Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

Hello and welcome back to the P-Pod, the Partnership podcast from the Somerset Scottish Children Partnership. And now, as promised, in our last episode, we are bringing you a special update today, which is very much on the basis of the recent updates to Working Together to Safeguard Children, which was just updated on the 15th of December of this year.

And we we're really keen to bring you today just a kind of snapshot of some of these really key points that you need to be aware of. Now, Working Together to Safeguard Children, and I'm sure you're aware, is the statutory guidance for all agencies in relation to safeguarding the welfare of children and young people. And it was last updated back in 2018.

So five years old now. It underwent some minor updates back in 2020 but really in relation to other kind of aspects such as the Domestic Abuse Act. Also a bit of an update in terms of information sharing. It also interestingly brought in an additional definition in terms of what safeguarding is. And this is for the first time ever, including mental health in the definition of safeguarding, which really made us think about what our responsibilities are.

Now, back in June 23 of this year, the government began a consultation on the most recent update to working together on children, which as I say has only just been published last week. So we're going to bring to you some of those changes. What's changed, what's taken place, what you need to know, and what do these changes mean for us here in Somerset.

So joining us back to the P-Pod today, we have Jasmine Wark, Business Manager of the SSCP Business unit, to come and talk to us about these changes. 

So, Jasmine, welcome along. Thanks for joining us today.

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Hi, Steve. Thanks for having me.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

It's great to have you here. And I know you've been spending a lot of time kind of really poring through all the details since the update was published last week. So we'll get straight to those and begin with, do you want to give us a bit of a background to why we've had the updates working together that this has been published now?

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah, absolutely. So as you mentioned, Working Together to Safeguard Children actually was published in 2018. That was the last time we had a meaningful update. So in that intervening time, there's been some changes. And in 2020 we had the National Independent Review of Children's Social Care that was led by Josh McAllister. This then resulted in a government consultation on the stable homes built on love strategy, and that had six key missions to reform children's social care.

So really we have this landscape of reading, looking at the child safeguarding system we have and thinking about what systems we need in place to support early identification of needs and a robust response to child protection concerns. And this update to working together is a part of this landscape of wider change. And really this is set to develop over time and this will be reflected in more regular updates to working together meaningful words for.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

Yeah, so I understand. So it's been five years since we last have the update. I understand it's updated just now in 2023 with the plan is what you say to then update it year on year in a similar way to do we see other pieces of Statutory Guidance like keeping children safe in education for example. And I think it's fair to say that we were initially expecting quite major changes to working together to safeguard children, I think.

Would you agree we haven't seen those major updates, a few significant part, but in likelihood, are we going to see those over this couple of years?

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, as you said, we'll be getting those more regular updates coming forward. And it may be that we see some more significant changes in those.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

So what have you to talk us through those changes then? I think it's fair to say it's kind of broken down for what can see into sort of two major parts. Main parts really. One is about very much about principles of safeguarding arrangements and how we work with families. The other part of it are a few kind of significant changes people need to be aware of.

So can you start us off just kind of talking about some of these kind of those principles of the changes to working together?

00:04:21:15 - 00:04:52:09

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah, absolutely. So that first chapter is about having a shared responsibility. So it emphasizes that really we get successful outcomes for children when we have strong multi-agency partnership working. So it talks a little bit about working with children and there's some detail about what children have said they need from agencies who are working with them. And in amongst that is the importance of stable relationships with workers, the importance of explaining concerns to children, protecting them from harm.

Then there's also some principles around building, trusting and co-operative relationships with families. So that's kind of four key principles that that the guidance advises professionals should follow when working with parents and carers. So the first one is about effective partnership and the importance of building strong, positive and trusting relationships. So really that's about having those respectful relationship. It's that understanding of the family background and it could be adapting a worker, adapting their response to meet the diverse needs of families, things like that.

So then the second principle is about non blaming clear communication that is adapted to the needs of families you're working with. So that would be about avoiding jargon and kind of that that professional language that that sometimes we might use and providing information to families in accessible language that they can understand and check in their understanding to. So the third principle is about empowering parents and carers to participate in decision making.

So that kind of thing would be good preparation for meetings with families, helping them to prepare and know what to expect so that they can get the most out of that meeting as it might be signposting them to local support or helping them to understand the concerns as well. 

The fourth principle is about involving parents and carers in the design of processes and services that affect them.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

And from what you've talked about, I know some areas of the country that might be quite different, quite a new way of working some extent, I think it's fair to say probably within Somerset. These are kind of principles that we've been working on certainly for the last few years or so. I'm just thinking about the introduction of things like the family safeguarding model, motivational interviewing, those kind of ways of working with families, rather than doing to families. Would you agree?

00:06:53:20 - 00:07:21:20

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah, absolutely. I would say there should be a lot of sort of local resources and practices that should be chiming with these principles. I would include in that the Partnership effective support document and the family strengths and needs toolkit, which is a tool which is designed to be used with families and the key messages through partnership training as well and say family group conferences applies these principles as well.

So hopefully as practitioners and managers and anyone who works in Somerset are reading through these principles, they'll be thinking about things they're already doing and also ways that they can apply these further.

00:07:35:13 - 00:07:50:05

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

You talked about the first couple of chapters, the other one was obviously around the multi-agency Safeguarding partnership arrangements. We shall see those all change back in 2018, bringing in the partnerships from the old safeguarding children's boards again. 

Are you able to comment on that at all?

00:07:50:09 - 00:08:23:17

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

And just as a quick reminder, our Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership is led by three agencies, which is Somerset Council Avon and Somerset Police and the Somerset Integrated Care Board. So the chapter on multi-agency safeguarding arrangements goes into some more detail about what they call a delegated safeguarding partner. Here in Somerset. We call them our executive and the representatives on our executive are the Executive Director for Children, Families and Education at Somerset Council.

We also have the Chief Nursing Officer at the Somerset Integrated Care Board, the Detective superintendent from the police, who is in the Somerset Commander role. And then we've also had an education representative join as active as well. And what the Working Together guidance says is that one of these people must be the chair of our partnership. So in Somerset we already have that.

And whereas other areas might have independent chairs currently and that they're needing to make that change to their partnership.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

I know one of the things that we were anticipate early on in the changes to working together, and it's something that's being debated hotly since 2018 with the last update with Working Together came out with the inclusion of education as part of that, the statutory safeguarding bodies, which also wasn't included 2018. We were initially expecting it to come in in the update for this year.

It's not in there in terms of having that statutory responsibility, obviously. So we're really emphasizing the need to engage with education services. But like I say, within Somerset, we're trying to think ahead a little bit on that one our way and we now have somebody within the exec within the partnership arrangements to represent education.

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah, absolutely. Because what working together has said is that it wants the voice of education to be strength and across partnerships. And that's absolutely what we've been looking at doing locally.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

And I think the other kind of big principle from what I can say is the importance and really of emphasizing agencies really properly working together. But also I think what was quite key within the updates this year is not just agencies working together but appreciating differences and sort of overcoming those differences and that personal challenge as well, which is really key.

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

The Working Together guidance says that safeguarding partnerships need a system to resolve disputes and issues to partners. So in Somerset locally you'll recognize that as our resolving professional differences process and it's all through the document. It's about the responsibility of every agency to challenge where they need to throughout a child's journey with services. And if anyone's interested in that and would like to find out more, they can have a look at our resolving professional Differences protocol on the partnership website.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

So we sort of talked about some of the principles, which isn’t I think a massive change here in Somerset. I think most of those are already in place and quite well-established. In terms of some of the details then, we have to get into some of that. What have you been able to pick out for us?

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah. So I think one change that's really important to note is that this new version of working together has much more detail about how all agencies should contribute to multi-agency safeguarding processes for children. So just as an example, for an initial child protection conference in the 2018 guidance, it says that all involved practitioners must work together to safeguard the child from harm in the future and take timely, effective action according to the plan.

However, in the 2023 guidance, we've got much more detail. So we have back that comment that I just read out and the additional detail that all agencies involved must also attend and present information to the initial Child Protection Conference and evidence of how the child has experienced abuse or neglect and the impact on the health and development, and that they also must bring their agency perspective, expertise and challenge and contribute to the decisions about the meeting it’s making with regard to the child in that plan. So again, it's really returning to that theme of challenge and that that it's every agency's responsibility to do so. Right.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

Because that's is a bit of a shift, isn't it? Because I know nationally and locally we've been certainly looking at making sure there's this full attendance at conferences. I don't think in particularly for some agencies they've might need something they've really got to think about. So for education, for example, if there's an initial child protection conference taking place during a holiday period, the schools actually making sure that there's somebody who is able to attend that because now we'll see it, it's a strength that within working together to make sure that all agencies must have representation within those conferences.

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah, absolutely. And every agency is different and might have different challenges in terms of participating in that process. And that might be something that they have to think about in terms of how they can make sure they can meet their responsibilities as an agency.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

So that’s something to think about. Is there anything else you've been able to pick out?

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

I think as well it might be worth commenting on the points that the guidance make about the importance of early help and greater inclusion of the voluntary community and social enterprise sector. So the guidance says that staff and volunteers working with children in these settings will often play an important role in building relationships, identifying concerns and providing direct support to children.

So these staff can often be the first trusted adult to whom a child reports abuse, and therefore they have a crucial role to play in safeguarding children. So this guidance is really looking to strengthen how all agencies work with the voluntary sector and in Somerset, we're looking to do that too, and see that where we've got some exciting plans in the pipeline for 2024.

So hopefully people can watch this space, right?

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

Yeah, I know it's something to be really passionate about. I know we've had lots of conversations about over the last few months or so about how as a partnership we can better engage with the voluntary sector and how do you be do lots of work on that, which hopefully you will be able to bring some news on very shortly.

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Then one other thing that I wanted to just highlight as a change through the new Working Together guidance is about a child in need support or Section 17 support. So the change that's made is that previously it was outlined that a social worker is the lead practitioner in coordinating a child in need plan. However, the wording has changed a little bit in the working together update And now it's saying that the lead professional must be supervised by a social worker.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

So we don't I guess this is very, very early days with this. I know this has been a point that's been discussed quite a lot as part of that consultation process, but exactly what that means there. But so basically, from what I understand, the principles of that is that of the child protection plan, child on child protection plan, that must still have that that direct sort of the practitioner from the social worker that the child in these plans, I understand from the consultation is more about sort of taking a pragmatic approach where sometimes the social worker may be the best person to take on that lead practitioner role, but also recognizing other times, depending on the relationships people have with the with the child or young person, it could potentially be somebody else now. But it needs to have that oversight that that sort of supervision, is that right, from the social worker.

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah. And it will be interesting to see how different areas of the country look to interpret this change and you know, how it can influence better outcomes for children of families.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

Like you say. I think they'll be interesting to see how that pans out over the next 6 to 12 months or so. 

Is there anything else we need to know about from this last update?

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Well, something that you might not be surprised by is that the guidance also talks about information sharing. So we know that this often comes up in learning reviews as a theme, and there is some guidance in the Working Together document outlining that practitioners need to be as proactive as possible when we're sharing information to help to identify, assess and respond to risks or concerns about a child.

It also talks about the Data Protection Act and how it supports the relevant sharing of information in order to keep children safe, but also that practitioners should always aim to be transparent by telling families how they're sharing information wherever possible.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

Yeah, it's going to be interesting. I think I let those include an update to the last kind of tweak to working together, which is back in 2020 that I mentioned earlier, where there was the myth busting guide to information sharing where the government recognized that the GDPR legislation, it created some big, big barriers to information sharing, and a lot of anxiety about sharing information.

So they brought out that extra section there that the myth busting guide to information sharing and that is included now in the update we've seen recently. But we are also hotly anticipating the publication of the update to the full information sharing guidance from government, which we were hoping was going to come out at the same time.

But it is not come out just yet as yet. So I think we are expecting early 2024.

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah. And once it is published we'll be looking at that locally in Somerset and having a think about what systems need to change or what training needs to change in order to apply that guidance as best as we can.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

Absolutely. I say, what that looks like in practice. And as I say, working together works very much on the principle that a consent should not get in the way of good, effective safeguarding practice. But like I say, working on the principle what we're told by right at the start of this about working alongside families, working in an open, transparent way with them, and so not sort of go behind people's backs effectively.

So like, say, it's going to be interesting to see how that that really kind of shakes up on a day already. They're all sort of things set in motion around that one triggered of the publication of new information sharing guidance to really start to shape that up in some sense see exactly how that's going to affect us.

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Yeah.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

Thank you. Jasmine is there anything else we didn't get a chance to cover?

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

I think we caught the headlines.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

Wonderful. That's all we need for today. 

So thank you so much for joining us and really sort of spending that time sort of poring through all the details that to bring that to us today. And I say we are currently in the process of going through all the all the all the policies, procedures, the training as we've got to really bring you those updates as well.

So really appreciate you've been able to give us a little snapshot that we've got. And what we'll do is we'll put in the description for this podcast, all the links to the updated guidance and also some of the wider guidance coming out around that. And you mentioned that the National Social Care Review by Josh McAllister, the stable homes built on Love will pop all of these links in the description for everybody today. 

So Jasmine, thank you so much. Thanks for taking the time to come and join us today. And we look forward to joining us again soon.

Jasmine Wark - SSCP Business Manager

Brilliant. Thanks.

Steve Macabee - SSCP Training Manager

Thanks. I hope you found this extra bonus episode of the P-Pod useful in understanding some of those headlines from the changes to working together to safeguard children 2023 

Now, as we mentioned, we will be putting links in the descriptions for this episode, so do check those out for more details and some summaries for you.

Also remember that as Jasmine mentioned earlier, we are hotly anticipating the publication of the information sharing guidance from the government, which should be coming out early in 2024. So once that is published, as we said, we are going to be doing lots of work that hopefully to see exactly what that looks like in practice. We will also look to bring you a similar episode to today's extra bonus episode, really kind of going through what those changes are in relation to information sharing.

So once again, my thanks to Jasmine Wark, business manager for the SSCP Business Unit for taking the time to go through all of those updates where they are working together and bring those to us today. And thank you again, as always to you for listening. My name is Steve Macabee. I'm the multiagency training manager for the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership.

And I look forward to joining us again next time about the P-Pod.