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DSCP Newsletter - September 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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The DSCP will be co-ordinating the yearly multi-agency assurance week between Monday 30th September and Friday 4th October 2024.
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Purpose of visit: To gain a deeper understanding from a partnership perspective of how multi-agency meetings are co-ordinated and attended in Durham.
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We are also gathering information regarding the experiences of children, young people and their families and to seek assurance that these meetings effectively identify risk and safeguard children and young people.
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- Observation of meetings
- Discussion with Professionals involved in meetings
- Discussion with children and families prior/following the meeting.
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If you have any queries about the multi-agency assurance week please contact: DSCPSecure@durham.gov.uk.
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Priorities
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Priority One: Domestic Abuse
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For over ten years, Durham County Council and Durham Constabulary have been involved in ‘Operation Encompass’. This is a Police and education early information and safeguarding system allowing schools (Reception to year 11) to offer immediate support to children following a Police attended domestic abuse incident at their home.
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Enough information is sent to schools to allow staff to understand the night the children have just experienced, therefore can act appropriately offering immediate support and safeguarding.
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Until May of this year, Durham County Council and Durham Constabulary had been running a local Operation Encompass scheme following general good practice standards, as there was no statutory duty to follow. Since May of this year, Operation Encompass is now in legislation, as part of the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024.
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Durham County Council and Durham Constabulary continue to work in partnership to offer the best Operation Encompass service to children in Reception to Year 11 through a new electronic notification system and with future plans to extend the offer to early years and Post 16.
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Operation Encompass is supported countywide as one of the measures taken to support our children overcome the lasting trauma of being a victim of domestic abuse. The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 recognised children as victims in their own right regardless of whether they were present for the incident(s) or not, meaning children are no longer invisible victims.
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The term ‘Operation Encompass’ is not only the name of the early alert system, but it is the name for the charitable organisation that nationally supports the work. There is a very well-resourced Operation Encompass website full of useful information, as well as free virtual training for school’s staff : Home : Operation Encompass
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Priority Two: Harm Outside The Home
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#LookCloser
Programme of Learning: October 2024 – March 2025
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We're delighted to invite you to join us for our latest #LookCloser programme of learning. We have developed our sessions based on learning from The Children's Society and wider partners 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
- There will however, be a Q&A function
- We will use tools such as Menti to provide opportunities for engagement and discussion
The timetable below has links to each learning event on EventBrite, where you can book onto 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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If you have any questions about our learning events, please contact prevention@childrenssociety.org.uk.
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Thursday 17th October 2024
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Wednesday 20th November 2024
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Tuesday 10th December 2024
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Wednesday 29th January 2025
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Tuesday 11th February 2025
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Learning session information: These sessions are aimed at upskilling professionals in the topic area and identifying points of reflection for individual own practice and to take back to their wider teams and networks. The audience is expected to be varies and therefore the session has been written to engage professionals at different levels of knowledge and seniority and across a range of settings and sectors.
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Priority Three: First 1,001 Days
The DSCP have created a learning briefing which will be available on Me Learning from 23rd September 2024.
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The briefing looks at the bruising in non-mobile babies (BINMB) protocol and the different roles all practitioners have to play when there is a suspected non accidental injury on a non-mobile baby.
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The purpose of this briefing is to share the reflective learning raised by practitioners at a multi-agency reflective event, to highlight good practice and establish learning and recommendations.
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To watch the briefing access the DSCP Me Learning platform after the 23rd September 2024.
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Priority Four: Mental Health and Wellbeing
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Within priority four, we have spoken to over 50 children and young people to ask for them to share their experiences of the mental health support they received in County Durham. A shining light was the practice from the Rapid Response team.
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What is the Rapid Response Service?
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The Rapid Response Service (RRS) operate within Durham Children’s Services and are an intensive support team who work with young people (age 12 to 18) with significant mental health issues, who have been identified as being at risk of hospital admission due to their mental ill-health and concerns in presenting behaviours. When a young person is in transition to Adult Services, RRS can remain in place to support this for a period of 6 months.
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The RRS staff work intensively to prevent hospital admissions, and in the instance of an admission having already taken place, will work with young people and their families to support. This is to prepare them for discharge and support them after this to prevent future admissions.
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The RRS team provide bespoke intensive support packages for young people. These are tailored to the individual needs of the young people and their parents/carers. We work very closely with colleagues from the CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) Crisis Team, CAMHS IHT Team (Intensive Home Treatment Team), the Eating Disorders Team and the Waves Support Group.
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The Rapid Response Service are a 7-day service operating between the hours of 0800hrs-2000hrs Monday to Friday and 09:00–17:00 duty support Saturday and Sundays.
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Rapid Response Service: RR@durham.gov.uk
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Voices of the Young People
Steph and Donna listened to me and my mam, they were open and honest with us about how serious the situation was and what the outcomes were going to be if nothing changed.
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Steph (RR worker) got me the help I needed, Steph really helped and helped to challenge others when this was needed to make sure I got the help I needed, and people listened.
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Rapid Response and ASET listened and helped.
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What's New
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We are delighted to announce that Nepacs are currently offering household support grants to people in the Durham County Council area, who are in need. This project will run to the end September 2024.
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The grants are for households in the area served by Durham County Council and the applicant must be a member of a household where an individual is undergoing, or has undergone, some legal restriction of their liberty as a consequence of offending. This includes immediate family members. The restriction of liberty includes imprisonment and subsequent licence, suspended and community sentences and is available for as long as the sentence/licence lasts.
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The grants, of up to £150, aim to support families we work with to cope with the cost of living and can be provided for food, energy, white goods, essential furniture, clothing, school uniform, transport costs or other essential items. Larger grants will only be considered in very exceptional circumstances and consideration is always given to special cases of extreme need.
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Grants will NOT be made for general life skills or activities (other than basic education or job-specific training), such as driving lessons or gym membership, other than for medical reasons. Deposits for housing cannot be given.
Applying for a grant
If you live in the Durham County Council area and need help with any of the areas mentioned above, please speak to a member of the Nepacs team.
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All applications must be submitted by a Nepacs staff member on behalf of an applicant.
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Events
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5th October - 3rd November 2024
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Our Safeguarding Week will be held Monday 14th October – Friday 18th October 2024. Over the course of the week, a range of partners will deliver online, bitesize sessions on different topic areas within the theme of ‘Inclusion’. The sessions are free and are available across the partnership for all professionals to access. Please keep your eyes peeled for further information on how to book in the coming weeks on the DSCP website https://durham-scp.org.uk/
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Please find below detail of some great and exciting free training that the DSCP have coming up over the next 12 months. Listed below is only a selection of training courses available, see below link to access course information, available dates and details of how to book: DSCP Training Programme 2024/25 (durham-scp.org.uk)
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Being Part of the Team Around The Family (TAF)
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Parental Substance Misuse
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Unconscious Bias and Cultural Competence
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Safeguarding and Protecting Disabled Children
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Safeguarding Children from Sexual Abuse
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Spotlight On
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On the 1st August 2024, the deadline for Review Child Protection Conference reports changed 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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Local Resources
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Information Sharing Agreement
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Appropriate information sharing is central to effectively safeguarding children from harm and promoting their wellbeing. Durham Safeguarding Children Partnership (DSCP) have worked closely with the Department for Education to develop a Tier 1 Information Sharing Agreement which is a multi-agency agreement that details the lawful basis for sharing information. The Tier 1 Agreement is available via our multi-agency procedures; Information Sharing (trixonline.co.uk) The information has been created to help you share information in a fair, proportionate and lawful way.
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The DSCP has also developed an e-learning and development package available via DSCP Me Learning. The modules include;
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- learning from practice in Durham
- the definition of safeguarding in the context of information sharing (a strong emphasis on prevention) and,
- a shift in culture from requiring consent to share information to sharing within the lawful basis of ‘public task’.
All staff are encouraged to complete the learning and development package. This is to ensure that you are aware of the changes to how and when we can share information to safeguard children and young people in relation to recent changes, including those within Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023 and Department for Education non statutory information sharing advice for practitioners providing safeguarding services for children and young people, parents and carers.
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For further information, please contact Vicki Vickerson, Performance and Programme Coordinator, DSCP Business Unit.
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National Guidance and Useful Resources
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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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If you would like to unsubscribe to our newsletter, please click the link below. The online subscription form can be found here.
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