Episode 1 - What is the SSCP

Transcript

Steve Macabee - SSCP Multiagency Training Manager

Hello and welcome to the PPod. The Partnership podcast from the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership. Throughout these podcasts, we'll be bringing you news and updates in relation to safeguarding children in Somerset and nationally, as well as exploring with you the various aspects of the partnership and the roles of the agencies within it. And we felt it only fitting to start off the series of podcasts with today's episode. We will explain what safeguarding children partnerships actually are and what the role of the business unit of the partnership plays in helping to enable the partnership to fulfil its responsibilities. I'm pleased to say then that to help me with this, I'm joined in the studio today by two of my colleagues from the business unit, Jasmine and Rebecca, where we'll be talking about the partnership, what it does, why we have them in the 1st place and how it functions, and what your role is within it. So if we can just start off Jasmine, can you just introduce yourself?

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Of course. Hi, I'm Jasmine. And I'm the business manager for the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Multiagency Training Manager

Lovely. Thanks Jasmine and Rebecca.

Rebecca Leggett - SSCP Partnership Business Officer

Hi everyone, I'm Rebecca and I am the partnership business officer for the SCP.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Multiagency Training Manager

Brilliant. Thank you. My name is Steve Macabee. I'm the multiagency training manager for the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership. So Jasmine, can you start off just talking about where does, where does safeguarding children partnerships come from? Why have we got partnerships and where do they originate from?

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah, of course. So our partnership has come into play since 2019, so prior to that you might have heard of the Safeguarding Children Board. So that was the previous arrangements in place where the local authority hosted partner agencies working towards multi agency safeguarding arrangements for children in the area. So the working together guidance that was published by the government in 2018 gave us this new idea of safeguarding partnerships, which places equal responsibility across the partners to. Ensure that there's. Robust multi agency safeguarding arrangements in the area.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Multiagency Training Manager

So Jasmine, who is actually part of the safeguarding arrangements, who is part of the partnership.

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah. So in Somerset, the partnership is led by three agencies. Those are Somerset Council, Somerset Integrated Care Board and Avon and Somerset Constabulary. So although it's led by those three agencies, any kind of organisation who works with children and families in Somerset is part of the partnership and involved in our projects, initiatives and our statutory responsibilities.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Multiagency Training Manager

It's interesting because they didn't. The government didn't include education as a statutory safeguarding partner, which I know caused a lot of debate at the time of working together, coming in about education, being part of a statutory safeguarding partner and you know, I think it's important to recognise the role that education plays. In safeguarding children, there's a lot of responsibility placed on education. We see that in, in keeping children safe and education and the other statutory guidance, and we know that children spend a large proportion of their childhood in education and it was it was interesting that in the update to working together in 2018, education wasn't included as a factory partner. And I know that's been. Muted recently about whether that will change in the future, but it is interesting. And I think that. Behind that is the recognition that actually education isn't a single body. It's not a single person. It's not a single agency, and it's essentially no one agency, no one school in Somerset could hold every school accountable. But whether that changes or not in the future, we'll, you know, we'll have to see, but it's certainly discussed quite a lot and talked about. Law. So be interested to see if that changes with the any future updates to working together. What? What about? The business unit then. So obviously we the three of us here all sit as part of the business unit and quite often people will think about the business unit being the partnership. And I wonder if it's just useful to talk about what the business unit is, who it is, who sits within it, what the team looks. Like and what we do.

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah. So you're absolutely right. The business unit aren't the partnership we work for the partnership and primarily we support the partnership to meet their statutory responsibility. Piece and that covers a whole range of things like training, which you leave on lead on Steve Learning reviews, which we might talk a little bit more about later and multi agency quality assurance activity and really listening to the voices of children in Somerset and parents and practitioners. Who are telling us their priorities and emerging issues. So Rebecca, you take a lead with some aspects of that. So was there anything you wanted to add about your?

Rebecca Leggett - SSCP Partnership Business Officer

Role, yes. So in quality assurance, I get the opportunity to run focus groups with frontline practitioners. We hear the voice of what frontline practitioners are telling us about how they're working with families, with children, how different publications or protocols or the work that we do as a group in the partnership. Impact on their ability to do their job safeguarding and identifying situations for children families in Somerset. We also look at things like surveys. We do self assessments on to quality assure and provide assurance to the three key partners as well around safeguarding arrangements in Somerset and we get the opportunity as well to work with children and young people and families across Somerset as well to get interviews from them. We get the voice of the child, the voice, the family, and again see how all of that works. Partnership are doing are impacting on their outcomes.

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah, absolutely. So it it's almost like putting a jigsaw together. So you know the voices of practitioners, families and children are one part of telling us what's going on in. Is that we're also finding out through use of data or through the themes that come through learning reviews, all of those things help us to understand what our priorities are and what we need to develop locally. And then once we have a picture of that, that's where things like training might come in. Couldn't it Steve?

Steve Macabee - SSCP Multiagency Training Manager

Yeah. And. I guess in a way it's the it's the kind of the reactive and proactive side of things in there. And I think you know when we're in terms of some of the work of the partnership is very much about the reactive looking at what changed nationally, some of the national learning, some of changes in legislation guidance but also. Very importantly, learning on that local basis in terms of. Sometimes things don't work out well for children. And actually, how do we improve things? How do we work move forward on things and really kind of take the learning from that to improve safeguarding practise going forward? So that's very much the reactive side of things. And then obviously the proactive side of things. I think Rebecca, that's where you come in more in terms of that, that kind of proactive. Looking at the quality assurance, how do we actually know we've made a difference? We can put things in place, but So what? You know what does that actually mean for children and how do we know we've actually made any? Change there and what does the data tell us around that and how can we look at that data? How can we interpret that data and also pick up on those themes pick up on those the kind of what that's telling us and how do we respond to that going forward? And then yeah, the other side of it I think is like you say very much about how? Do we communicate? That how do we put that forward? How do we actually make that change in practise? So part of that you're absolutely right, is about the training that I run that my colleague Sam runs, but also it, it's about how do we best get that. Message out how do we best make those changes? So it might be training, it might be around publications, it might be through the newsletter. It might be through the videos that we produce now. Podcasts such as this, you know, how do we most effectively make that change going forward? I think is that. Would you say?

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

That's fair. Yeah. And some of that might be through. Speaking directly to practitioners like through podcasts, our Learning Bulletin training, and some of that is about working with the strategic management across the partnership to achieve systemic change.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Multiagency Training Manager

Yeah. So just picking up from what we're talking about in terms of learning just now, I just wonder if you could just talk to us about what happens when there's been a really significant safeguarding event taking place, sort of what would trigger that a who would trigger that and? But what happens?

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah, absolutely. So again, we've got some new language that has been in use since 2019 prior to 2019. You may have heard of serious case reviews that's now been replaced with the with the setup of new partnerships with a new approach to learning. So if there is a serious. Incident which would be defined as the death or serious injury of a child in Somerset. Then it's the duty of the local authority to notify the National panel and then start what we call a rapid review to look at the learning for agencies from that incident and how we can learn from tragic events and how we can develop practise locally to reduce risk in future.

Speaker

So can I?

Steve Macabee - SSCP Multiagency Training Manager

I think people are often quite familiar with the term serious case reviews. You know they're in place for a long time could. Would you be able to kind of summarise what the difference is between a serious case review and the rapid reviews?

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah. So although serious case review has serious in the title, I'd say both kinds of review are equally as serious as each other, so they have the same criteria about when you would do either of those reviews. However, the key difference is time, so a serious case of view would often take many months to finally publish. It would be a lengthy document that really goes into that chronology and all the detail of an incident, and I guess caused some delay. In terms of getting those key messages out there and supporting change across the system, so the approach with rapid reviews is they have to be undertaken within three weeks. So a much shorter time scale than serious case reviews.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Multiagency Training Manager

Because I think the time scales for a serious case review roughly, I think the average time scale was about 20 months, just shy of two years and generally 2 to three years was that was the timescale for it, wasn't it? And I know although this change back in September 2019, we're still seeing nationally serious case was still coming through the system. Several years behind, and for me that always posed a couple of big risks, really. And one is that that risk of looking at things. Actively. And when you when you kind of read things you think. OK, well so much has changed in the last few years. Actually it's not really relevant for me anymore, but actually we know from serious code of views that those messages come up time and time and time again and that those messages that everyone is familiar with sadly. That that lack of information sharing, lack of joined up, working, lack of collective accountability, all these kind of things we see coming up all the time and I think that's kind of part of the risk of the serious case reviews is that it was the same messages all the time and I think the other risk with it taking so long. Is that actually we could be making positive change in that time, we could be safeguarding children better, but potentially with serious case reviews, we're waiting two to three years down the line before that review is completed, before the publication of that, the promotion of it where arguably within those two to three years we could have been doing things much, much better.

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

So I think the changes to the system really recognise that and that's why there is this deadline of three weeks to get the system together to examine what happened and what learning we can take from that and then submit that to the national panel alongside an action, an action plan of how we're going to make changes across the system.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Multiagency Training Manager

So the other part of that process isn't it is the child safe cutting practise review and because we love acronyms the CSPR can you talk what what's the difference between a rapid review and a child safeguarding practise review and when would we do a child safeguarding practise review?

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah. So the criteria for a rapid review and a CSPR are exactly the same. So if you meet the criteria for a rapid review, you may well meet the criteria for a CS. PR But there's a difference between them, so a rapid review takes 3 weeks to submit, but sometimes at the end of three weeks, you. Might be left. With some key questions and key themes that have come through that need a deeper. Dive in that case, that would be when you have CSPR taking place and that would be about. Any action you're taking after a rapid review which is taking a deeper look at the learning and take carrying those questions forward. To be able to consider it in more detail and come up with a plan. At the end of it. But even a CFP R has a six month deadline, so no reviews taking two or three years since the partnership arrangements have come about.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Multiagency Training Manager

Yeah. And I and I know I I think the other big change around it is about it's not about the narrative, it's not about telling the story. And I and I think that was a culture that was recognised in the review by Sir Alan Wood is is that many serious case reviews often focused about the story telling the story but not really focusing. And actually, how can we make things better? How can we improve things and the analysis side of it? And I think the other thing that's Alan would identified was actually there's quite. A culture of. Of blame around serious case reviews and that worry of people going into that review process that potentially they would be criticised for it. Potentially could lose their job for it, and that's certainly been a national culture going back a number of years. And I think that's the other big shift, isn't it? With the rapid reviews and child safeguarding practise reviews, is is, is, is not about finding fault. It's not about finding individual blame. There, it's very much about the system based learning and how we can improve things as systems and as part of the partnership.

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah. And there's different approaches to undertaking CSPR, so it might be that there's an incident involving one child and a CSR takes place to look at that in more detail or you can have thematic CSPR's which might look at more than one child and look at the trends across the incidents that happened and identify. Running for the system.

Rebecca Leggett - SSCP Partnership Business Officer

Say I think it's also really important to recognise that within the scope of a rapid review and a CSPR, you can highlight good practise. It's not always system change, it's also highlight the good practise that agencies are showing and that I think that is really miss missed opportunity. Sometimes we don't always recognise that in our daily practise so it's. There's an opportunity to see that.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Multiagency Training Manager

I think you're right. We do tend to focus on when things have gone wrong and it's important we do and it's important we learn from that. But I think you're right, we we're not so good nationally. Learning from good practise and celebrating good practise and actually I think you're right, there's just as much, if not more that we can learn from good practise when things work right. So I think you're right to pick up on that, that that you know, we do need to get better at that nationally, I think and improve on that and yeah, learn from that good practise when that takes place. So I'm just thinking in in terms of some of the work of the partnership. As well, we've talked about how we learn when there's been significant safeguarding events taking place, but why doesn't that? How does the partnership kind of really pick up on and identify some of the work that needs to take place? Because it doesn't all just come from a rapid review or trial. And in practise review and how do we look at the bigger picture really in terms of safeguarding children? And I know some of the work of the partnership is very much looking at within the subgroups, things like Child Exploitation. Rebecca in terms of picking up on those themes with the work that you do? Around the data. How does that kind of get fed into the work of the partnership?

Rebecca Leggett - SSCP Partnership Business Officer

So the partnership tends to look at a smaller number of priorities and these tend to cover complex areas of children's safeguarding that might require a deeper sort of collective understanding across the system and inform a sort of targeted and coordinated approach. So we might look at this through a group called the Quality and Performance subgroup. And these the kind of the priorities are generally identified through analysis of themes arising from partnership scrutiny and quality assurance processes. Some of those focus groups, some of those surveys, it might be through data. So we might see spikes within the data. We might challenge some of that if we're seeing continuous trends within that data. Against different organisations they might come through with some issues that they need to address.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Multiagency Training Manager

Did you? Sorry, just to interrupt, could you possibly just give an example of that? What sort of data were, you know were, were those trains might come out?

Rebecca Leggett - SSCP Partnership Business Officer

So for example, we might see data coming through from, for example hospital data where we might be seeing particularly I mean the last couple of years we've seen non accidental injuries rising nationally to very young babies. Certainly we've seen some of those incidents in Somerset and we might then see. Within the subset of that data coming through from health that there is particular times of the year where this might happen, it might be that we see in trends in data that it occurs around particular events that. Behaviours from people such as you know, summertime cultures or football, which we all know sort of exacerbates domestic abuse. It might also have an impact on non existential injury in in children as well, so that's the kind of thing that we might look at as an example and that will then start to form some of the activities and the. Actions that then underpin the work that we do to try and understand the situation and put things in place, to start to mitigate for some of those instance.

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah. And I think that's a really good example of the real benefit that a an effective partnership can achieve because this is people coming from across the safeguarding system in summer that coming together and taking a real deep dive into what different parts of the safeguarding system are telling us and what we can learn from that and then carry that forward into action. So yeah, it's just a. It's 1 great example of how across the partnership we're working together to achieve change.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Multiagency Training Manager

Rebecca. Jasmine. Brilliant. Thank you very much. I'm just wanted just one last little thing. Is. If somebody's listening to this today and think of that, that's great. But what does this mean to me? How can I link him better with the partnership? What? What would you say? What? What? Somebody. Some of the key routes that people could link in?

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Better with the partnership. There's a multitude of ways you can get involved and probably a first port of call. Would be our website where you can find out information about upcoming events, training and learning opportunities that you might want to get involved. In and some of the learning activity that we might have undertaken through rapid reviews or CSPR's as well.

Rebecca Leggett - SSCP Partnership Business Officer

Yeah, you can sign up to our newsletter the learning bulletins. Well, that's a monthly newsletter that will update you on publications on the protocols that might come into putting in place. We've got outcomes from the case reviews. We'll have training opportunities in there. There'll be articles as well from across the system as well, and learning. And understanding what our partners do as well, which is quite key I think for a lot of people, they want to understand what everyone else. In the system does and how they self support.

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah. And we want to hear from you, so please keep your eyes out for any surveys we're putting out or focus groups because every part of the safeguarding system has a really important perspective to bring. That we need to kind of collect altogether to really understand what's going on locally.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Multiagency Training Manager

Lovely. Well, thank you so much. Both of you for spending your time today with me to explain what the SCP is, it's really appreciated. If you'd like to find out more about the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership, you can find details by going to our website somersetsafeguardingchildren.org.uk. Importantly though, we want to hear from you. So if you have any questions or comments for us from today's episode or you would like to join us for a future episode, we'd love to hear from you at the Peapod at somerset.gov.uk. We hope you found listening to today's podcast useful and being able to understand the partnership better and thank you for joining us as well. So do come back for future episodes where we'll exploring further aspects of the partnership and speaking about the topics that really make a difference to children and young peoples lives in Somerset and we look forward to you joining us again next time. At the PPod.