

Debra provided an overview to the Committee of the Universal Services within LCFT which included:

  • 18 Child and Family Health Service teams
  • Family Nurse Partnership in Preston and Burnley providing an advanced parenting programme
  • Immunisation and vaccination teams (for school age immunisations)
  • School nurses services which included the Healthy Child Programme with screening at reception and an offer of contact at Years 6 and 9
  • Early help offer with therapeutic work available
  • Work with CAMHS workers
  • Domestic abuse notifications
  • Lead Professional work for CAF particularly for under 5s
  • Looked after children

 

In addition, Debra advised that there was a health visitor universal service available which included five mandated visits and support to parents around peri natal mental health and post-natal depression.

 

Debra confirmed that there had been and continued to be concerns around information sharing.  It was conveyed that a Tier 2 information sharing agreement assisted with the process but noted that this was time consuming, particularly around the sharing of information with schools where individual agreements for each school needed to be signed. 

 

A positive working relationship was ongoing with children's social care although communication remained a concern.  In addition there existed a difference between the practitioner threshold requirements and that of children's social care.

 

The Committee was informed that Elective Home Education (EHE) children continued to form part of the school nurse contract to delivers services.

 

Debra confirmed that in the instance that any safeguarding issues where a health visitor visit had been declined would be escalated to children's social care through discussion with GP's, midwives etc.

 

Elaine Shinks, Community Rehabilitation Company, Sodexo

 

Elaine reported that The Probation Service had been split into two service areas. The National Probation Service (public sector) provided the reports to courts, and dealt with the most high risk offenders.  It was also confirmed that the National Probation Service defined the level of risk.

 

It was reported that the private sector service area worked with low to medium risk offenders and these could include offences against children, domestic abuse and substance misuse.  In addition they also worked with women's centres and had staff who delivered services through these centres.

 

Members were informed that there was no direct responsibility for children, although the service could be part of the child protection plan and would therefore work alongside this.  In addition, the service received children's details on first contact and would inform children's social care.

 

There had been, it was conveyed, varying experiences with children's social care and it was felt that communication had deteriorated between agencies.

 

Moreover, it was explained that there were very clear protocols around data protection, particularly in cases of safeguarding.

 

The Chair thanked all of the speakers for their informative presentations.

 

Resolved: To identify the issues raised from the four presentations to feedback to the Children's Services Directors and the Post Inspection Improvement Board

 

Date of decision: 09/03/2016

Decided at meeting: 09/03/2016 - Children's Services Scrutiny Committee