Improving Children's Safeguarding Plans


The 2010 revision of Working Together places clear responsibilities on Local Authorities and their partner agencies to protect children from harm and to promote their welfare. The OFSTED inspection programme for children’s services requires all those agencies to demonstrate the steps that they are taking to keep vulnerable children safe. The number of children with safeguarding plans is increasing and the challenge for professionals is to ensure those plans deliver an increased level of safety for those children. Unfortunately, inspections have shown that some plans and their associated planning processes are not clear and robust enough to be effective. Local Safeguarding Children Boards have a monitoring and evaluation function and may undertake joint audits of case files to identify the quality and effectiveness of multi agency working. This three step programme has been designed to help Safeguarding Children Boards and Local Authorities to identify and where necessary to make improvements to children’s safeguarding plans. The steps are sequential and discrete in that if a Local Authority or Safeguarding Children Board thinks that improvements made in step one are sufficient there is no imperative to move onto steps two or three. However subsequent steps cannot be undertaken without previous ones having been completed. The programme concentrates on whether the planning, recording and reviewing systems used by organisations are effective and, where improvements are required, secures those improvements by working with practitioners, first line managers and reviewing officers. This "bottom up" approach ensures there is ownership and sustainability.
www.camb-ed.com www.mottmac.com Mott MacDonald Health & Social Care

STEP ONE (work days required 10)

Clear, focused and measurable safeguarding plans

Undertake a sample audit of existing safeguarding plans to assess clarity and robustness and to identify by what means progress is judged
Where improvements are required hold a workshop for practitioners, first line managers and independent reviewing officers to inform them of the improvements required and to work with them to identify how those improvements can be achieved
Report back to senior managers with proposals to pilot the improvements agreed at the workshop
Run the pilot
Rerun the sample audit to identify whether the pilot demonstrates that the necessary improvements have taken place and report back to senior managers and all staff who have been involved
Introduce, permanently, the improvements agreed at the workshop and tested in the pilot (with any amendments deemed necessary in the light of the pilot)

STEP TWO (work days required 14)

A planning process with a consistent golden thread

Undertake a sample audit to identify how effectively initial child protection conferences, core groups and review conferences link together
Undertake a review of core group activity (partly through audit but also through interviews with core group members) to identify how effectively they work and whether improvements are required
Where improvements are required hold three short workshops for core group members to develop an improvement plan based on:

The purpose of a core group including responsibilities, freedoms and boundaries
Participation in a core group and how to maximise attendance

The process for conducting and recording core group activity
Write a review of the planning processes based on work with the participants and containing recommendations to strengthen the golden planning thread

STEP THREE (work days required to be determined)

A suite of consistent planning documents to record and to track safeguarding decisions

Produce an integrated set of planning documents that focus on clear planning and review, including:
Initial Child Protection Records and Plans

Core Group records and Plans
Review Child Protection Conference and Plans

Hold a consultation workshop to test out and amend the set of documents
Produce a final set of documents for approval by senior managers and the Local Safeguarding Children Board

Contact us

Este Buchholz
Principal Consultant
T  +44 (0)788 400 8340
E  este.buchholz@mottmac.com
W  www.camb-ed.com