Agenda item

a)    Joint Report by Corporate Director of Children and Young People’s Services and Director of Transformation and Partnerships

b)    Presentation by Carole Payne, Head of Early Help, Assessment and Safeguarding

The Committee received a joint report of the Corporate Director of Children and Young People’s Services and the Director of Transformation and Partnerships that provided an introduction to Neglect in County Durham (for copy see file of Minutes).

The Head of Early Help, Assessment & Safeguarding explained that neglect was the biggest single issue facing children’s social care and gave a detailed presentation that highlighted the following:-

·         Definition of Neglect – The persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical, emotional and/or psychological needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of the child’s health or development. Neglect may occur during pregnancy as a result of maternal substance abuse

·         Neglect may involve parents or carers failing

·         Signs of Neglect

·         The Toxic Quad – Alcohol & substance misuse, parental mental ill health, domestic abuse & learning difficulties

·         Increased risks

·         Life long effects of childhood neglect

·         Prevalence – 380 children in Durham on a child protection plan, 19 for sexual abuse, 28 for physical abuse and 71 for emotional abuse (although the emotional abuse category tends to be used less in County Durham than in other local authority areas)

·         Our response – prevention and early identification – used by all professionals entering the home

·         Team around the family

·         Care Proceedings

·         A typical plan

In summary, Members were informed that neglect was the biggest challenge and was increasing, it had long lasting negative impacts on children, was a priority for the LSCB and was a focus for Ofsted inspections.  There were 374 more open cases than last year and there was a fear that with the introduction of universal credit the situation would only get worse.  Prevention and early identification was key to reducing neglect.  All professionals going into homes for the first time were required to complete a Home Environment Assessment Tool (HEAT).

Councillor Crute was concerned about cases slipping through the net and asked if the team around the family looked for certain factors when assessing a family, if some factors were masked and why the delays were occurring.  The Head of Early Help, Assessment & Safeguarding said that the children and families that were not known were worrying and that there were certain groups that were good at evading the authorities.  The new HEAT ensured that all babies received an assessment.

Councillor Crute went on to ask if other agencies had similar performance indicators that could help track certain elements, such as obesity.  He was advised that the service were able to track but it did have its challenges.  The LSCB were pushing partners to look at ways to measure performance and what impact it had.

Referring to information shared about the impact on a child’s brain, Councillor Charlton asked if this damage could be reversed.  The Head of Early Help, Assessment and Safeguarding explained that evidence showed that this could not be reversed once the damage had been done.  Councillor Charlton further asked if this risk of neglect was increased the bigger the family and was informed that it was one of the risk factors but would increase further if the mother had anxiety, depression, debt worries, an abusive partner, to name a few.

Councillor Charlton asked what the health services were doing to encourage contraception.  The Head of Early Help, Assessment and Safeguarding explained that the health service colleagues advised about long lasting contraception when visiting after the birth of a child and the pre-birth team would pick this up when working with vulnerable mothers could encourage long lasting contraception to give the mother a chance to deal with her issues.

Referring to the children in care, Councillor Bainbridge enquired as to how many referrals were for new families, as she was aware that a lot of families would already be known to the service.  She was advised that the information could be sought but would involve a manual look through the records.

Councillor Jewell said that as a member of the Corporate Parenting Panel and Adoption Panel an unbalanced view was often presented and said that it was important to share the success stories.  The Head of Early Help, Assessment and Safeguarding said that situations were often turned around for many families and that a lot of care plans did not turn into care proceedings.  She agreed that the service needed to be able to report on that.

In terms of neglect, Councillor McKeon asked if it was fully understood by all partners.  She was informed that there was need to continually remind professionals about neglect and that the LSCB runs a Neglect Training programme.  There was also to be a neglect conference in March.

Councillor Maddison asked how staff at Children’s Centres encouraged parents to get more involved in care and activities and what controls were in place at independent centres.  The Head of Early Help, Assessment and Safeguarding explained that high quality early education had been shown to be better for children’s development and learning than staying at home but Children’s Centres enabled some parents to work and had activities that helped parents to play and interact with their children, and it was about finding the right balance.  She explained that all care providers were assessed by Ofsted and that the standard in Durham was very high. All Ofsted reports were shared with the local authority, the organisation and parents.

The Chairman thanked the Head of Early Help, Assessment and Safeguarding for a very interesting presentation and asked for a further update in six months time.

Resolved:

(i)            That the report and presentation be noted.

(ii)          That an update be brought back to Committee in six months.