Agenda item

Steve Crocker, Director of Children’s Services and Graham Allen, Director of Adults’ Health and Care at Hampshire County Council will provide an overview of developments and actions undertaken by the County Council and a range of partners in protecting the wellbeing of vulnerable children and adults in Hampshire.

Hampshire Safeguarding Children Board Annual Report 2016/17

Steve Crocker, Director of Children’s Services at Hampshire County Council presented the Hampshire Safeguarding Children Board (HSCB) Annual Report for 2016/17 which had been circulated to all Partnership members.  The report provided an independent analysis of the safeguarding services provided to children and young people in Hampshire and contained a summary of the work undertaken to deliver HSCB’s business plan which focused on five priorities:

Priority 1 : Neglect

Priority 2 : The impact of substance misuse, mental health problems and domestic abuse in adults on children and young people

Priority 3 : The multi-agency response to missing, exploited and trafficked children; female genital mutilation, suicide and self harm and novel psychoactive substances

Priority 4 : Quality assurance, measuring impact and embedding learning

Priority 5 : Stakeholder engagement

The Partnership noted the outcomes of a Joint Targeted Area Inspection of the multi-agency response to abuse and neglect in Hampshire in December 2016 undertaken by Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission, HMI Constabulary and HMI Probation which included a ‘deep dive’ focus on the response to children living with domestic abuse.  A range of good practice was highlighted by the inspection team including:

“The HCSB is dynamic and forward thinking.  During inspection, it was evident that individual leaders take responsibility for their organisation’s role within the Board and that this has led to tangible improvements in multi-agency arrangements”.

The Partnership noted that the child protection partnership is working effectively across Hampshire whilst recognising there are pressure points in relation to the volume of activity in the system and the importance of ensuring that learning from Serious Case Reviews is embedded in respective agencies to lead to effective information sharing between organisations.

Adult Safeguarding

Graham Allen, Director of Adults’ Health and Care at Hampshire County Council introduced a report that had been circulated to all Partnership members which provided an overview of adult safeguarding across Hampshire.  The report summarised the duties that flow from the Care Act 2014 and reinforces that safeguarding is everyone’s business.

The Partnership noted the excellent work undertaken across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight by the Hampshire Safeguarding Adults Board (HSAB) to deliver the objectives in its business plan and acknowledged the improvements made to capture and report safeguarding information with the vast majority of safeguarding concerns directed to the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) for review and identification of the action required.

The Director highlighted the need for safeguarding concerns to be managed effectively given that the number of concerns reported continues to rise.  A number of key priorities have therefore been identified such as joining up responses between Children’s Services and Adults’ Health and Care in relation to common areas; an enhanced service to be offered by MASH as a result of a new operating model within Adults’ Health and Care; building on strong partnership working with the Police and Ambulance Services and development of multi-agency partnership working in regard to modern day slavery, adult sexual exploitation and serious organised crime.

The Partnership welcomed the report and noted the main focus areas for the coming months.

Safeguarding Children, Safeguarding Adults – a more family based approach

Steve Crocker and Graham Allen concluded the session by outlining the work being done in partnership by the HSCB and HSAB in respect of domestic abuse, mental health  children and adults, substance abuse and homelessness and updated on various programmes dealing with preventing radicalisation, modern day slavery and trafficking.

The Directors reported that the joined up approach to deal with domestic abuse is working very well through avenues such as co-commissioning of training.  Work was being done in the mental health arena to promote resilience and how people living with mental health issues are supported to do more for themselves and make better use of community facilities.  It was highlighted that the S136 Mental Health Act Amendment presents some challenges going forward.  Substance misuse and homelessness continue to present challenges: over 15,000 hospital admissions annually are attributable to alcohol and rough sleeping is a key issue.

The Directors reported on the PREVENT anti-radicalisation programme and the work being done by partner agencies who are very much engaged.  There is a wide range of referral resources with a high level of referrals coming from schools. A staff survey to find out the level of staff awareness and engagement received 1400 responses and indicated that the level of understanding of PREVENT and what it does was a relatively high with more work to be done to increase awareness.

The Partnership noted that some very good multi-agency work and practice was evident in regard to modern day slavery/trafficking in Hampshire with five cases involving adults brought to the Police in the last year, two of which were referred to the national referral scheme.  Between April and June 2017 there were eight child victims of trafficking offences and 30 children in Hampshire are being supported.  Hampshire currently has 106 unaccompanied asylum seeking children which present major challenges in finding appropriate care placements, healthcare, education and interpreters against the backdrop of very little information about a child being available on arrival.  The Directors also reported on honour based violence (HBV) and the need to work with all family members who are experiencing these problems.  The Partnership noted programmes being developed to support young men coming out of the prison system, some of whom are a parent, and the need to work more closely together to think about the family situation as a whole and not the issue in isolation.

The Partnership welcomed the wide range of work being done in regard to some very complex issues for the public sector as a whole and recognised that the earlier support can be given to families who need help, the better.  How this support is managed is the key to create change within families at the earliest point, to identify and put plans in place to prevent more challenging issues further downstream.  It was acknowledged that the growth of contacts indicates that issues are being raised, which is encouraging and that a collaborative approach to manage these challenges collectively was paramount.  It was also recognised that striking a balance between investment/shrinking budgets and meeting the challenges is a difficult issue.