Early Years Safeguarding Briefing

Autumn term 2013

Ceri McAteer – Early Years Safeguarding Adviser

01793 4657400774178011

Agenda1.00 - Welcome and housekeeping arrangements1.05 -1.35 – Renu Rana, Conferences and Core Groups and the Signs of Safety1.40 -2.25 – NSPCC - Leigh Ann Bowen and Jan Davidson with information about support programmes available for families in Swindon and nationally.

2.25 -2.45 - Comfort break

2.45 -3.30 – Ceri McAteer - National and Local Updates including key messages from recent serious case reviews and guidance for completing your annual EY safeguarding audit.

Child Protection Conferences and Signs of Safety

Child Protection Conferences

• Purpose• Expectations of Professionals• Provision of reports• What happens after the conference, Core

Groups. • Signs of Safety Framework.

Purpose • Bringing together and analysing information from all

agencies about child’s health and developmental needs and how parents can ensure child’s safety.

• Making judgements about likelihood of child suffering harm, continuing to do so and any future harm, due to actions or inactions of parents.

• Consider the views of parents, carers and child/ren.• What future action is required to safeguard and promote

the child's welfare. Action Plan devised. • Decision – All agency participants make a decision based on

the information shared. Unacceptable to abstain. • Legal planning

Expectations of Professionals• A representative from each agency invited should attend. • Remain for entire conference, until decision is made. • Should share all relevant information about children,

parents and significant adults. • Weigh up all of the information that has been shared at the

conference and form opinion about the risk to the child. • Decisions at the conference, Child Protection Plan or a

Child in Need Plan. Chair takes the majority view, if there is a split then Chair will make the final decision.

• Become a core group member and will attend core group meetings.

• Check the accuracy of minutes and make a comment on this.

Reports

• Typed report on SBC format, detailing involvement with child, parents and significant adults.

• Share your report with children and parents.• Professionals to be aware that failure to share

any information of a child which leads to child being harmed, is viewed as serious neglect of duty to protect children.

Core group

• CPC will identify the membership of a core group of professionals and family members, who will develop and implement the child protection Plan.

• Lead social worker will chair the meeting, all members have a joint responsibility for carrying out agreed tasks, monitoring the effectiveness and refining the plan as necessary. Check out what is working and not working.

• 1st core group is 10 days of Initial child protection conference. Core group can decide when to have the next one. 6-8 weeks after any review meeting.

Peter Sally

Jerry1 Unbo

rnTrudy

4

Martin Lisa Stuart Carol

Leon8

Natalie

Recent serious case reviews

• Little Stars Nursery Birmingham 2010 - Paul Wilson

Daniel Pelka-Coventry, Autumn 2011-March 2012

Little Stars• Nov 2009-Student teacher reports “inappropriate behaviour” by Wilson-nothing done.• May 2010-Teacher files incident form after hearing 3

year old child screaming and finding Wilson alone with her-No action taken.

• August 2010-Staff member reports concerns to Ofsted treated as a “professional practice” issue. Wilson not spoken to.

• August 2010-Wilson files a “smokescreen” complaint about problems at the nursery.

• Jan 2011 – Wilson is finally caught, images on his phone of him raping the girl at nursery.

Little Stars

Paul Wilson was jailed in July 2011 for 13 years 6 months

Eventually caught when a 13 year old girl reported that an unidentified male was trying to engage her in

sexual activity over the internet.

Charged with 2 counts of rape, 16 counts of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, 25

counts of making indecent images and 3 counts of distributing images of children.

Little Stars - brief summary of findings from Serious Case Review

• ‘Special relationships’ should be scrutinised and particular attention paid to situations where the child is considered to be vulnerable.

• Abuse would not have happened in another setting because of ‘rules’ – enhance external inhibitors

• Robust recruitment procedures, close knit community, no clear boundaries.

• Importance of regular supervision• The layout of the nursery

Daniel Pelka• School concerns-losing weight, scavenging for

food, physical injuries (13 recorded), poor attendance

• No clear protocol for recording injuries• No coherent overview of situation, each concern

treated individually instead of looking at the full picture

• Poor child protection policy, no clear procedures.• No enquiry into Daniel’s alleged medical problem• Mum was very plausible• Small school- assumption that all information was

being shared

Brief summary of findings from Daniel Pelka Serious Case Review

• Daniel described as ‘invisible’. No professional tried sufficiently hard enough" to talk to him, EAL interpreter should have been used

• Roles of staff were not clear• Staff were trained in safeguarding but didn’t

apply their knowledge• Instances of concern considered in isolation.• Health and behavioural issues were not linked

with abuse • Not enough urgency by school in addressing

concerns

Brief summary of findings from Daniel Pelka Serious Case Review

• Domestic abuse should always be considered to be a child protection concern

• All injuries should be considered not just serious ones such as broken arm.

• All settings need robust CP procedures, even small settings

• Professionals must “ think the unthinkable” and give consideration to abuse, linked with professional optimism

Escalation Policy

Occasionally situations arise when workers within one agency feel that the decision made by a worker from another agency on a child protection or child in need case is not a safe decision. Disagreements could arise in a number of areas, but are most likely to arise around:

• Levels of Need• Roles and responsibilities• The need for action• Communication

5 stages

What happens when you call 466903?

Family Contact Point5 advice and information officers

Initial information gathering

Child protection cases

CHIN and lower level concerns

New

Training update

• Change to ‘titles’

• Basic awareness – level 1• Foundation plus – level 2• Advanced / Intermediate – • level 3

• Updates for DCPCs / deputies – 2 yearly• Change to what qualifies as update• http://www.swindonlscb.org.uk/Pages/Home.aspx • http://schoolsonline.swindon.gov.uk/eyc/Pages/Home

.aspx

Schoolsonline – New source for EY safeguarding

• http://schoolsonline.swindon.gov.uk/Pages/Home.aspx

• Kathy MacDonald – invitations to launch

• Watch out for further EY training-CWD website

Thank you for coming. I hope you have found the session useful.

Please fill out an evaluation form before you leave.

Spring Term Dates5th February AM12th March PM