Agenda item

To included information from the Child Death Overview Panel

Derek Benson gave the Board a brief overview of the Worcestershire Safeguarding Children Board Annual Report 2018/19.  It was explained that the annual report covered the period up to the end of March 2019. Various points were highlighted. 

The report offered an assessment of the effectiveness of the Board and confirmed that the links to other Boards such as the Adults Safeguarding Board, the Community Safety Partnership and the Health and Well-being Board were very important as safeguarding was everyone’s responsibility.

Key areas for the Board were the further development of the Neglect Strategy and work with the County Council and West Mercia on exploitation which included areas such as gang activity, trafficking, modern day slavery, forced marriage and criminal exploitation, among others. There had also been significant moves forward with Early Help.

Listening to the voice of the child was a perennial challenge and was an on-going priority for the Board.  The Service improvement plan and Ofsted inspections were mentioned in the report and things had continued to move on in a positive way since March. No serious case reviews were commissioned during 2018/19 although learning events had taken place following previous case reviews.

Significant time had been taken to prepare for the new Safeguarding Partnership over the last year. Going forward there was a strong multi-agency commitment to safeguarding with improvement in Children’s social care and Early Help which meant he felt more reassured about Children’s safeguarding than in previous years.

The Child Death Overview Panel Annual Report detailed 38 notifications and 23 child death reviews. Modifiable factors were found such as lack of parental supervision, maternal smoking, alcohol, bed sharing and young inexperienced drivers. Along with the new Safeguarding procedures there would be new CDOP arrangements.

During the discussion the following comments were made:

·       Derek Benson was asked how he saw the various organisations working together to support the emotional health and well-being of young people. He felt that it was timely that organisations should consider how to make the right identifications of safeguarding issues at the right time and referrals to the right services. The next Joint Targeted Area Inspections would be around adolescent mental health so it would be worth Partners working out where Worcestershire was on this issue

·       Following a query about why e-learning had been removed as it was now more difficult to train certain groups of staff; such as those in the Voluntary and Community Sector; it was explained that under the new Partnership Arrangements it was believed the old way of delivering training had not been delivering value or significant benefits. Under the new Partnership arrangements training would be directed at improving multi agency working

·       The Chairman highlighted that mental health was an important cross-cutting theme as shown by the references to the Time to Change Pledge, the focus that Children’s Services placed on mental well-being, the commissioning of services by the CCGs, the provision of services by the Health and Care Trust, as well as the role schools and social care had in children’s mental well-being. It was an issue that should be looked at further.

RESOLVED that The Health and Well-being Board:

a)      Noted the key headlines and conclusions from the 2018/19 Annual Report;

b)     Considered any points which may inform future work of the HWB in respect of its strategic priorities; and

c)      Agreed to consider cross cutting themes where the HWB has a role to play in reducing risks to children.