Agenda and minutes

There were no Declarations of Interest made at the meeting.

There were no members of the public and press present.

There were no communications to report.

Nomination of a representative and substitute to the Health, Welfare and Safety Panel.  Quarterly meetings and quarterly visits of inspection (Fridays).

Resolved:-  That Councillor J. Hamilton represent the Improving Lives Select Commission on the Health, Welfare and Safety Panel for the 2015/16 Municipal Year with Councillor  Rose as substitute.

The minutes of the meeting held on 28^th January, 2015, were noted.

·       Jean Imray, Interim Deputy Strategic Director of Children and Young People’s Services, to report. 

The Chair welcomed Jean Imray, Interim Deputy Strategic Director of Children and Young People’s Services, to the meeting.  Jean gave an overview of the work that had taken place to tackle Child Sexual Exploitation:-

Redevelopment of the Joint Child Sexual Exploitation Team

The challenges faced by the original CSE team of the Council were outlined in some detail and it was explained to Members that the Team’s  remit had been unclear and also the level of expertise in the Team not sufficient due to the complexities it faced

The Service had since been disbanded.  A Head of Service had been brought in to take responsibility for the operational level of service and an experienced Team Manager in CSE which was important in Safeguarding Child protection cases.  The Team had been gradually built to ensure the right skill set.  Whilst this process had been taking place, other areas of Social Care had been managing the existing CSE work. 

The Team was now in a position to take on new work and there was a new Operation involving a number of young people in Rotherham and a number of districts. 

It was still in the early stages at present but already the differences that had been made to the conduct of the investigation could be seen.  There was a very clear command structure i.e. the Police command structure (Gold Group) which included a Police Superintendent and a Senior Investigating Officer and met on a weekly basis.  Under the Gold Group was the Silver Group which was a more operational group on the day-to-day work. 

The new Team also had a qualified Social Worker, an unqualified Social Worker post from Barnados and a Health Worker who was really important in terms of engaging young people and giving sexual health/contraception advice and responding to any of the victim’s worries and concerns because of the experience they had had.  There was also a wide range of work ongoing to identify those young people who were at high risk because of their additional vulnerabilities e.g. children missing from school/care, having access to drugs/alcohol, witnessed in certain places etc.

Barnardos; Assertive Outreach Hub

Work was taking place with Barnardos to identify funding streams to develop this Service which would assist agencies to access the “high risk” group which was not available currently.  The Hub would be very active in terms of leaving the premises and getting onto the streets and finding the young people who were at risk and working with/encouraging them to come into the centre and allow agencies to support them.  It would be a very important component to the CSE portfolio that would help agencies get to grips and tackle the problems.

Multi-Agency Risk Panel

Whilst waiting for the Barnardos’ Hub to come on line, this was 1 of the things being used to identify, not just vulnerable individual young people, but also high risk areas where people may be gathering such as the Interchange, train station, parks.  Whoever had concerns in the community,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

·       Wednesday 22^nd July, 2015, to start at 1.30 p.m. in the Rotherham Town Hall. 

Resolved:-  That a further meeting of the Select Commission be held on Wednesday, 22^nd July, 2015, commencing at 1.30 p.m.