KIRKLEES SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN BOARD
MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD MONDAY, 6TH MAY 2016, 2.00PM – 5.00PMAT
BROAD LEA HOUSE, BRADLEY PARK, DYSON WOOD WAY, BRADLEY, HUDDERSFIELD HD2 1GZ.
Bron Sanders / Independent Chair
Caroline Rhodes / Kirklees Safeguarding Children Board Manager
Christina Quinn / Director of Quality, Locala Community Partnerships CIC
Tahira Iqbal / Non-Executive Member
Christina Fairhead / Designated Nurse for Safeguarding Children, Greater Huddersfield CCG & North Kirklees CCG
Osman Khan / Superintendent, West Yorkshire Police
Clive Barrett / Head of Safeguarding, Mid Yorks
Gill Ellis / Assistant Director for Learning, Children & Young People, Kirklees Council
Gill Parry / Designated Doctor for Safeguarding Children & LAC
Gini Whitehead / Head of Probation, Kirklees & Wakefield National Probation Service (NPS)
Sarah Callaghan / Director for Children & Young People, Kirklees Council
Lee Thompson / Head of Safeguarding & Social Work, Well-Being & Communities Directorate, Kirklees Council
Nicky Hoyle / Consultant in Public Health, Commissioning, Public Health & Adult Social Care
Penny Woodhead / Head of Quality & Safety, Greater Huddersfield Clinical Commissioning Group
Amanda Taylor / Acting Operations Director, Action for Children
Kerry Warhurst / Senior Nurse, Quality & Safety, NHS England
Councillor Erin Hill / Council (Joint) Lead Member, Portfolio Holder Lead for Children
Julie Warren-Sykes / Assistant Director of Nursing, South West Yorkshire Partnership
Caryn Hansom / Business Support Officer, KSCB
Apologies:
Mick Frost / Non-Executive Member
Jeanette Tate / Head Teacher, Ravenshall School, Dewsbury
Robert Scott / Head of Community Support Services, Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing
Andrew Sinclair / Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC)
Victoria Thersby / Head of Safeguarding, CHFT
Carly Speechley / Interim Assistant Director, Family Support & Child Protection, Directorate for Children & Young People, Kirklees Council
Non-Attendance
Councillor Erin Hill / Council (Joint) Lead Member, Portfolio Holder Lead for Children
Rachel Holmes / CAFCASS
Sharon Hawkins / Interim Head of Service, Integrated Access Service
In Attendance:
Audit Investigator & Improvement Partner
Interim Head of Services, Family Support & Child Protection
1. / INTRODUCTIONS, APOLOGIES, NEW MEMBERS/CHANGES IN MEMBERSHIP
BS welcomed all to the meeting, introductions were made and apologies noted as above.
Announcements:
BS gave thanks for the work done for the Board to the North Kirklees Clinical Commissioning Group representative, as she has accepted a secondment with NHS England and resigned from the Board. Welcome was given to PW who will be taking on this role for both the Clinical Commissioning Group’s (CCG) and has also agreed to be Vice Chair for the Board.
Welcome to new members of the Board was extended to –
SC, Director for Children and Young People
NJH, Consultant, Public Health and chair of the Child Death Overview Panel
KW, NHS England
AT, Action for Children representing the voluntary sector
Also, welcome to the Investigator & Improvement Partner, (and latterly the Interim Head of Services, Family Support & Child Protection) who is working for CS in Children’s Social Care, and who are in attendance for specific items.
BS advised that the Board has been going through interesting, challenging and difficult times but feels we are now in a good place with more openness, transparency and honesty. BS feels that for the Board to be effective it should have full overview of the challenges partners are dealing with, and acknowledged that the new Director of Children’s Social Care has been extremely open with discussions around the improvements being identified for Children’s Social Care. BS, along with the Police, has joined the Children's Services Development Board which the Council has established under the leadership of the Chief Executive, to lead the improvement programme. There is acknowledgement that the development work will take time and may not be completed by the time of an Ofsted inspection if that is imminent,but isnonetheless, heading in the right direction. BS feels that partners are working very well and sharing information and that previously, in hindsight, there had been complacency about some aspects of practice.
PW felt that having been in Calderdale in a similar role and on an improvement journey it had been found that initially partners stepped back when the issues were in Social Care, but realised subsequently it was about partners working together. PW felt partners in Kirklees were stepping up and engaging with the emerging issues. PW informed that she has some experience of what happened, what worked and what didn’t from her experience in Calderdale.
SC advised that there had been some significant staff changes within Children’s Social Care organisation. The Chief Executive has commissioned a piece of work as to how effective Social Care services are and an external review and scrutiny has been undertaken. The report and findings had found some concerns and prompted some audits. The stock-take review and the changes in staff have added to this complex issue and is about significant culture changes. The Improvement Partner will be working with the team around accountability and closing loops. There are a number of issues around staff practice and the systems presently in place and some of the issues will be long term.
- It had been identified in 2011 that the data system was not practicable and the inefficiency of trying to obtain basic information is very difficult. This issue is going to Procurement for a new, more practical system.
- There are issues around referrals prompting some concerns as to how these are handled, processed or signposted to Early Help. It has been identified that there are a number of things that need addressing, some things are short-term fixes and others cultural changes.
SC has had positive conversations with BS as Independent Chair of the Board and the Independent Reviewer, who has offered to do a review of the KSCB as the Board will be part of, and come under scrutiny of any future inspection. The Independent Reviewer has been invited to the Board Challenge Event to be held on the 26th May to which everyone has been invited and all are welcome. There has already been a review of the Business Plan, the Annual Report at the previous challenge session held in March.
SC agreed to send BS all the feedback from the external stock-take. BS informed that she had not been previously aware of this stock-take and did not know about the work the Independent Reviewer had done prior to the recent Board challenge, so agreed this would be very helpful and which partners could also benefit from. BS and SC agreed to discuss how this can be used and shared with partner agencies moving forward as a Board.
2. / DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST
None
3. / MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING (22ND FEBRUARY 2016) AND MATTERS ARISING
The minutes of the meeting held on the 22nd February 2016 were agreed and matters arising were as follows:-
Pg. 3: Challenge log – this was set up following the Peer Review and CR advised that by December there were a small number logged and five in April. Work is underway to capture the challenge that is taking place through minutes of recent meetings. However, not all workstreams are recording challenge in their groups and are reminded to let CR know of any challenge, the action taken and the impact for this challenge log.
Looked After Children Audit– looking at number of children from mixed ethnic backgrounds. This was taken back to the Development & Business Planning group (D&BP) as it had been difficult to draw any conclusions from the data and short of commissioning a new piece of work could not be taken further.The DBP group therefore recommended to the Board to look at this in another way rather than an audit. TI agreed this would be difficult to progress further but could possibly be looked at at a national level. GE advised of the national data set and for a much bigger picture people could be directed to the Reece Foundation.
CAMHS Review – the Children & Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) review has now started and has an independent consultant leading the work and a reference group chaired by BS. A call for evidence has gone out right across professions, planned focus groups arranged and also a case file audit. This has been well received by partners and it is anticipated the review will keep to time and a report submitted to Board in September. PW advised of the re-commissioning of the CAMHS service and to ensure any early learning comes out. BS confirmed these people are on the group and this has been identified as a useful input to the commissioning process .
CR advised that the call for evidence has been extended to enable a wider response from some organisations. JW-S requested that the documents be re-sent and CR agreed to this.
SARC Update – (Sexual Assault Referral Centres) - a regional meeting was held in Kirklees in April to find a way forward in the setting up of service provision in West Yorkshire. The issues were explored at this meeting and members have gone away to have another look. BS felt it had been a positive meeting but there were still a lot of questions and things to look at and sort out. GP advised that there is an interim solution set up for one year but there is still no follow up pathways and she felt that NHS England were being unrealistic in their timetable of what they required for next year. It was felt that they should be thinking about contingency plans for the next year and there was concern that they did not seem to appreciate the time that these things take to set up.
TI advised that she has been informed thatin Kirklees there is a re-settlement programme which will possibly have to accept unaccompanied children who may have suffered trauma. She suggested that the Board needed to keep oversight of the complex needs of this group of children/young people. SC suggestedthat the Head of Safe & Cohesive Communities, who works within the Council and who is alsoPrevent Lead, be asked what the approach would be in respect of unaccompanied asylum seekers and bring back to the Board. CR to contact for clarification
NJH informed that Greater Huddersfield CCG is reviewing this at The Whitehouse Centre and trauma has been raised. Research has been done into this client group and it has been identified that a quarter of registered patients were children up to the age of 19. It was also noted that access to trauma counselling is very patchy. At some point some of this research could be brought to the Board.
Peer Review – the Development & Business planning group have looked at this and recommendations from the Review have been built into the Business Plan for the Board.
Pg. 5: Learning from CSE Audit - (Child Sexual Exploitation) response to Section 11. The findings have been incorporated into the updated action plan.
Pg. 7&8: Quality & Improvement work in Children’s Social Care – BS advised that this section had been shortened for the public version published on the website.
Pg. 10: Missing – this is one of the Board’s priorities and a Task & Finish group has been set up, chaired by SH, Head of Service, Children & Young People. The group have met once so far and will have stronger links with the CSE workstream, and will include children missing education.
GE is leading on ‘no child out of sight’ development looking at gaps across services and pulling things together in respect of risks around Social Care and Education to get clarity and linking up. The Board has a responsibility for all children in the district not just those missing education. GE is aware of at least 7/8 independent schools and is working closely with them and also with Madrassahs. This is a big piece of work and will come to a future Board meeting.
Pg. 11: Early Intervention & Prevention – this is one of the Board's priorities. It is also a priority of the Adults Board, Health & Wellbeing Board and Community Safety Partnership, and was one of the issues explored at the most recent 3 Board workshop in March. Work is being led by the Council but the Board is working to position itself in current developmentdiscussions, have stronger links with the early help frameworks, to be clear as to the thinking and to have an input/challenge as appropriate. PW felt that all three Boards need to be included in how this develops and CQ also felt that Health providers need to be around the table as well.
LT suggested that this could be a question for the Adults Board rather than having the one conversation at every level.
SC advised that it has already been agreed to have a Neglect sub-group and this is a key factor for focus around early intervention.
4. / SERIOUS CASE REVIEW UPDATE
This section contains information about individual children who are subject of serious case reviews. The information is confidential and has been removed from these public minutes.
5. / CSE UPDATE (STANDING ITEM)
OK updated the Board and advised of the good work that was going on through the workstream and with the action plan. He explainedsome of the changes around the Red, Amber, Green (RAG) ratings to the action plan, following a discussion as towhat was acceptable as evidence. OK feels that the action plan needs to be reviewed as it has been ongoing since 2013 and needs renewed focus on anend point. This will be looked at as part of the workstream.
BS thanked OK for his written report and acknowledged the good work that is going on.
6 & 7. / CSC CASE FILE AUDIT REPORT & CSC DEVELOPMENT BOARD
The report identified some inadequate practice in referral cases but also some good practice. The focus is on making improvements on the issues identified which the Development Board will be overseeing. SC asked BS how the Development Board can keep the KSCB updated on improvements and progress and BS suggested there be a standing item on the Board agenda for a update report each meeting.
In respect of multi-agency audits these are fed through the Evaluation & Effectiveness workstream (E&E) and this would be an opportunity to finish the supervision audit. SC agreed that learning from the audits is helpful as it identifies the themes emerging. CQ and SC agreed to have a conversation in this respect.
BS acknowledged the wider implications to pick up as a Board and the E&E workstream will look at in terms of multi-agency practice.
BS asked about allocation levels and SC advised that currently there are no unallocated cases in Child Protection or Looked After Children services – this is due to better assessment and recognition of needs, and more timely responses. Weekly compliance data is now available in order that this is constantly reviewed.
SC explained that in respect of case loads, again this is down to the complexity of the cases – who to allocate to, looking at different social workers, doing a manual cross-reference of what is in the system and what practice social workers are saying.
8. / REVISED CONTINUUM OF NEED THRESHOLD (EIP) & MASH REFERRAL FORM
MM introduced himself and advised that he had carried out similar work previously as Assistant Director in Blackburn, in respect of the ‘Risk Sensible’ model, a new model of Social Work practice and which is applicable across the whole Continuum of Need. This was implemented in 2012-13 and audited. Ofsted approved the model which was subsequently presented to 15 North-West Authorities.
There has been concerns around the practice in Social Care and now there are strategies in place to achieve good outcomes. A series of presentations and briefings have been arranged for partner agencies to explain how the model works and ties in with Early Help. This model will replace the Strengthening Families approach to get improved outcomes. RS confirmed that the Stronger Families Programme will be strengthened.
NJH queried as to whether connections are being made that will influence the Continuum of Need in respect of 0-19yrs and SC advised that this would be fed into the discussion on commissioning. RC also advised the a conversation had been had as to how these things linked together and will update NJH.
RC introduced himself and was representing Early Intervention. The Continuum of Need was brought to Board on the 22nd February 2016 but has changed significantly since then and had been revised following feedback to ensure that all the elements and pieces of work around the Early Help model were clear and how they work together. Key additions include: