Slough Children’s Service Safeguarding Peer Review

Purpose of the Peer Review - To examine how the Council and

partners are fulfilling Safeguarding Children responsibilities. The review will provide a new baseline position from which to revise and enhance improvement plans and deliver improved outcomes.

Scope of the Review

• Overall progress since the SLAC inspection in 2011• the effectiveness of your referral and access

arrangements including the use of CAF, the application of thresholds and assessment of risk

• the quality of casework, care planning and the contribution of the IRO service

• the impact of supervision, management oversight and the overall quality assurance framework for safeguarding

• the quality of partnership working at the operational level

• how any risk arising from the NHS and other organisational changes can be mitigated

• the fitness for purpose and capacity of the LSCB

How the review will be conducted

• Self Assessment/Documentary Analysis• Case Mapping Exercise• Audit Validation/Case Review• Focus Groups/Questionnaire• On site visits and Officer interviews• Feedback and Prioritisation Conference

What will the reviewers be looking for?

• Effective practice, service delivery and voice of the child

• Outcomes, impact and performance• Working together• Capacity and managing resources• Vision, strategy and leadership.

What will this actually mean for Children's Services and our partners?

• Checking the progress we have made in our improvement program

• Testing our services against the new higher OFSTED safeguarding threshold

• Asking how joined up are our approaches to safeguarding children?

• Ensuring that interagency communication is effective and robust at all levels across the partnership

• Listening carefully to the voices of children and their parents/ carers

What will we need to focus on?

• The quality of our pathways for indentifying and working with children in need of safeguarding (Thresholds and Services)

• The effectiveness of arrangements to investigate concerns of abuse -(Joint investigation, S.47)

• The outcomes for children subject to Child Protection Plans (purposeful activity to reduce abuse)

What will we need to focus on?

• The effectiveness of our services to prevent harm in specific circumstances:– Allegations against professionals– Children with disabilities– Missing children– Sexual Exploitation– Domestic Violence – Neglect– Substance Abuse– Isolated children

What do we need from each other?

• Commitment to support the review preparation

• Representation on the planning groups• Staff time for mapping groups/focus

groups /interviews • Development time for the self

assessment and priority setting