Agenda item

Report of Interim Strategic Director, Care Wellbeing and Learning

The Committee took part in the fourth evidence gathering session which provided an overview report and  DVD presentations of how multi agency decisions are made regarding whether a child needs to become subject to a child protection plan and under what category.  The session considered decision making during Initial Child Protection Conferences (ICPC) and how these decisions are reviewed at subsequent Review Child Protection Conferences (RCPC).

The Committee were also advised on the purpose of an Initial Child Protection Conference and the conference responsibilities and decision making process.

The Committee received the definitions of categories of significant harm taken from ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children, 2015’ as being:-

Physical Abuse – a form of abuse which may involve hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, drowning, suffocating or otherwise causing physical harm to a child. Physical harm may also be caused when a parent or carer fabricates the symptoms of, or deliberately induces, illness in a child.

Emotional Abuse – the persistent emotional maltreatment of a child such as to cause severe and persistent adverse effects on the child’s emotional development. It may involve conveying to children that they are worthless or unloved, inadequate, or valued only insofar as they meet the needs of another person. It may include not giving the child opportunities to express their views, deliberately silencing them or making fun of what they say or how they communicate. It may feature age or developmentally inappropriate expectations being imposed on children.

These may include interactions that are beyond the child’s developmental capability, as well as overprotection and limitation of exploration and learning, or preventing the child participating in normal social interaction. It may involve seeing or hearing the ill-treatment of another. It may involve serious bullying (including cyber bullying) causing children frequently to feel frightened or in danger, or the exploitation or corruption of children.

Some level of emotional abuse is involved in all types of maltreatment of a child, though it may occur alone.

Sexual Abuse – involves forcing or enticing as child or young person to take part in sexual activities, not necessarily involving a high level of violence, whether or not the child is aware of what is happening. The activities may involve physical contact, including assault by penetration (for example rape or oral sex) or non-penetrative acts such as masturbation, kissing, rubbing and touching outside of clothing. They may also include non-contact activities, such as involving children in looking at, or in the production of, sexual images, watching sexual activities, encouraging children to behave in sexually inappropriate ways, or grooming a child in preparation for abuse (including via the Internet). Sexual abuse is not solely perpetrated by adult males. Women can also commit acts of sexual abuse, as can other children.

Neglect – the persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical and/or psychological needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of the child’s health or development.

Neglect may occur during pregnancy as a result of maternal substance abuse. Once a child is born neglect may involve a parent or carer failing to:

·         Provide adequate food, clothing and shelter (including exclusion from home or abandonment).

·         Protect a child from physical and emotional harm or danger

·         Ensure adequate supervision (including the use of inadequate care-givers); or

·         Ensure access to appropriate medical care or treatment.

It may also include neglect of, or unresponsiveness to, a child’s basic emotional needs.

The Committee were advised about the Core Group and also about the purpose of the Child Protection Review Conferences (RCPCs) as well as a breakdown of performance data from April 2014-January 2016.

Gateshead continues to have high numbers of children with child protection plans. The majority of those children continue to be registered under the category of neglect.

100% of child protection plans are distributed within 1 day of the ICPC and during the last 12 months significant work has been undertaken to ensure that Chair’s reports following conference have been distributed within the required timescale of 20 days. Since February 2015 we have been able to demonstrate 100% compliance with timescales.

Ensuring the right people are represented at the conference has also been subject to performance improvement during the last 12 months. Specifically, ensuring that GP information and police information is available to the conference to ensure decisions can be made with a complete picture of the circumstances surrounding the child.

Concerns were expressed about the availability of GP reports at both ICPC’s and RCPC’s. Despite an improvement in reports being shared when practices were reminded these improvements were not able to be sustained. In order to support Health to meet statutory performance targets and improve practice work was undertaken with the named GP visiting a range of GP Practices, and holding sessions with both GP and Practice Managers to review administrative processes and organisational issues and the key lessons learnt for both Health and the Safeguarding Children’s Unit from the Baby T SCR. As a result there has been a significant improvement in communication and an improvement from 22% of conferences having GP reports to 71% of conferences having GP reports.