Agenda item

The purpose of this report is to present the Medway Safeguarding Children Board (MSCB) Annual Report 2015-16 to the Health and Wellbeing Board. The MSCB Independent Chair publishes an annual report describing how agencies in Medway have worked together through the year and how effective the arrangements are in Medway to keep children and young people safe from harm, abuse or neglect. The report summarises the progress that has been made in 2015-16 and the plans to develop this further in 2016-17.

Discussion:

The Independent Chair of the Medway Safeguarding Children Board (MSCB), John Drew CBE, presented the MSCB Annual Report 2015-16. The primary focus of the Independent Chair was in determining what independent evidence demonstrated about local performance in keeping children safe in Medway.

The Chair of the MSCB had concluded that child safeguarding in Medway was generally strengthening and that he had growing confidence in the local arrangements in Medway. This was with one exception, the Medway Secure Training Centre. A BBC Panorama programme aired in January 2016 covering the treatment of children at the Centre. This showed children being intimidated by the adults charged with looking after them and other unacceptable behaviour. As a result of the programme and subsequent investigation, criminal proceedings had been initiated against a number of individuals.

There were three areas that were considered to be of increasing importance. These were the recruitment and retention of an experienced workforce, developing services to address the issue of child sexual exploitation (CSE) and improving safeguarding in relation to Cookham Wood Young Offender

Institution and Medway Secure Training Centre.

Members of the Board raised a number of issues which were responded to as follows:

·         Recruitment and retention – Social workers had been reorganised into smaller ‘clusters’, which facilitated work loads being shared more easily. It was important that staff were retained so that they had the time to foster supportive relationships with the young people who they worked with. The Council’s Chief Executive had met with a number of organisations to promote the image of Medway as a good place to work. Work was also undertaken with voluntary sector organisations to promote opportunities available.

·         Child Sexual Exploitation – Services to counter the threat of Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) needed to be further developed in Medway, although a significant amount of progress had been made against this priority. The need to further develop services was also true of the majority of the country. Approximately 85% of CSE affected girls. One particular challenge was ensuring that schools were able to teach about the types of behaviour that were appropriate. A variety of partnership working took place with regard to CSE. There was also a need to ensure that support provided to victims demonstrated appropriate sensitivity and that they were provided with the longer term support to help them to come to terms with their experiences. It was acknowledged that the counselling and support services available needed improvement, with the Children in Care Council being recognised as an important avenue of support. A further challenge was that young people often did not appreciate that what was happening to them amounted to abuse. There was also stigma attached, with young people sometimes fearing that they would be taken into care if they reported their concerns. A Member said that were a lack of voluntary organisations that dealt specifically with CSE in relation to girls and asked if there was anything that the Board could do to facilitate this. It was agreed that this should be investigated further.

·         The needs of children in Youth Custody – An assessment was undertaken of all children entering custody. The needs of some of these children were well understood, but this was not always the case. These children often had complex needs, especially as on average, a child entering custody would not have attended school for two years. The average length of time that a child spent in custody was 82 days, which limited the influence that professionals, such as psychologists, could have on their development. It was noted that a review of the youth custody system was being undertaken by former head teacher, Charlie Taylor.

·         Geographic location of Looked After Children (LAC) – A number of LAC moved into Medway from the Kent local authority area and from London Boroughs. Children were placed according to their needs and the availability of suitable placements. There were also a number of asylum seeking children within Kent’s total LAC population. The Chairman stated that the Council’s adopted position was that the cost of finding placements for unaccompanied children seeking asylum should be provided by the Government. It was agreed that officers would provide further data in relation to Looked After Children from outside Medway.

The Health and Wellbeing Board thanked the Chairman of the MSCB and officers for the report presented to the Board and their work in relation to child safeguarding.

Decision:

The Board:

a)    Noted and commented on the annual report and the effectiveness of local services in keeping children safe and considered the implications for the Health and Wellbeing Board.

b)    Requested that officers provide data in relation to Looked After Children living in Medway who originated from outside Medway.

c)    Requested that officers investigate how the voluntary sector can be more involved in work to combat CSE.