Croydon Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH)- A guide for professionals

About Croydon’s MASH

Croydon council and partner agencies have established a Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) which is borough wide.

Our MASH brings together a team of multi-disciplinary professionals from our partner agencies into the same room, at the same time, to risk assess all child protection concerns where someone is concerned about the safety or wellbeing of a child

Agencies that are part of Croydon MASH

Children’s Social Care

Education / Schools

Youth Offending Service

Police

Probation

Early help service

Housing

Hospital Services and Midwifery

Mental Health / Substance Misuse Specialist Social Worker

Within the MASH information from partner agencies is collated to assess risk and decide what action to take. As a result, agencies are able to act quickly and in a consistent way, ensuring that vulnerable children and families are kept safe and receive appropriate support where necessary.

The MASH Concept and its development across London

Croydon is part of the London implementation of MASH which is a model that was originated by Devon County Council. London boroughs have built on the original work by agreeing information sharing guidance and other support to ensure good practice and better management of risk.

The Benefits of operating a MASH in Croydon

Croydon is a very large local authority and as partners we strongly believe that we can ensure better outcomes for vulnerable children by using this model which is now supporting us to do the following:

  • Quicker, more organised,consistent responses to child protectionconcerns about children and families
  • An improved “pathway” for the child with greater importance on early intervention and well thought out and informed services provided at the right time
  • A better ability to recognisepossible vulnerability, allowing more proactive preventative action as well as acting on cases at earlier stages before theyget worse
  • Closer partnership relationships and working, transparent and agreed accountability and less duplication of work by separate agencies on the same case
  • A decrease in the number of incorrect referrals and re referrals to child’s social care, ensuring we help the right children at the right time

Early Help Pathway

Cases should always be referred to the Early Help Pathway prior to referring to the MASH unless there is a child protection concern.

Croydon Early Help team is responsible for providing advice and guidance around the Early Help Pathway and ensuring that partner agencies are able and supported to undertake Early Help Assessments (EHA) and Team Around the Family (TAF) meetings for children, young people and their families who reside in the London Borough of Croydon.

An overview of Early Help can be seen here: Early-help-poster

How the Croydon’s MASH process works:

MASH Referral: Child protection cases referred to the MASH are screened by a team of Multi-disciplinary MASH Officer’s from agencies represented in the MASH. The Initial screening process involves the scrutiny and risk assessment of referrals received from their individual agencies in partnership with the MASH Senior Social Worker.

Screening:Research is completed on all referrals, leading to a decision being made as to the threshold for statutory intervention– decisions are made using Croydon Four Stage model of Early Help and Staged Intervention; the London Child Protection Procedures Threshold Document TheContinuum of Help and Support, and the Barnardo’s Risk Matrix. Following research being completed the referral is reviewed by the MASH Senior Social Worker, who makes a decision on the appropriate pathway, which can be:

  • Provision of information and Advice
  • Step Down to Early Help Pathway
  • Progression to an assessment under Section 17 or 47 of the Children Act 1989 or
  • MASH Intelligence.

MASH Intelligence: Referrals which are progressed to Mash Intelligence process are subject to risk assessment by all agencies represented in the MASH. This process involves secure electronic requests to share information / intelligence held by partner agencies in the MASH. All MASH intelligence is rated at the point of the request. Partners in MASH then rate the referral dependent on the information / intelligence they have gathered.

Upon completion of the MASH Intelligence process, the information is reviewed by the Duty MASH Manager and a decision is reached to determine final outcome and pathway for intervention which may include:

  • Provision of information and advice
  • Step Down from MASH to the Early Help Pathway
  • Progression to a social work assessment under Section 17 or 47 for child protection investigation.

Referrals progressed for social work assessment will be forwarded to the receiving Social Care Team Manager with a summary of risk called the MASH Outcome Form containing information which partner agencies are in agreement can be shared.

Feedback is provided to the referrer by the MASH team when the outcome of the referral is information and advice or passed to Early Help following the screening process.If a referral is progressed to a social work assessment the referrer is informed of the details of the allocated worker.

Information Sharing

Croydon MASH has specific requirements about how it holds and deals with data and will hold all information securely, confidentially and appropriately using these requirements.

All partners in the MASH work in partnership with the statutory requirements for information sharing. The decision to share information with the MASH is completed on a case by case basis by each agency.

Dispute resolution:

Where there is a professional disagreement in respect of pathways identified, Croydon’s escalation policycan be invoked.

See: Croydon Safeguarding Children Board Escalation Policy

Further guidance is available at:

London MASH Information Sharing Guidance

London Continuum of Need Threshold

Barnardo's safeguarding children at Risk through Domestic Violence: Risk Assessment Matrix

Version 4 April 15