SECTION 5 - REVIEW AND IMPLEMENTATIONWhen a child is considered to be at continued risk of harm and therefore the subject of a Child Protection Plan the Initial Child Protection Conference should compile an outline Child Protection Plan and a Keyworker (the Lead Professional) from Safeguarding & Specialist Services be appointed to lead all aspects of the inter-agency Child Protection Plan. It is good practice for a Keyworker to be nominated in advance of a child protection conference and their attendance must be viewed as a priority. In the event that a Keyworker cannot be identified the relevant Service Manager (Children in Need) must be informed of the arrangements and a plan drawn up to secure the appointment of an appropriate Keyworker as a matter of urgency. Responsibilities The Keyworker, working with Core Group members, is responsible for:
The purpose of the Core Group is to co-ordinate the development and implementation of the Child Protection Plan that aims to promote the safety of the child. The existence of the Core Group itself cannot guarantee the safety of the child and members of the Core Group must be aware of this. An effective Core Group can however ensure good co-operation and provide a framework in which professionals and family members can work in partnership to the agreed plan. If a Child Protection Plan is required the Initial Child Protection Conference should identify a Core Group who will be responsible for the implementation of the Child Protection Plan. The first Core Group meeting must take place within 10 working days of the Initial Child Protection Conference. Subsequent Core Group meetings must be held every 4-6 weeks. The Core Group will report back to the Review Child Protection Conference on the work that has been undertaken in relation to the Child Protection Plan, progress of child/ren and the outcome of any assessment undertaken. Each Core Group member including family members is responsible for implementing the task agreed according to their role. All professional members of the Core Group should be clear about their authority to commit their agency’s resources and time to the agreed actions and tasks. Any difficulty in implementing agreed plans should be reported as a matter of urgency to the Team Manager. The Child Protection Plan will be reviewed at every Core Group meeting and any necessary alterations made as circumstances change. Membership of the Core Group should be identified at the Initial Child Protection Conference and should consist of appropriate professionals, family members and carers. When it has been agreed by the child protection conference or by Core Group members that a parent or carer should not be included as a Core Group member the reason for this should be recorded. It is acknowledged that there are circumstances where family members should not be brought together, e.g. domestic abuse or where an alleged perpetrator has been prohibited from contact because of bail conditions. The Keyworker should enable parents/carers to communicate their views by other means. Membership of the Core Group may change as the circumstances of the family change. There needs to be some flexibility to allow for these changes, e.g. the appointment of a professional working with one or both carers, such as a Probation Officer or Community Psychiatric Nurse. Professional members of the Core Group are representatives of their agencies and their role for the meeting should reflect this. Practical Consideration for Core Group Meetings The venue of the Core Group meetings should be flexible and determined by the needs of the Child Protection Plan and/or a family. Consideration should be given to the individual needs of the members in deciding upon the venue and the meeting may take place at different locations during the period between conferences. Possible venues may include family home, school, health surgery, nursery, and Safeguarding & Specialist Services office. The attendance of family members should be facilitated in terms of transport arrangements and childcare needs. Consideration should also be given to the individual needs of any members of the group. These may include:
The First Meeting of the Core Group The first meeting of the Core Group (to be held within 10 working days of the Initial Child Protection Conference) should:
The Second Meeting & Subsequent Meetings of the Core Group The second meeting and subsequent meetings of the Core Group (held every 4-6 weeks) should:
A Monitoring Meeting must be held in respect of every child with a Child Protection Plan, it should be held one month after the Initial Child Protection Conference between the Independent Reviewing Officer who Chaired the conference and the nominated Keyworker. The remit of this meeting which must be recorded and a copy placed on the child’s file should include:
The aims of the plan are:
An inter-agency Child Protection Plan must be formulated for every child made subject of a Child Protection Plan. The Child Protection Plan should be developed in two phases. An Outline Plan will be drawn up at the Initial Child Protection Conference by the Chair and developed into a Detailed Plan at the first Core Group meeting by Core Group members. The Detailed Plan should:
The planning process should involve the family as fully as possible. There needs to be discussion about the communication process for significant others within the family who are not members of the Core Group. If the plan does not include the family’s preferences for safeguarding the child the reason for this must be fully explained to them and recorded in the Child Protection Plan. Agreeing the Plan with the Child The Child Protection Plan should be explained to and agreed with the child in accordance with their age and understanding. An interpreter should be used if the child’s level of English means that s/he is not able to participate fully in these decisions unless they are conducted in her/his preferred language. The child should be given a copy of the plan written at a level appropriate to his or her age and understanding, and in his/her preferred language. Disagreement amongst Professionals over the Plan If there is serious disagreement amongst the professionals about the Child Protection Plan which cannot be resolved within the Core Group, consultation should take place with the Keyworker’s Team Manager and the person or people in the equivalent positions within the relevant agency to resolve the issue. If the issue remains unresolved further discussion should take place between senior managers in the relevant agencies and the matter must be resolved within 15 working days. Making Changes to a Child Protection Plan Only a child protection conference has the authority to make fundamental changes to a Child Protection Plan. Determining what is fundamental would be a matter for professional judgement in consultation with the person who Chaired the most recent child protection conference. This policy should not deter Safeguarding & Specialist Services from undertaking necessary intervention to protect the child where necessary in advance of a Review Child Protection Conference. The following procedures apply in cases of difficulty in implementing any part of a Child Protection Plan:
A number of aspects should be considered in planning intervention in the context of the Child Protection Plan and Core Assessment. Services must be provided to give the child and family the best chance of achieving the required changes. If a child cannot be cared for safely by his or her caregiver(s) he or she may have to be placed elsewhere whilst work is being undertaken with the child and family. Irrespective of where the child is living, interventions should specifically address:
Intervention may have a number of inter-related components:
In deciding intervention the following factors should be considered:
Review Child Protection Conference The Review Child Protection Conference (see Section 4 of these procedures for the processes of Review Child Protection Conferences) will consider the collective Core Group members’ reports and detailed Child Protection Plan and will actively consider whether there is a continuing need for a Child Protection Plan at every conference. In addition it will consider identified unmet needs from the Core Assessment and evaluate the impact these may have on the need for a Child Protection Plan. If the conference considers that the child continues to be at risk of significant harm the detailed Child Protection Plan should be amended as appropriate to take account of any changes to the family composition, Core Group membership, the identified risks of significant harm and associated needs. A child who no longer requires a Child Protection Plan may still require additional support and services and the lack of requirement of a Child Protection Plan should never lead to the automatic withdrawal of help. When a child subject to a Child Protection Plan still has identified unmet needs, a record of the needs with an action plan to address them should be drawn up and integrated within the care planning arrangements for Children in Need using the care planning documentation. Criteria for Discontinuing the Child Protection Plan The same decision-making procedure must be used to reach judgement for discontinuing the Child Protection Plan as used in the Initial Child Protection Conference. The decision to discontinue a Child Protection Plan can only be made at a Review Child Protection Conference. This can be decided if:
It is permissible for the Chair to discontinue a Child Protection Plan, without the need to convene a child protection conference only when:
When a child’s Child Protection Plan is discontinued, as a result of a conference conclusion, notification should be sent, as a minimum, to all agencies representatives who were invited to attend the Initial Child Protection Conference, which led to registration. Discontinuing a Child Protection Plan must never lead to the automatic withdrawal of help. The Keyworker must discuss with parents and child/ren what services are wanted and needed, based on the reassessment of the child and family. Lead Professional after Discontinuation of a Child Protection Plan All children and young people who require integrated support from more than one practitioner should experience a seamless and effective service. This is delivered most effectively when one practitioner – a Lead Professional - takes a lead role to ensure that frontline services are co-ordinated, coherent and achieving intended outcomes. Every Child Matters: Change for Children (2004) sets out an agenda for integrated front-line services through, amongst other things, the Lead Professional role. The statutory guidance on the Children Act 2004 (s10: interagency co-operation and S11: safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children) sets out clear expectations for the implementation of the role. The point at which the Core Group are considering discontinuation of a Child Protection Plan requires all parties to consider what support is required beyond the Review Child Protection Conference if discontinuation is agreed. This will take place at the last Core Group meeting before the relevant Review Child Protection Conference. The Core Group will attend the Review Child Protection Conference with a plan that clearly identifies the Lead Professional and what support is required, and when it will be reviewed. Where needs are complex, it may be the case that the Lead Professional is the child’s social worker. Genograms, Ecomaps and Chronologies Successive Serious Case Reviews have highlighted (a) the enormous amount of information held about families in agency records and (b) the extreme difficulties professionals have in capturing and reproducing the information. This task is compounded by families who move and working environments where there is a high turnover of staff. The use of genograms/ecomaps and chronologies provide essential working tools for professionals and the products require the active involvement of children and their families who know best about what has happened in their life. In addition to their aid to professionals for information purposes these tools can provide a relatively non-threatening approach for work with families that can enable the development of a participative relationship. A genogram or family tree is a graphic representation of a family that provides invaluable information about family history and structure. It provides the building blocks for work on an ecomap to gain an understanding of family support and links that reinforces the assessment of strengths and weaknesses as an aid in care planning. A genogram provides a quick and easy way of reading family lives in a visual format. It provides signposts for further information seeking, highlights family relationships and can provide an insight into the life experiences of the child/ren. The accepted format for compiling a genogram is shown below, a dotted line should be drawn around the people who currently live in the same household. Every genogram should be checked with the family for accuracy and dated – families change over time. A genogram covering three or more generations can be compiled using these symbols. Additional information can be sought from other family members and professionals who may have more information on their records, e.g. transient relationships. Basic information should be compiled during a s47 enquiry and the genogram prepared for the Initial Child Protection Conference. The genogram should be revisited before every Review Child Protection Conference to incorporate any changes and again they should be dated.
An ecomap demonstrates in a diagrammatic format a network of people around a child/young person and should include family, friends and professionals. The child is placed at the centre of the ecomap and every person and organisation that forms a part of the child’s network should be named and placed within the circle. It is vital that links are drawn between the child and people/organisations to highlight connections – use different types of lines to indicate the nature of the link or relationship.
An ecomap provides a quick and easy way of illustrating family support and links – it assembles already gathered information that can be related to assessment and care planning. The accepted format for compiling an ecomap is shown below. Every ecomap should be checked with the family for accuracy and should be dated – like family compositions relationships change over time. An ecomap should be prepared for every child in a family as part of a Core Assessment and should be shared as part of the assessment before every Review Child Protection Conference.
Ecomap Diagram
Well-constructed chronologies can help to develop an accurate and complete assessment of a family and should ensure that intervention matches the needs of the child/ren. The following is an extract from a judgement by Lord Justice Bracewell that summarises the value of a chronology: “The present case is an example of a pattern of abusive parenting ranging through the children in turn with history repeating itself over a 20 year period. I pose the question; why in this case has there been such a waste of precious and scarce resources used over the years to no avail and without the recognition that there is a striking similarity in respect of the history of each child? Every Social Work file should have as the top document a running chronology of significant events which is kept up to date as events unfold. It was only when Mrs G went through the jumbled mass of documentation that the pattern of abuse was so apparent as to demand immediate although belated action. Social work personnel change over the years. Families may cross Local Authority boundaries, files become bulky. But if, as a matter of routine, the Local Authority maintain and regularly update an ongoing chronology highlighting key points in the continuation records, then it will be relatively straightforward to identify serious and deep routed problems rather than the circumstances triggering the instant referral.” In cases of child abuse and particularly in cases that are complex and/or chronic as in neglect, it is only by putting together all the factual information known about each child and his/her carers over time that is possible to perceive:
Significant events for a child should include the following, although extensive the list is not exhaustive: Significant changes – births/deaths/changes in household particularly new partners;
The value of a chronology lies in it being:
The process for compiling a composite chronology will come into effect when a child/ren’s names are placed on the Child Protection List. All agencies represented on the Core Group must accept responsibility for accessing significant events from their agency records and ensure that this information is recorded using the agreed format. Family members must be made aware by the Keyworker of the nature and purpose of this method of recording. Core Group members must ensure that their agency’s chronology is compiled on an electronic disc and passed to the Keyworker at least two weeks before the Review Child Protection Conference. The Keyworker must be able to access IT support to ensure a composite chronology is compiled before a Review Child Protection Conference. Format for Composite Chronology
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Stressful