Minutes:
A View from the Principal Social Worker (PSW) – Louise Storey
· Can see the amount of work undertaken with staff when completing audits and can see evidence of the work that has been put in with staff around
Ø Risk Sensible
Ø Corporate Parenting
Ø Voice of the Child and their lived experience
Ø Chronologies/Case Summaries
Ø Introduction of a SMART plan template
· Staff are more positive generally and caseloads have remained steady over the last 12 months.
· In terms of the PSW responsibilities the team have been working on a number of initiatives and the achievements include:
Ø Social work recruitment events which have been successful. Recruitment is mostly social media based and although there is a large number of Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (AYSE) applications there is no shortage of recruits to vacancies.
Ø There is a new supervision policy in place and this contains a suite of new documents related to Continuing Professional Development (CPD), training and development plans, probation and Management Style Questionnaires (MSQs) linked to 360 appraisals. This supervision policy has been linked to the National Accreditation and Assessment Scheme in advance of the scheme being rolled out next year.
Ø The social work academy starts in September 2017, a two week intensive induction followed by call in days throughout the year. This gives a chance to develop a consistent induction for new starters and a system of tracking their progress to support retention
Ø Front line management support is being provided via a management development programme, this will start in the North and be supported by a coaching and mentoring approach.
Ø Health and wellbeing representatives have been established and health and wellbeing days are being set up for Children's teams designed to support resilience and retention.
Ø Good practice examples are being disseminated on a weekly brief to teams so that good practice is showcased and shared amongst teams and localities.
Ø Young people are now firmly embedded within the recruitment and interviewing process and involved in the training and development of staff. They have recently been involved in developing a social work profile template and have undertaken training via the Voice of the Child training course.
Ø MOMO, digital app for communicating with CYP, is being launched on the 9 September 2017 which will improve the Voice of the Child across the teams and services.
· Further work is planned over the next few months which will further contribute to both improving practice and retention of staff, these include:
Ø Work with the Operational Improvement Group around what is innovation, what is meant by innovative practice and how it is developed into a model where this is encouraged and promoted by staff. This has been completed.
Ø Work on exploring good social work intervention models and looking at what would be beneficial for Lancashire in moving practice forward. A paper on the various options is hoping to be completed by September 2017.
What is Audit Telling Us – Sally Allen
· Moving in the right direction.
· No cases have been escalated for further action.
· Improvement in compliance: basic details, including school & GP (CLA: 100%). But missing court & identity documents.
· Increase in CLA with up to date assessment: May: 75% (6 out of 8 cases).
· 93% of CLA reviews within timescale.
· No Leaving Care cases were inadequate.
· Increase in cases that had improved in last three months: May: 58%, April: 46%
· Impact of the Voice of the Child has shown improvement: May: 96% of cases good or requires improvement compared to April: 92%.
· 87% of auditors met with the Social Worker as part of the audit process to discuss the audit findings with them.
· There was positive feedback from children and young people who were spoken to as part of the audit.
12 Week Improvement Plan
The items below also need to be included in the plan:
· Commencement of the MASH Pilot in the North from 1 September 2017.
· More explicit targets need setting out for WPEHS and practitioners for Early Help.
· Needs to be a stronger action plan around Governance – Debbie Duffell will speak to Richard Cooke regarding this.
Jane Booth was going to speak with Richard Cooke with regards actions against her name.
Actions:
· To update the improvement plan to include additional actions – Richard Cooke.
· To discuss a stronger action plan around Governance – Debbie Duffell/Richard Cooke.
· To discuss actions against their name – Jane Booth
Resolved: that the Board agreed the next 12 week improvement plan.
Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) Redesign – Simon Fisher
Developments since May 2017 include:
· Created a Single Point of Contact (SPOC). ‘Front Door’ for all contacts and referrals on cases not open to CSC.
· Removed the distinction between MASH and CART. Now – MASH, Single Point of Contact with information gathering/sharing not restricted to police PVP’s (protecting vulnerable persons).
· Changes to the role of Customer Access Services. Social workers answering telephone calls and making a Continuum of Need (CoN) recommendation for cases not open (North, Central and East).
· Co-located partners in MASH on a locality footprint (North, Central, East).
· Established a pilot in the North (NMP). Triaging and info sharing within one locality.
· Adult duty social worker co-located within the north pilot.
· Established a regular liaison meeting with the north district managers.
· Established a social work triaging team for cases not open in East and Central - undertaking initial triage and transfer to East or Central MASH teams.
· MASH Service Development Plan in place (based around 7 areas).
· MASH Operational Group established (first one 3 August 2017).
· MASH multi-agency footprint facilitating team briefs and training in each locality (one team approach).
· Early Help offer in place.
· Privacy statement/impact assessment, information sharing agreement in draft.
· Good multi-agency buy-in and engagement with the changes.
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Further developments are to:
• Implement MASH Module and CSE workspace.
• Improve information sharing with schools.
• Finalise social work triage model (stand alone or within locality teams).
• Roll-out Police and Health learning from pilot to Central and East – this will be agreed at the next Board meeting on 13 August 2017.
• Deliver MASH Service Development Plan.
• Strengthen MFH and CSE work flows.
• Further develop joint training and briefings and one team identity.
• Implement multi-agency Key Performance Indicators.
• Co-locate early help officers into locality teams and ensure CAF database checked for every child (from 1 September 2017).
• Test MASH model against Ofsted inspection framework.
Overall, comments from the North model is that it is working well and this is also replicated from Health colleagues too.
Jane Booth updated the Board that the incoming work for adults around domestic violence issues is still being developed.
Possibly look at having a Pan Lancashire Strategic Body.