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DSCP Newsletter - July 2024
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Welcome to the latest edition of the DSCP newsletter. We hope you find it useful and informative. Please contact us by email if you have any comments or suggestions for future newsletters (DSCPSecure@durham.gov.uk)
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Latest News from DSCP
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Latest News from DSCP
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We are in the process of moving to a new platform within Me Learning. All courses have been moved over and your account will also be moved over but unfortunately, we are unable to move over an previous course completions on the existing platform.
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You will shortly receive an email with an invite for you to re-register on the new Me Learning system and the link to access. Your details will be moved over to the new system; however, you will need to set up a new password.
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Anyone who would like an account but does not already have one, can register HERE.
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Priorities
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Priority One: Domestic Abuse
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Within the DSCP we have completed a full cycle of work relating to all four priorities over the past 16 months, we are now preparing to carry out our second cycle of work for Priority One, Domestic Abuse.
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The Improvement Delivery Group is the group within the DSCP where all this work takes place, the group changes membership each time a new piece of priority work is starting.
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A learning point from the last 16 months has been “the work is driven by the passion within the group, and changing membership keeps it fresh and up to date”.
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Priority One: Domestic Abuse: Improvement Delivery Group will start work again from September 2024. This will be a four month cycle (September-December), meeting take place the first Tuesday of the month.
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Would you be interested in joining the Improvement Delivery Group?
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- Review key lines of enquiry (set by Performance and Learning Group) and set the methodology within the DSCP’s work.
- Complete work: within the group and some work to bring information from your service back to the group to inform the work we are carrying out.
- Share their opinions on learning from audits, surveys or focus groups.
- Be encouraged to make suggestions to support practice improvement from a practitioner's point of view.
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If you'd like to get involved, please speak to your manager within your organisation or contact Laura Bywater (laura.bywater@durham.gov.uk) for further information.
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Priority Two: Harm Outside The Home
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#LookCloser programme of learning.
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The Children’s Society have developed a number of sessions to tackle the issues of child exploitation and abuse.
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All sessions are free of charge and delivered on Microsoft Teams Live which means:
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Interaction with the presenters and participants will be limited.
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The timetable below has links to each learning event on Ticket Tailor, where you can book on to as few or as many events as you please. All of our sessions have been designed for various professional audiences, so please share these events with anyone you think would benefit from attending.
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Thursday 29 August 2024 Safeguarding care experienced young people from exploitation
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Learning Session Information: These sessions are aimed at upskilling professionals in the topic area and identifying points of reflection for individuals’ own practice and to take back to their wider teams and networks. The audience is expected to be varied and therefore the session has been written to engage professionals at different levels of knowledge and seniority and across a range of setting and sectors.
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Priority Three: First 1,001 Days
Revised; Partner-led Early Help Assessment and Child and Family Plan will be re-launched on Monday 8th July at noon.
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The Early Help Assessment for partners was introduced in October 2022 following co-production with children, young people, parents, carers and a range of partners across the Prevention and Early Help Partnership. Since its inception, partners have submitted 641 Early Help Assessments where partners are leading, 259 Child and Family Plans and 2,542 requests for Early Help Assessments to be triaged by Durham’s Early Help Triage Team (Front Door).
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In 2023/24, 43% were submitted by Education, 32% by Health and 25% by a range of other partners! Following feedback through a survey last year, the Early Help Assessment Review Partnership Group have made improvements to the Early Help Assessment and Child and Plan forms. Those partners who tested were also asked if they thought it appropriate to change the name from Early Help Assessment to Strengths and Needs Assessment. This was suggested reflecting on the significant changes that have been made. There was a majority vote to keep the name as Early Help Assessment. The new and improved Assessment, Plan and Process will be re-launched 8 July 2024 at noon. Guidance will be updated on the Durham Safeguarding Children’s Partnership website and Early Help Advisor Team will be on hand to support.
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Are you a health professional? If so, please sign up to the Early Help Newsletter (specifically for health colleagues), contact strongerfamilies@durham.gov.uk if you would like a copy of the Summer edition.
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Priority Four: Mental Health and Wellbeing
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The NSPCC have a new and free support service, Building Connections, aimed at young people experiencing loneliness. At Building Connections, they connect young people up to the age of 19 with a befriender to help them overcome, manage and build strategies to deal with loneliness as part of our targeted and focused early intervention strategy.
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A number of Safeguarding Partnerships across the country have heard about staggering rises in loneliness amongst young people in their care. Research shows by age 16-18, 73% of young people do not feel equipped to deal with loneliness and we want to change that (Vote for Schools survey, 2023).
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Any professional working with young people can refer in through the link below. You will also find below more information on the NSPCC website, this advert is aimed at professionals. Please do pass on this information to anyone you feel it could be of use to, and if any professionals would like further information, please do reach out to NSPCC Early Intervention Loneliness Support Service.
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What's New
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Private Fostering
Durham Safeguarding Children Partnership (DSCP) have been working with Durham County Council to launch a new awareness raising campaign for Private Fostering.
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Private fostering is an arrangement that occurs when a child under the age of 16 (or 18 if disabled) is cared for by someone other than their parent or a close relative for 28 consecutive days or more. A close relative is a grandparent, sibling, uncle or aunt or a step-parent.
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Please help support us in raising awareness about Private Fostering by visiting our website Private Fostering (durham-scp.org.uk) downloading and sharing digitally, or download/print and share at venues in your own community:
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Events
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Alcohol Awareness Week is managed and hosted by Alcohol Change UK. This year's campaign takes place from 1-7 July 2024 on the theme of 'Understanding alcohol harm'
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Alcohol Awareness Week is coordinated by us, Alcohol Change UK. Each year, over 5,000 public health teams, workplaces, GP surgeries, pharmacies, hospitals, charities and other community groups across the country sign up to take part using resources provided by Alcohol Awareness Week | Alcohol Change UK
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The DSCP have courses available to support you to upskill yourself on the impact alcohol can have on children and young people:
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Alternatively County Durham Drug and Alcohol Recovery Service also have an extensive training Calendar July - September 2024.
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All courses are free of charge to those who live or work in County Durham.
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- Alcohol Awareness & Brief Intervention
- Energy Drink Awareness
- FASD – Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Awareness
- Cannabis Awareness & Brief Intervention
- Substance Misuse in a Homeless Setting
- Basic Drug Awareness
- Understanding Opioids
- Basic Harm Reduction
- BITESIZE - Nitrous Oxide Awareness
- BITESIZE - Blood Borne Viruses and Substance Misuse
- Domestic Abuse & Substance Misuse
- Parental Substance Misuse
- Young People Alcohol Awareness & Brief Intervention
- BITESIZE - Substance Misuse Brief Intervention
- BITESIZE – Prescription Medication Abuse
- Samaritans’ Awareness day (24th July 2024)
- National Bereaved Parents Day (3rd July 2024)
- World Day Again Trafficking in Persons 2024 (30th July 2024)
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Please find below detail of Stronger Families Training which is free to Durham County Council Staff and our Partner Services working with families in County Durham. Training is advertised through the Family Information Service, see below link to access further course information, available dates and detail of how to book:
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- An Introduction to the Durham Way (2 x 2.5 hr virtual sessions via Microsoft TEAMS). The Durham Way Event introduces the vision and principles of ‘Thinking Family’. The event aims to build positive relationships between services and promote integrated working practices.
- Understanding Teenagers Training (1 x 3 hr virtual sessions via Microsoft TEAMS). This training will provide practitioners with an increased knowledge of the stages of adolescence
- Working with Dads & Male Carers (1 x 3hr delivered either face-to-face or virtually via Microsoft TEAMS). To provide front line staff and managers with the confidence, knowledge and skills to engage with and work effectively with Dads and Male Carers.
- Reducing Parental Conflict Training (1 day training delivered either face-to-face or virtually via Microsoft TEAMS). This training will provide practitioners with an increased ability to recognise parental conflict, to understand the causes of conflict and provide practical tools and resources to enable practitioners to support families they are working with.
- Hidden Sentence Awareness Training (1 x 2.5hr delivered either face-to-face or virtually via Zoom). This training gives practitioners an insight into the specific issues experienced by children and families of prisoners and the resources available to you to help support families. Delivered by NEPACS.
- Care Leaver Training (1 x 2.5hr delivered face-to-face). This training will provide practitioners with an awareness of the rights and entitlements of care leavers as well as exploring what it means to be a care leaver and potential issues experienced.
- Parental Rights Awareness Training (1 x 2.5hr virtual session via Zoom). To provide practitioners with knowledge of the legalities of parental rights and the challenges and barriers prisoners or estranged parents face in exercising their parental rights and remaining an active parent. Delivered by NEPACS.
- Loss and Bereavement Training (1 x 3hr delivered face to face). This Training provides Practitioners with an Increased knowledge of the different stages of grief and how they can affect a person.
- Reducing Parental Conflict E-Learning (interactive and will take approximately 1 hour to complete). This course is intended for practitioners who work with children, young people or families and would like to have a basic knowledge of parental conflict. It was designed to raise awareness of what is meant by 'parental conflict', recognise the differences between parental conflict and domestic abuse, understand the impact that conflict has on children and young people and to be able to recognise positive ways of communicating. To access the E-Learning please follow the link below.
On our brand-new Me Learning platform, we have over 30 courses available some which were developed at our recent ‘The First 1001 Days’ Development Day.
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- Concealed Pregnancy
- Safe Sleeping / Safe Handling
- Enhance Parenting Pathway Program
- Learning from Practice Reviews (Information Sharing, Cross Boundaries and Professional Curiosity
We also have 2 new courses available:
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- Criminal Exploitation and County Lines
- Online Safety – Risks to Children
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To access the above or check out the platform for the full course catalogue please see here.
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Local Resources
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The DSCP procedures have an updated chapter called, Safeguarding Children with a Social Worker, Child in Care Children previously in Care at school
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In July 2024 we have added two local resources to this page:
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- Working Together Children with a Social Worker (CWSW) Feedback Flow Chart
- Attendance resource it for Schools and Social Care
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Spotlight On
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Review Child Protection Conference Reports - changes to the deadline
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Following agreement at CSCMT, from 1st August 2024 the deadline for Review Child Protection Conference reports is changing to midnight the day before as opposed to 12 noon on the day they are due to be sent out.
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This change should have little impact for the submission of reports but will enable QRT to manage the circulation of reports much better on the day they are due out, especially when there is a high volume of these, as they can be circulated on the morning they are due out rather than waiting until after 12 noon.
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This only applies to Review Child Protection Conference reports, which are meetings that are generally planned in a minimum of 10 weeks ahead for the first review and 5 months ahead thereafter.
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There is no change to the timescales in relation to Initial Child Protection Conferences as we recognise Social Workers and other professionals have less time for these.
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Durham Fostering Service's Fostering Panel
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Durham Fostering Services are currently looking to recruit new independent panel members for Durham Fostering Service’s Fostering Panel.
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The Fostering Panel is an integral and essential part of our service and comprises of a group of people who contribute to all fostering panel functions including independent oversight and making recommendations on the suitability of applicants and connected carers to foster. The panel considers fostering applications, foster carer reviews and terminations of approval and therefore panel members must be able to demonstrate a thorough and robust approach to assessing written information.
Good listening and communication skills are essential along with the ability to make an assessment based on the written and oral information presented to the panel in order to discuss and make decisions in a balanced and informed manner.
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- The role requires a commitment to a regular daytime meeting approximately once per month and a willingness to read the relevant reports and papers before each meeting.
- All applicants will be required to undertake a DBS check and provide 2 references as part of the application process.
- Panel Members receive induction and training and will be appraised annually.
- Panel Members will receive panel paperwork electronically so should have secure access to a laptop (or similar).
They are particularly interested in hearing from people with direct personal experience of the care system, either as a care leaver, as a foster carer, or as a birth child of a foster carer or social workers, professionals from a medical or educational background.
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National Guidance and Useful Resources
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On 15 May, the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel published a briefing paper sharing learning from rapid reviews and local child safeguarding practice reviews (LCSPRs) to inform the work of safeguarding partners.
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It explores common themes identified across the reviews and highlights practice issues to protect children who are electively home educated.
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- Babies in care proceedings: what do we know about parents with learning disabilities or difficulties?, Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, June 2024
- Understanding early pregnancy support: Together for Childhood research report | NSPCC Learning: June 2024
- Behind the knife crime statistics: understanding children who carry weapons, Youth Endowment Fund, May 2024
- Children’s experiences as victims of crime, Children's Commissioner, June 2024
- Why language matters: how using terms like ‘recruited’ and ‘working’ minimise children’s experiences of criminal exploitation NSPCC Learn: June 2024
- The big Ambition for unaccompanied Children seeking asylum: Children's Commissioner for England: April 2024
- Health and Social Care statistical output: Gov.uk: updated May 2024
- Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE) 2024: summary of proposed changes | NSPCC Learning CASPAR briefing: June 2024
- Whole-School Approach Framework for sex and relationships education as part of our Talk Relationships service: NSPCC learn: April 2024
- Stronger guidance and controls needed to protect children from screen time, Education Committee finds, HoC Education Committee, May 2024
- Podcast: Supporting deaf children- putting the child at the centre of decision making NSPCC Learn: May 2024
- Putting children’s voices at the heart of online safety regulation | NSPCC Learning: May 2024
- Social work assessments: learning from case reviews, NSPCC Learning, June 2024
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Contact us:
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Council Offices, Green Lane, Spennymoor, DL16 6JQ
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Subscriptions
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