Meeting documents

To receive a presentation on Children and Adult’s Safeguarding and a review of the recent Ofsted Inspection.

Member’s received the following presentations, to give them an overview of safeguarding in relation to Children and Adults:-

• The Safeguarding Service Manager for Adult and Community Services gave a general presentation on adults safeguarding highlighting it was very different to children’s safeguarding;
• The Head of Families and Children highlighted that the safeguarding agenda for children’s was everyone’s business;
• The Director for Children’s Services updated members on the recent Ofsted inspection, highlighting the main areas for ongoing improvement and the next steps.

In response to a question from a member about personal budgets and empowering clients the Safeguarding Service Manager advised the presentation was just focused on safeguarding and not budgets at the present time. In relation to a number of different agencies and data sharing she advised that questions were asked of clients like ‘what is it you want’, these difficult questions needed to be asked as these clients, unlike children, had the capacity to make their own decisions.

One member felt it was encouraging to hear of better transition arrangements between Children’s and Adults services.

Following a question from a member about the number of permanent qualified staff, the Head of Families and Children made reference to the Forward Together  Programme for children that had been ongoing the outcomes of which were now being realised. The Directorate was currently going through a process of interviewing for new services which would be delivered from 1 September 2016.  Officers were actively interviewing in order to establish a new team to deliver permanency for children. They were also reinvigorating social work practice and reference was made to the partnership with Bournemouth University to develop and train social workers.

In relation to evidence of children staying in care too long, the Head of Families and Children advised that although the total number of children coming into care had increased more were at a younger age which provided an opportunity to plan more successfully for their long term care.  In relation to the upper age range, a Family Focus Project had been established to work with teenagers on the edge of care to explore alternatives.

In response to a question regarding business plans for the next 12 months, the Director made reference to the Partnership Plan for Safeguarding Children which was progressed through the Dorset Safeguarding for Children Board (DCSB), the Children and Young People’s Plan that would be presented to the Health and Wellbeing Board in September 2016 and the Action Plan arising from the recently received Ofsted report.

Following a discussion about the DCSB, the Director informed members that the partners of the DCSB included health, hospitals, police, probation, fire, district councils, voluntary agencies, housing, adult services and public health. There had been a lot of work undertaken to create sub groups from within then Board. The Board had recently appointed a new permanent Chairman.

One member felt that with lots of different groups/boards it was sometimes very confusing to work out who was responsible for what and where. The Director advised that the Safeguarding and Health and Wellbeing Boards were the only statutory Boards. Talks were currently ongoing to determine whether a Children’s Trust Board was still relevant and officers were looking at a more local level place based approach to how priorities for children were set.  She undertook to circulate a map of all of the Boards to members.

Noted