Agenda item

Helen Blackman, Director of Integrated Children’s Services introduced the report on the Update on Priority 2 – Safeguarding and Supporting Children and Families. Clive Chambers, Head of Safeguarding and Aileen Wilson, Head of Early Help Services gave presentations to the board on work around Child Sexual Exploitation and Parenting programme work. The following information was highlighted:

(a)  Since the last update Police staff have joined the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH). Adult Safeguarding have committed to joining the MASH and the National Probation Service will have a presence within the team from the beginning of October;

(b)  Over the last 2 years training has been rolled out across the Schools as part of the Designated Safeguarding Lead role and has delivered training to nearly 700 staff with at least 100 schools represented;

(c)  In recent years there has been some intense media interest in Chid Sexual Exploitation (CSE) and how local authorities are tackling the issue. Nottingham has been considered to be in the vanguard for many years;

(d)  During return interviews of young people who went missing it became clear that they tended to gravitate towards city centre establishments and bars and the need to engage this sector in CSE training was clear;

(e)  This engagement with the security industry has been very well received, training events have taken place over the last 2 years or so and in August 2017 a leaflet was jointly launched with the Security Industry Association targeting the sector and aiming to help support them in identifying and reporting CSE;

(f)  The Multi Agency Sexual Exploitation (MASE) panel is a well-established panel that looks at three aspects of CSE, the child or young person, the perpetrators and the places CSE is most likely to occur. It does not replace other activities that work to keep children safe but sense checks the work being done, and has helped to establish some very effective work practices;

(g)  Work around perpetrators is the most difficult aspect of the work undertaken by the panel. Police powers are limited around prosecution and a recent piece of work looked at other ways to disrupt CSE. These additional approaches work alongside Community Protection work that ensure that perpetrators are not involved in licensable activities;

(h)  The Panel has developed a set of 24 standards that aim to ensure a consistent response and approach across the county and partnership agencies RAG rated their performance against the standards, there were no red results and only 2 amber results;

(i)  Parenting support has always been available within the city but the offer has not been consistent across different areas. The Early Help Team has worked to bring together the provision and pool resources from across the city;

(j)  The purpose of the pilot was to increase the range of interventions, test the efficacy of the group work model and to reduce the level of casework within the early help and targeted family support teams;

(k)  Within the last year the completion rate for the Me and My Child course has risen to 75%, a big increase in previous years, and 98% of parents who completed the course scored themselves higher on the progress self-evaluation at the end of the course and found it helpful;

(l)  The introduction of LiquidLogic casework system has helped workers in terms of joined up working which has in turn reduced the pressure on casework;

(m) 177 parents and 376 children started the programmes with 134 parents and 284 children completing them. This has led to a reduction in referrals to the Targeted Families support team;

(n)  Staff will be accredited to deliver the Triple P groups and Triple P Teen from October 2017;

(o)  The team is currently leading the development of a Professionals’ Parenting Forum which aims to bring together a number of different organisations across the Children’s Partnership to provide an integrated and coordinated parenting offer across the city;

Following questions from the board the following points were made:

(p)  Both schools and colleges were represented at the training for DSL’s as were special schools and alternative education providers. Early years services have also been involved in the training;

(q)  The Next DSL conference will have a very limited number of places available and will be by invite only as Andrew Hall, Safeguarding Consultant will be attending and can only work with a smaller group;

(r)  There is still work to be done around safeguarding young people with moderate learning difficulties. The transition into adulthood has been identified as a very vulnerable time for these young people and at present there are only a small number of agencies who work with these young people;

(s)  It is currently too early to assess the impact the parenting work has had on children’s educational outcomes. However, anecdotal evidence from schools suggests that there has been improvement and that the impact of the programmes is clear;

RESOLVED to note the updates provided to the Board regarding the work on Priority 2 – Safeguarding and Supporting Children and Families.