The Domestic Abuse Referral Team DART
The Domestic Abuse Referral Team [DART]
Ensuring that children and vulnerable adults affected by domestic abuseare identified, protected and supported at the earliest possible opportunity
Background
There are between 7,000 – 10,000 children in Nottingham at risk from domestic abuse. This means at least 3 in every class of 30 children.
An average 360 referrals per month were made to Children’s Social Care Screening by the police between June and December 2011.
Adult Services had 616 safeguarding referrals for this period which included 66 referrals which were deemed to involve domestic abuse (10.71%). An average of 38 adults per month were considered at MARAC between April and December 2012, of which 48% are recorded as having a disability.
Domestic abuse presents a massive challenge to the City both in terms of capacity to respond to safeguarding concerns and the volume of crime. The DART is being introduced to respond to these pressures by implementing a multi-agency team who will be co-located and create efficiencies by accessing partnership information in one place.
The Team
The DART is a multi-agency team of people who continue to be employed by their individual agencies (local authority, police and health services) but who are co-located. Co-location is considered the most effective way of building relationships, trust and understanding between agencies so that staff are confident about sharing information.
This multi-agency team will deal exclusively with domestic abuse concernswithin the City where there are children or a pregnant woman in the household or where a vulnerable adult who meets the threshold for Social Care Services is being subjected to domestic abuse.
Concerns in relation to all other safeguarding concerns, both for children and vulnerable adults, will continue to be managed via existing processes.
The aim of the team is to:
- Make better-informed decisions about risks to children, young people and vulnerable adults as a consequence of improved information sharing across the partnership
- Make decisions more quickly than they have been in the past. This includes identifying cases where early intervention could remove the risk of harm.
- Change the existing culture based upon a more progressive information sharing and multi-agency response to improved outcomes for children, young people and vulnerable adults
- Reduce the number of rereferrals
- Develop a more empowered/skilled workforce, allowing for shared multi-agency decisions to take place
- Implement significant improvements so that these will be noted within external inspections
The team will be operational fromMonday 25th June 2012and will initially consist of:
2 Specialist Coordinators with management responsibility [Health and Family Communities Teams]
2 Family Support Workers (Children’s Social Care)
1 Adult Worker
2 police staff
1 administrative officer
The team will be co-located at Oxclose Lane Police Stationand have full IT access to Social Care, Police, and Health records. An agreed information sharing protocol is in place.
The team will deliver services from 8.30am-5pm Monday to Friday
Impact upon front-line practice
Staff should continue to complete the DASH Risk Assessment Form as identified within the NCSCB Practice Guidance issues of concern in relation to domestic abuse are identified. Please note that this form has been updated so that professionals completing it will inform relevant persons that the risk assessment will be considered by a multi-agency team and consequently information will be shared about them.
For concerns in relation to children, a CAF should be completed where appropriate and consistent with the expectation of the Family Support Pathway.
The police will refer in concerns for childrenas per their localforce procedures.
The completed Risk Assessment Form will be e-mailed across to the DART on their group e-mail address of: . The teamcan be contacted on 0115 9150494
Associated paperwork, where available, should also be attached.The DART will replace existing routes into Social Care Screening/Duty/Accessfor domestic abuse cases.
Members of the public will be able to contact the team directly via the phone. This number will be communicated within the next couple of weeks.
Contact should continue to be made directly with the police where immediate concerns about the safety of an adult or child exist.
Domestic abuse concerns on cases with current agency involvement
Where domestic abuse concerns arise in cases where there is current agency involvement a DASH risk assessment should still be completed in line with the inter-agency practice guidance. If the outcome is that the risk rating is appropriate to the current level of service provision then a copy of the risk assessment should be sent to the DART for logging and quality assurance purposes. It is assumed that the information sharing processes will be taking place as part of the existing case work. Where the risk rating is increased then the DASH should be sent to the DART for their full consideration.
Outcome of DART involvement
As a consequence of the information sharing processes that take place within the DART, a review of the level of risk will be undertaken and actions identified. These actions may result in you or your agency being asked to pick up a piece of work with the child, their family or a vulnerable adult. This is because DART is not a delivery model and consequently does not have sufficient resources to offer direct work.
This is work that the partnership should be undertaking already but by offering a more coordinated approach, you should hopefully see the benefits of improved information about the family or vulnerable adult. It is also anticipated that with time, efficiencies should be created as improved information sharing will lead to services being delivered earlier, resulting in better outcomes and a reduction of cases coming back into the system.
Links to MARAC
The DART will consider those cases that need to be discussed at the MARAC. It is hoped that the earlier information sharing process in the DART will add greater value to the decision making around these referrals. Consistent with the current process, Women’s Aid Integrated Services will also be involved with these decisions.
If you have any questions please contact your agency representative on the DART Steering Group:
Children’s Social Care: Colin Pennington/Helen Blackman
Adult’s Social Care: Sharon Green
Families and Communities Teams: Viv McCrossen
Police: DCI Simon Alexander or DCI Mick Luke
Health: Phyllis Brackenbury
For all other agencies/services: Mandy Goodenough.
Mandy can be contacted on 0115 8764813 or