SAFEGUARDING, PREVENTION AND PARENTING

Safeguarding

Some children and young people tell us that they want their families to be safe from crime, to live in
non-racist communities, have good neighbours and roads to be safe.

Our priority in Sunderland is to ensure that all children and young people have the opportunity to achieve their full potential, and recognise that safeguarding children makes a significant contribution to fulfilling this aim. This means working with partner organisations, families and children and young people to:

• Ensure that children and young people have the opportunity to grow up in a safe and stable environment with supportive relationships
• Keep children safe from abuse and neglect
  Prevent harm caused by bullying
• Make the streets safer by reducing road traffic accidents

The Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) is the partnership that is responsible for ensuring local
co-ordination of work by different agencies and professionals to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people, and for ensuring the effectiveness of safeguarding work. The work of the LSCB has three broad elements i.e.:

• Prevention of harm and ensuring that children and young people are growing up in circumstances consistent with safe care
• Targeted work with vulnerable groups including children and young people who are identified as “in need” under the Children Act 1989, but who are not suffering or at risk of continuing harm
• Protection of children and young people who are suffering or are at risk of harm

The vision of the LSCB is “Effective partnership working to ensure good outcomes for the most vulnerable children and young people, achieved through quality services which place children and young people at the
centre.”

By 2009 we will:

• Develop a broader remit in relation to safeguarding and promoting life chances, whilst maintaining a clear
  focus on the effectiveness of multi agency work with children and young people who are the subject of
  a child protection plan and/or child in need plan
• Achieve a shared understanding across partner organisations of thresholds for work with children “in
  need” and those who are at risk of harm, and effective co-ordination of multi-agency responses to children
  in need
• Develop the effectiveness of multiagency responses to children and young people who are vulnerable
  because of domestic violence, parental mental ill-health and/or problem drug and alcohol use, working across both children’s and adult’s services
• Promote safer recruitment and supervision policies and procedures and arrangements for the management of allegations against people who work with children and young people
• Further develop the role of the LSCB in ensuring the effectiveness of safeguarding work undertaken by the Local Authority and partners, individually and collectively, by strengthening arrangements for the quality assurance of work and performance reporting
• Continue to raise the awareness of staff and volunteers in partner organisations about their role in and contribution to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children
• Put in place within the LSCB framework, arrangements for reviewing information on all child deaths and for using the information to inform strategic planning

Prevention

Preventing adverse outcomes and intervening early at times of vulnerability in their lives is equally important to children and young people growing up in Sunderland. Some children and young people tell us that they are concerned about smoking, drinking, drugs, crime, safety in their homes and on the streets, bullying and racism.

The importance of prevention and early intervention is central to the Every Child Matters’ Agenda for Change and is reinforced through the Children Act.

The Children’s Trust is committed to the development and improvement of all services that

• Intervene early and
• Strengthen the resilience of children and young people

The Children’s Trust recognises the importance of preventive services in Sunderland that operate at all levels of need. Much has been achieved through the growth and positive impact of a range of innovative preventive
programmes, interventions and practices across specialist, targeted and universal services.

By 2009 we will have in place a set of early preventive measures to include:

• A set of practice and service prevention standards and principles for all staff across children’s services
• A common assessment and early intervention framework including age-appropriate risk and resilience factors for all children and young people
• A directory of services and resources accessible to staff and service users
• An information sharing protocol agreed by Children’s Trust partners
• Access to ‘Contactpoint’, the information sharing index of children and young people, for appropriate and trained practitioners
• Strategies to secure the future of preventive interventions that evidence sustained improvements to children  and young people’s outcomes
• A range of trained professional working to agreed parenting support models across the city

Parenting

Some children and young people tell us that they want to be able to get help and talk about problems, leaving them with fewer worries. They identify friends and family support as critical. They also expressed aspirations for their parents to stay together, to argue and fight less and avoid excess alcohol and drugs.

The development of a parenting strategy for the City within government requirements is a major piece of work
during 2007. The government strategy is based on the principles that:

• The Family is the bedrock of society
• Nothing should be done to remove from parents their responsibilities to their children
• It is in national interest to help parents meet these responsibilities

The Government requires all Local Authorities to have in place a Parenting offer, in which all families will have
access to universal, targeted and specialist parenting support and advice, delivered locally and based on their
needs and views.

Every Local Authority is required by April 2008 to have a Parenting Strategy informed by:

• An audit of local needs and parenting support
• Consultation with parents
• Ownership by key stakeholders

Much has already been achieved in the City on parenting:

The Children’s Trust already has in place a Sunderland Parenting Champion - the Deputy Director of  Children’s Services, who will ensure that commissioned services to parents are coherent, integrated and based on need.

There is a comprehensive range of services delivered by Children’s services and partners at a specialist, targeted and universal level from early years through to support for teenage parents. There are 14 accredited programmes being delivered weekly across children services including specialist programmes for young people with ADHD. Parenting courses are delivered in over 50 of our schools. Many of these services evidence real outcomes for parents, children and young people, and some have won national awards for innovation and impact.

In addition three successful bids to the DfES and Respect Task force will enable parenting work to be delivered in three schools, strengthen the arrangements for tackling anti social behaviour and work with parents of Looked After Children and parents of children on the child protection register to strengthen parenting. A Parenting Board is established and has full commitment from all partners, and a parenting strategy lead has been appointed to lead on the parenting strategy.

By 2009:

• The Parenting Board will drive the development of the Parenting offer
• Accredited training will be offered in key areas appropriate to range and need of parents
• Collaboration with Criminal Justice partners will ensure the principle of early intervention and prevention
  rather than enforcement remains at the heart of service delivery in dealing with anti social behaviour
• We will have a Parenting strategy that builds upon the good work already embedded across the city from partners, is responsive to the expectations and aspirations of parents, delivered when and where parents need support and advice to ensure that every parent can access services that enable them to be confident parents