Agenda item

Consideration was given to the report presented by Phil Morris, Business Manager (Rotherham Local Safeguarding Children Board), and Sam Newton, Safeguarding Manager (Health and Wellbeing, Neighbourhood and Adult Services) that outlined the legal and policy similarities between children and adult safeguarding, outlined the services provided by all organisations across the Borough and the potential for future joint working across Children’s and Adult’s Services. 

 

The report outlined a number of issues of difference between Children’s and Adult’s Services: -

 

·         The Council had a responsibility to safeguard all children and a responsibility to safeguard all vulnerableadults;

·         Where families had adults with social care needs (such as substance misuse or mental health needs) and the family also had children, there was a need for both sets of services to work together to ensure continuity and consistency of support;

·         Where there were adults in the family that were unable to protect themselves from abuse, it would be unlikely that they had the capacity to provide effective and safe parenting.

 

The report set-out the frameworks both Services were governed by: -

 

Children’s Safeguarding: -

 

·         Working Together, 2013, was national statutory guidance for safeguarding children;

·         Every local authority had to have an independent local safeguarding children board;

·         Rotherham’s Local Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCB) was established as a statutory body following the Children Act, 2004;

·         Rotherham’s LSCB was chaired by an independent person and had senior representatives from all agencies that operated across the Borough, including the services that worked with adults. 

 

Adults’ Safeguarding: -

 

·         There was a range of pieces of legislation and guidance supporting social care for adults.  These included ‘No Secrets’ and guidance provided by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Care (ADASS);

·         A policy framework from the ADASS had been implemented through the South Yorkshire Safeguarding Adults Procedures.  All relevant partners, including the police and NHS, had signed up to this in order to work together to safeguard adults from abuse;

·         Rotherham’s Safeguarding Adult Board had been established in 2003. 

 

Links between the two Services on their formal frameworks: -

 

·         The Rotherham LSCB had representatives from services working with both children and their parents;

·         The Adult Safeguarding Board had representation from the Director for Health and Wellbeing, representing Adult Services, and the Director for Safeguarding Children and Families’ Services, representing Children’s Service;

·         The specific links between the two Services occurred mainly when adults who were parents or carers were: -

 

o   Adults with substance abuse;

o   Adults involved in domestic abuse;

o   Adults with mental health problems;

o   Adults who were involved in criminal activity;

o   Adults with disabilities or learning difficulties.

 

·         The text in bold indicated the main areas of concern for both Services within Rotherham, including working with parents who had learning difficulties;

·         Joint work was undertaken between Children’s and Adults’ Services in the transition of young people with significant learning difficulties and disabilities as they became adults;

 

·         The Children and Young People and Families Strategic Partnership Board was the overall strategic planning group for agencies working with children and families;

·         This Board linked to the Health and Wellbeing Board and also the overall priorities for communities within the Borough;

·         The overall strategic group for children’s safeguarding was the Rotherham LSBC;

o   The LSCB had a Sub-group with responsibility for Child Sexual Exploitation (‘CSE Gold Group’), which oversaw the implementation of the CSE Strategy and Action Plan and the work of the ‘Silver Group’ that had operational responsibilities for CSE.

·         The strategies for joint working across Adults’ and Children’s Services was the Think Family Group, which consisted of partner agencies including the Local Authority, Health, Probation, Police and voluntary sector organisations;

·         The Domestic Abuse Priority Group oversaw the strategic work to reduce domestic abuse and support victims, including children living with families where this was an issue.

 

The report detailed the other forums whereby Children’s and Adults’ Services co-ordinated support and actions: -

 

These groups included: -

 

·         The Early Help Support Panel;

·         Multi-Agency Support Panel;

·         Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements;

·         Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference;

·         Proposals were in place for a Vulnerable Adults Risk Management approach to bring all agencies working with adults together to address concerns;

·         Common Assessment Framework was the ley part of delivering frontline services that were integrated and focused around the needs of children and young people;

·         Universal services that supported parents and carers;

·         Services that supported adults in overcoming problems that affected children. 

 

Main tensions and obstacles of working together: -

 

·         The impact of public sector savings and the resulting reduction in members of staff and resources available;

·         Changes in personnel working with children and families and adults, which could lead to discontinuity in service delivery;

·         Changes in legislation and guidance for each area that could result in changes to information sharing protocols;

·         High demand on one or more public sector services that diverted staff to focus on specific projects. 

 

Future developments: -

 

The report had outlined that there was already established links between the two Services and also communications with partner agencies, spanning operational delivery and strategic planning.  National legislation and local changes were being incorporated. 

 

Current and future work included: -

 

·         Ensure that agencies working with adults who were parents fully understood the impacts their interventions would have on the children in the family;

·         This included workers identifying children who may be affected by their parent/carer’s issues;

·         The Rotherham LSCB agreed in June, 2013, to examine the interface between the two Services across the Borough.  This piece of work was being undertaken by the LSCB’s Quality Assurance Sub-group and would be reported back to both the Adult and Children’s Safeguarding Boards;

·         The Rotherham LSCB was also planning to use developing performance information about Early Help Services and their impact on outcomes for children to examine the effectiveness of services. 

 

The representatives of Children’s and Adults’ Services shared case studies with the Improving Lives Select Commission to illustrate the different types of social care interventions and legal frameworks available to each Service. 

 

Discussion ensued between members of the Select Commission and the representatives of the Services.  Issues raised included: -

 

·         How easy was it for people to get access to the services/support they wanted/needed?;

·         Thresholds within Social Care;

·         Members of the Select Commission recognised how difficult the job of front line workers could be;

·          Were there areas where young people who had less significant learning disabilities could fall through the gaps and not receive a suitable transition?;

·         Co-location of workers and multi-agency teams.

 

Resolved: -  (1)  That the report be received and its content relating to the benefits, challenges and obstacles of multi-agency working to improve family’s lives be noted. 

 

(2)  That the Improving Lives Select Commission receive a further report relating to the transition for young people from Children’s to Adults’ Services.