Doncaster Safeguarding Children Board

Welcome

Doncaster Safeguarding Children Board is the statutory multi-agency group with a responsibility for monitoring how local services are planned and delivered in order to ensure Doncaster’s children and young people are looked after properly, kept safe and protected from harm.

This information is mainly for service providers, practitioners and other professionals but it is hoped that parents/carers, children and young people will also find the pages useful..

The Doncaster Safeguarding Children Board was set up as part of wider children’s services reforms outlined in Every Child Matters and the Children Act 2004.

If you think that a child is being abused or neglected please contact Doncaster Council's Child Protection Service.

Local agencies from the Doncaster Safeguarding Children Board have responded to today’s (Thursday 29th March) publishing of a Serious Case Review Overview report in relation to the ‘J’ children.

Published by the Department for Education, the report has been suitably redacted to provide full details of local agency involvement prior and leading up to a serious attack perpetrated by two young brothers aged 10 and 11 on two other boys of a similar age in Edlington on 4 April 2009.

Today’s publication follows a ‘summary’ report of this case published by the Doncaster Safeguarding Children Board in January 2010.

Chair of the Doncaster Safeguarding Children Board, Roger Thompson, said: “Today’s report once again shows what a truly distressing case this was with issues for all agencies involved. On behalf of the Board, I would like to reiterate our apology and our thoughts continue to remain with the victims and their families.

“The publication provides a real reflection of just how weak individual services and multi-agency working was at the time of this incident, and we made a commitment then to make sure lessons were learned and ensure as best as we can that something like this never happens again.

“The Board has ensured 18 recommendations for improving practice and procedures have been actively addressed by all agencies involved. All are now working much better together as part of a Government approved improvement programme to deliver high quality outcomes for vulnerable children and young people of Doncaster.”

Doncaster Council’s Director of the Children and Young People’s Service, Chris Pratt, said: “The report highlights just how broken children’s services were in Doncaster three years ago when this serious incident happened. Since then a great deal of work has been done to put in place effective leadership and stability, and drive forward urgent, significant and sustained improvements on many issues that have previously been identified as areas of concern. We know services in Doncaster have now changed for the better, and children and young people across the borough are now much safer as a result.

“Our recent unannounced inspection by Ofsted found major improvements with regard to how we manage child protection enquiries as a result of us setting up a brand new children’s multi-agency referral and assessment service between the Council, Police and Health Services all under one roof. This has helped us to strengthen working and good information sharing with our partners, and ultimately maximise protection for children and young people against abuse and harm.

“Furthermore, our new Integrated Family Support Services (IFSS) has brought together Children’s Centres, Youth Services and Family Support altogether in partnership with other local agencies and means we are now able to intervene at a much earlier stage with additional support for children, young people and their families who need it.”

Chris added: “However, we are not complacent and will keep working hard to make further improvements.  We are determined to deliver the best possible services and outcomes that children and young people in Doncaster deserve and look forward to continuing with our improvement journey.”

South Yorkshire Police Doncaster District Commander, Temporary Chief Superintendent Tim Innes, said: “Doncaster agencies have worked together to ensure lessons have been learned since the serious assault on the two boys in April 2009. This attack shocked the close-knit Edlington community and devastated the families of the boys. Police thoroughly investigated the serious assault, which led to the successful prosecution of the two offenders.

“The Force conducted an internal investigation into our systems and processes and the recommendations of that report are included within the serious case review. These recommendations focused on domestic abuse and antisocial behaviour.

“Domestic abuse work analysed police procedures and systems, looking at how these link in with other relevant agencies in Doncaster. This has led to a new improved way of recording domestic abuse incidents and dealing with them. In addition, police officers now receive regular training on domestic abuse processes.

“Antisocial behaviour arrangements have been reviewed for working with families where this is an issue. As a result, Doncaster now has a multi-agency antisocial behaviour team made up of police, council and St Leger Homes staff. This team is based in the same office and are signed up to a formal sharing agreement.”

Chief Supt Tim Innes added: “South Yorkshire Police will continue to work with all agencies in Doncaster to protect children. Now the Government has published the redacted report, today is about drawing a line under this case and concentrating on how agencies are providing better safeguarding services.”

Mary Shepherd, NHS Doncaster’s Associate Director of Quality and Safety, said: “This was a shocking incident which has prompted a thorough review of the way the NHS provides children’s services in Doncaster.  We are confident that Doncaster’s children are now much safer as a result of the lessons we have learned and action we have taken as a result.

“We are now working together much better across local organisations. One Team Working is bringing together health and social care workers together under the same management structure and enabling them to communicate easily with each other about local children. Teams are being located in the same building where possible - a good example being the new Martinwells Centre at Edlington - and the sharing of data and case notes between professionals is now common practice.

 “We are providing better training for front-line staff, including highlighting the effects on children of growing up in a home where domestic violence takes place. Much of that training is now taking place jointly with partner agencies so staff can understand each other’s roles.

“We have made it easier for front-line staff to get help for children at risk. When professionals identify a problem they can quickly access a range of services from a single source.

“Mental health services for children are better co-ordinated. They are provided by a single organisation which helps to prevent any child falling through the gaps between organisations.

“And we have made safeguarding children a priority across all agencies. We have invested in more health visitors to work with families and have introduced the Family Nurse Practitioner initiative, which is helping teenage parents cope with the stresses of having a child.”

The Serious Case Review Overview Report for the ‘J’ children that has been published today by Government can be found in full by logging onto  http://www.education.gov.uk/a00205927/serious-case-review-report-j-children-in-edlington
 

The Serious Case Review Executive Summary for the ‘J’ children that was published in January 2010 can be viewed in full by visiting the Serious Case Reviews page

 
A progress report on the 18 recommendations identified in the Executive Summary can be found by visiting the Serious Case Reviews page.

A statement on the outcomes and recommendations of an independent investigation into individual Council staff culpability in relation to the ‘J’ children case is attached to this press release. 

The Doncaster Safeguarding Children Board is the statutory independent multi-agency group with a responsibility for monitoring how local services are planned and delivered in order to ensure Doncaster’s children and young people are looked after properly, kept safe and protected from harm.
 

Media interviews 

Representatives from agencies on the Doncaster Safeguarding Children Board will be available for one-to-one interviews from 12 noon today (Thursday 29th March) at Rutland House, Thorne Road, Doncaster, DN1 2BF.

Interviews will be available with:

-    Roger Thompson (Chair, Doncaster Safeguarding Children Board)

-    Chris Pratt (Director, Doncaster Council’s Children and Young People’s Service)

-    Tim Innes (Chief Supt, South Yorkshire Police Doncaster District Commander)

-    Mary Shepherd (Associate Director of Quality and Safety, NHS Doncaster)

For further information please contact:
Lauren Haslehurst, Senior Communications Officer:
T: 01302 862303

 The DSCB Annual Report 2010/2011 is available below for download

Threshold Process and Procedures -Continuum of Need - Referral and Assessment Pathways

All Doncaster practitioners must ensure they use the Threshold Process and Procedures - Continuum of Need Referral and Assessment Pathways as below.

Professionals providing services to children and their families should work co-operatively across all agencies, using their skills and experience to make a robust contribution to safeguarding children and promoting their welfare within the framework of discussions, meetings, conferences and case management.

All agencies are responsible for ensuring that their staff are competent and supported to escalate appropriately intra-agency and inter-agency concerns and disagreements about a child's wellbeing.

Concern or disagreement may arise over a professional's decisions, actions or lack of actions in relation to a referral, an assessment or an enquiry.

Professionals should attempt to resolve differences through discussion and/or meeting within a working week or a timescale that protects the child from harm (whichever is the less).

If the professionals are unable to resolve differences within the timescale, their disagreement must be addressed by more experienced or more senior staff. every effort must be made to resolve disagreements at the early stages of the dispute resolution process.

The diagram showing the process to be followed to support the resolution of referral pathway disputes can be found below: