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Waltham Forest Safeguarding Children Board

Annual safeguarding report 2014 - 2015

Report author: Fran PearsonWFSCB independent chair

Date: March 2015

Chair's introduction and sufficiency statement for 2014/2015

The Annual Report of the Waltham Forest Safeguarding Children Board is a chance to look back on the year from April 2014 to March 2015, but it also looks forward and draws heavily on plans for 2015 to 2016. This is so we can show how we are going to try and address the areas, where in 2014-2015 we identified that the board could have made a greater impact on outcomes for children and young people.

First of all - the year of 2014 to 2015. Nationally, safeguarding featured in the media and attracted comment. This was principally as there were several intense periods of media and public interest in child sexual exploitation. In July 2014, Alexis Jay published her 153-page report into the sexual exploitation suffered by children in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, making a 'conservative estimate' that 1,400 children had been victims. In November 2014, coinciding with their review of our board and the inspection of Waltham Forest Council's services for children, the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) published “The sexual exploitation of children: it couldn’t happen here, could it? “A report pulling together all their inspection findings about the responses of safeguarding boards and local authorities to child exploitation. The inspectors probed in Waltham Forest about the effectiveness of our board's work on child sexual exploitation, and their findings are referenced later on in this report.

During the year, government guidance on safeguarding children - Working Together to Safeguard Children - was amended, with changes to the section about local safeguarding children boards was rewritten. From 1st April 2015 the new version replaced all previous guidance - this means the way that boards operate will now be governed by Working Together to Safeguard Children 2015.

Meanwhile our Board was reviewed as part of the wider Single Inspection Framework inspection by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted). The inspectors said many positive things about our board, and there are more details in this report. They commended the things that we ourselves identified as making an impact on strategic working - pace of progress, many aspects of our partnership work, including the way our board works with other strategic boards in Waltham Forest, and the way that I as chair hold local organisations to account for their work on child safeguarding. They also agreed with our own assessment that despite trying various ways of doing this, we are still not getting the voice of children and young people into our business enough. And they also said that although so much of what we were doing was going in the right direction, we needed to get better at showing how we were making an impact on the outcomes for children and young people in the borough who needed safeguarding. These are now included in our priorities for 2015-2016.

As a consequence this report is shorter and based on my assessment of progress and impact. Previously partner agencies have written sections on their activity and safeguarding challenges during the previous year - to keep the focus of this report as an evaluation of multi-agency work, I decided not to ask for any such contributions this year.

I would like to thank all our board members, who continue to ask questions of themselves, me, and of each other, about the way we safeguard children in Waltham Forest. The more curious we are, the more chance we have of making an impact. I would also like to thank the hard-working team who support the board. Managed by Suzanne Elwick, this year they have helped organised a huge programme of work to raise awareness around child sexual

2 WFSCB annual report 2014-2015

exploitation, working in partnership with the chief executive of the Council, and senior officers, as well as local and London-wide commands of the Metropolitan Police. The reach of the board has gone beyond our usual remit, and the campaign has been promoted by the Met Police as London's example of good practice.

I hope you will look at our plans for 2015-2016 and use these to ask me some questions about how effective the board is in leading and driving improvements in safeguarding children in Waltham Forest.


The structure of this report

Section 1: ContextOur borough

Our partners and the impact of their changes

Section 2: The year's priorities - did we make an impact?An assessment of how well we did

Section 3: Reports to the Board and what they tell us about impact The Annual Private Fostering Report The Child Death Overview Panel Report The Local Authority Designated Officer Report The Training Report

Section 4: 2015-2016 how we hope our plans will deliver greater impact

Section 5: Conclusions about the state of Children's Safeguarding in Waltham Forest

Section 6: Membership and Funding The board's members and their attendance during 2014-2015 The board and its subgroups: structure chart The board's budget and contributions from partners The chair and accountability

Section 7: how to have your say about this report and the 2015-2016 reportChildren and young people in Waltham Forest


Section 1: Our borough 63,797 children and young people under the age of 18 years live in Waltham Forest. This is 24% of the total population in the area.

Approximately 27% of the local authority’s children are living in poverty.

The proportion of children entitled to free school meals: in primary schools is 19% (the national average is 17%) in secondary schools is 21% (the national average is 15%)

Children and young people from minority ethnic groups account for 74% of all children living in the area, compared with 25% in the country as a whole. The largest minority ethnic groups of children and young people in the area are Pakistani

(14%) and White Other (11%). The proportion of children and young people with English as an additional language: in

primary schools is 55% (the national average is 19%); in secondary schools is 45% (the national average is 14%).

The proportion of non-resident pupils attending Waltham Forest Special Schools is 20% (the national average is 8.2%). Waltham Forest is one of London’s larger net importers of pupils with complex needs to local settings and services. Child protection in the borough At 31 March 2014, 2,519 children had been identified through assessment as being

formally in need of a specialist children’s service. This is an increase from 2,391 at 31 March 2013.

At 31 March 2014, 225 children and young people were the subject of a child protection plan. This is an increase from 183 at 31 March 2013.

At 31 March 2014, seven children lived in privately arranged fostering placements. This is an increase from five children at 31 March 2013. Children looked after in this area.

At 31 October 2014, 252 children were being looked after by the local authority (a rate of 39.5 per 10,000 children). This is a reduction from 266 children (42.3 per 10,000 children) at 31 October 2013. Of this number: 176 (or 70%) live outside the local authority area; 23 live in residential children’s homes, of whom 96% live out of the authority area; three live in residential special schools, all out of the authority area; 197 live with foster families, of whom 66% live out of the authority area; one child lives with their parents, within the authority area; 20 children are unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

In the year to November 2014: there were 20 adoptions 17 children became subjects of special guardianship orders 164 children ceased to be looked after, of whom 7% subsequently returned to be looked

after 52 children and young people ceased to be looked after and moved on to independent

living 2 children and young people ceased to be looked after and are now living in houses of

multiple occupation.

*Data above take from Ofsted’s inspection report*


Partners of the board - change and its impact

During the course of the year, London Probation Service became two organisations - the National Probation Service and the Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC). The future of the CRC in particular will be subject to further change, as a series of contracts to run the service are awarded over the next year. It is too soon to evaluate the impact on the LSCB - but a senior officer of the London Probation Service had been a consistent and longstanding board member, so the arrival of two new colleagues, whilst extremely welcome, means it will inevitably take time for us to find the best way of working together.

In early 2015 a Care Quality Commission inspection rated the borough's local hospital, Whipps Cross, part of Barts Health Trust, "inadequate". At the formal meetings to consider risk, and the subsequent improvement board, I was invited and included from the outset, and this felt like partnership. It is hard to estimate the amount of time and energy that improvement and support regimes require of all an organisation's staff - but changes to senior leaders began quite rapidly. Consistent as a board member during this time was a Director of Nursing from the Women's and Children's Clinical Academic Group that spanned the entire Barts Health Trust. A local senior management team for the Whipps Cross site was planned for 2015-2016, there not having been one since Barts Health took on the hospital. The 2015-2016 annual report will include commentary on the impact that these developments have had on the board.

The board's voluntary sector member had previously attended as a representative of a network of providers of children and young people's services. During 2014-2015 this network became very fragile and in effect the voluntary sector member had no network to take messages from the board back to. His continued attendance and contribution remained valuable, but the 2015-2016 annual report will follow through the issue of the strength of the children's voluntary sector in Waltham Forest.

Named GP - a missing link. During my time as chair, the board has benefitted from the enthusiasm and participation of one of our local GPs, Martin Huddart. Martin has run training sessions for Waltham Forest GPs with a really huge reach - getting safeguarding messages out to very well-attended sessions. He has also been a member of the board's learning review panels, and presented back the findings of that review to the board. The link between the board and local GPs is crucial. During the year Martin retired, and although a new GP lead for safeguarding has been identified at time of writing, for much of 2014-2015 the board was without that link. We found ways to try and lessen the effect of this, working with other GPs and with officers from the Clinical Commissioning Group. However it did leave a gap and our 2015-2016 report will reflect on what effect this might have had.

Also in the report is commentary on how we have tried to make our board more effective by sharing the workload and sharing the learning. This is in recognition that we sometimes rely heavily on the same board members to do a high proportion of our work - in our report for next year, 2015-2016 we will have a better opportunity to reflect on how successful we have been with this, and will return to it as a theme.

A timeline for our year April 2014 - chair of board out with Waltham Forest police June 2014 - chair of board to Whitefield School to gather views from school council June 2014 - Learning event on a case identified by the Serious Case Review Committee


October 2014 - CSE pledge launch at Leyton Orient November 2014 - Ofsted inspection of children's services and review of the LSCB January 2015 - Ofsted report published February 2015 - Barts Health involve the LSCB very fully in CQC inspection follow-up February 2015 - Section 11 Audit day February 2015 - Innovation Fund bid successful

Section 2: The board's priorities for the year and our impactWe completed nearly all the actions that were linked to these priorities. What this report does however is reflect on the impact of these actions - which is a shift in the way we reflect on the achievements of the year.

The help and protection provided to children, young people, families and carers is effective and evidenced There is evidence which demonstrates how children and young people's voices have

directly influenced the work of the Board A culture of non-defensive professional challenge is created and embedded throughout

the partnership in Waltham Forest, including adult focused services Thresholds for all services are clear, understood by all partners, seamless and

consistently applied. Information is shared in a timely and appropriate way in order to safeguard children, and in line with agreed information-sharing protocols

The Board leads and champions a multi-agency strategic response to address issues of the child sexual exploitation

The Board leads and champions a multi-agency strategic response to address the issues of children missing from care, home and education, to ensure they are effectively safeguarded and the intervention they received is joined up

The Board champions children and their families affected by violence against women and girls and boys in all its forms through monitoring the work delivered through various partnership arrangements.

The child's journey from early help through to statutory services and back to universal is clear and joined up

Children and young people are supported to ensure they have positive emotional well-being and are emotionally resilient:1. The quality of practice is consistently high2. We constantly improve our leadership and governance around the board by

working across strategic partnerships, including making a formal agreement across those partnerships about who takes responsibility for the different aspects of life in Waltham Forest that have implications for the safety and protection of the borough's children and young people

being alert to and actively seeking out relevant new demographic data from other partnerships and uses it to make sure safeguarding activity is focused where it needs to be.

Case study: going on patrol with the Borough Police

As Independent Chair, I was offered the chance to spend a shift in a response car covering the south and central parts of the borough. Not only was I impressed by the knowledge and skill of the two women officers who I spent the shift with, but I learnt things about the borough, its young people, and professional practice, that I would be unlikely to find out any other way. Hearing their perspective on where the highest numbers of missing children


reports came from, and some of the issues for gang-affected young people helped me to ask better questions of partners about the response to these issues.

Embedding the board's learning and improvement framework

Over the year, I can see signs that our Learning and Improvement, which has been adopted by a number of other boards across the country, has started to become part of the culture of the board. Although culture is harder to measure than some of the more quantitative data we gather throughout the year, my assessment of the learning culture of the board is that we have had an impact this year through the increasing number of board and subgroup members who have led, written up, and shared the learning from cases. One instance was a learning event around a young child who attended the children's Emergency Department at our local hospital. The issues that came up were about whether specialists outside our most regular board partners from the hospital (who are those in children's and midwifery services) displayed the professional curiosity or had the same awareness of safeguarding pathways as professionals whose daily work involved children. A learning event attracted a spread of hospital colleagues and their ideas and what they took back into their organisation helped to change processes.

A central part of the Board's Learning and Improvement Framework is our multi-agency audit programme. Ofsted inspectors thought that we could in future audit more cases -we will test this out during 2015- 2016 and in next year's annual report we will evaluate the effects of doing this. We have always judged that the process we use - auditing a small number of cases each quarter, but inviting a range of professionals to not only prepare thoroughly but also to bring their very different perspectives to three half-days of active discussion, has substantial benefits for our learning culture. What we need to test out is whether auditing more cases, but in less detail, affects the quality of the debate. The three planned audits for the year took place and the learning was sent out as soon as it had been written up. One of the four audits was on capturing the voice of the child in practice, and this helped with some of our thinking about how to capture the voice of the child at a strategic level. Barts Health Trust and Whipps Cross Hospital

Children and their families in Waltham Forest rely heavily on the local hospital, Whipps Cross. By the start of 2014-2015 I had concerns about two pieces of practice that safeguarding board processes had identified. The hospital is part of the largest NHS trust in the country, Barts Health, and being influential and asking for change in such a large organisation relies on trusting relationships not just with our hospital colleagues on the board but also with Waltham Forest Clinical Commissioning Group and Waltham Forest Healthwatch for its information direct from families who use hospital services. Local councillors are essential to this relationship as well, and our board has a strong relationship with the Lead Member for Children's Services, to whom Working Together guidance allocates a role of participant observer at the Safeguarding Board. By raising concerns early and transparently with the hospital and the Clinical Commissioning Group, I was meeting with the Medical Director of Barts Health by July 2014 to discuss them. Later in 2014 the Care Quality Commission inspected Whipps Cross Hospital and the issues I had raised helped inform some of the pre-inspection discussions. Whipps Cross was found to be inadequate by the Care Quality Commission. Barts Health Trust and its many NHS regulators included myself and the safeguarding board in all the processes that followed the CQC inspection for the remainder of 2014-2015 so safeguarding was central to the plans for


improvement. For next year's annual report - 2015-2016 we need to assess what impact the considerable activity at Barts Health, and the very welcome messages around the importance of safeguarding, has had for Waltham Forest’s children and their families

Serious Case Reviews

The board has commissioned a number of learning reviews since in recent years, but no case has met the Working Together criteria for a Serious Case Review since 2011. Sadly this was set to change during 2014-2015, and I agreed with the recommendations of the Board's Serious Case Review committee that three cases - two where a child had died, and one where a child had suffered physical and emotional harm due to a fatal attack on their mother - should be SCRs. Appointing appropriately skilled and experienced Lead Reviewers, agreeing who from around our board will be part of the Review Team for the process, and scoping out these reviews, all takes time. At this stage looking back and 2014-2015, and having subsequently received two of the three Serious Case Reviews at the board in the 2015-2016 year, I feel confident about the quality of the reports and the individuals we appointed were each a good fit for the task in hand. For two of the three reviews we used the Learning Together systems approach, and our board members seem to respond to the findings of such reviews, that challenge us to think about our systems leadership role, rather than focussing on recommendations for individual agencies - although the learning for each agency remains something that the board follows up and monitors as well.

Each of these three cases were about aspects of child neglect. Whilst the first of these reviews was in its early stages, I asked for a paper about neglect to come to one of our board meetings and the board agreed to use the learning from these reviews to inform where necessary adjust, our strategic approach to neglect. During 2014-2015 a different review framework was being used in Waltham Forest to learn from a tragic case involving a young child. A Domestic Homicide Review was concluded during the year, with the board's business manager and other children's safeguarding colleagues on the panel for that review. Because a child was involved, despite the fact the Domestic Homicide Review cannot yet be published, the Serious Case Review sub-committee of the board invited the DHR author to meet with us more than once, and made sure we used the learning from the case as quickly as possible.

Thresholds, early help and Think Family

During the course of the year the board promoted and organised training on a revised threshold document. Testing out how well local agencies understand the thresholds for different safeguarding services is a responsibility of local safeguarding children's boards set out in Working Together to Safeguard Children.

Monitoring the effectiveness of early help in the borough was a Board priority for 2015. During the year we began to produce an early help performance dashboard to measure and monitor performance. However, Ofsted inspectors commented that 'an understanding of current activity and performance by the Board appears relatively limited', and this reflected the position at the time of the inspection. When we look back at the year 2015-2016, more substantial progress and impact with early help should be apparent, and we will report this in more detail.


2014-2015 also saw one of the multi-agency audits examining the extent to which practitioners in adults and children's services have the skills and experience to 'Think Family' and identify issues across generations and family networks. The audit was a strong starting point for a much larger piece of work which we look forward to reporting on for the 2015-2016 year - the Think Family approach in Waltham Forest.

Child Sexual Exploitation and Missing Children

This was the focus for a really substantial amount of the board's work in 2015. Raising awareness in the community and amongst professionals was one of the main strands of our Child Sexual Exploitation work during the year. This linked the board into a major project by Metropolitan Police and local authority, Waltham Forest being the first London borough to launch Operational Makesafe. 80 'CSE champions' attended a day's session hosted at a Chingford secondary school, and left saying they felt more equipped to pass on messages about CSE and direct their colleagues to appropriate resources. In early autumn, the CSE awareness campaign and Pledge was launched. Local authority and police contacts were essential in organising this and reaching out to the leaders of the hospitality and taxi businesses of the borough. These leaders attended a launch at Leyton Orient Football Ground and signed a pledge to support the 'See something - say something' campaign in the borough. Awareness sessions delivered at times to suit particular groups - enforcement officers from the council, and pharmacists who were contacted via board networks, were all part of the week's campaign.

The Ofsted inspection found that the campaign led to a modest rise in the number of referrals. The inspectors said that our multi-layered approach to tackling sexual exploitation was the right one. However, "the multi-agency identification, joined up response, assessment and intervention in individual cases is variable, inconsistent and insufficiently robust." They did acknowledge that this had already been recognised and in the part of 2014-2015 post-inspection, a Sexual Exploitation Coordinator took up post in the Multi-agency Safeguarding Hub, providing advice on individual cases.

The Ofsted inspectors also found that, while casework evidenced activity by professionals, the potential link between frequent missing episodes and child sexual exploitation was often not considered. When they visited, we told them that the Board was considering amalgamating the Missing and the Sexual Exploitation Sub-Groups, to improve identification, response management, intelligence sharing, analysis and an understanding of prevalence. And by the end of the year, leadership arrangements for a Children Missing and CSE Strategic Group of the board had been agreed and the actions that Ofsted said we needed to put into place were all under way. We will reflect on the impact of these in the 2015-2016 annual report.

The Innovations Project - working across strategic partnerships to achieve better outcomes for children and families

Ofsted inspectors commented very positively on the "strategic reach" of the safeguarding children board and felt this would potentially go on to be even stronger, as in November 2014 I was appointed to chair the Safeguarding Adults' Board in Waltham Forest as well. In late 2014, the government minister responsible for children's safeguarding invited LSCB chairs to write to him with proposals for innovative ways of working, and said he would fund them. I duly did this, basing my application on the strengths of our strategic partnership work


and setting out our ideas for how we would deliver this. As a result, at the very end of 2014-2105 I heard we had been awarded the largest Innovation grant in the country to take this work forward and it will continue apace in 2015-2016 and I very much look forward to reporting on it.

Section 3: Reports to the board and what they tell us about impact

Private Fostering

The Annual Report on private fostering came to the Board in November.

Numbers are lower than expected Waltham Forest, although this is true of most safeguarding board areas.

Number of notifications of new fostering arrangements received during the year

7

Number of cases where action was taken in accordance with the requirements of Regulation 4(1) of the Children (Private Arrangements for Fostering) Regulations 2005 for carrying out visits

6

Number of cases where action was taken within 7 working days of receipt of notification

3

Number of new arrangements that began during 2013/2014 5Number of notifications of private fostering arrangements coming to an end during the year

6

Number of children under private fostering arrangements 5Breakdown of age and place of birth - see table below

Age at 31 March

All children

UK Europe (other)

Africa Asia MiddleEast

Caribbean, Central & South America

Under 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 01-4 1 1 0 0 0 0 05-9 0 0 0 0 0 0 010-15 2 1 0 0 1 0 0

A private fostering campaign was extensive in 2013-2014 and in 2014-2015 the following strategies were used A webpage on private fostering was created on Waltham Forest Council website, with a

link to this board's website an online form to tell the local authority about private fostering arrangements was put on

that page community groups, GPs and libraries were sent information about a national group they

could either renew their membership for or join the 'what you need to know about private fostering' leaflet has been revised in July an advert for private fostering was placed in the Waltham Forest News, which

goes to a large percentage of households in the borough


also in July the borough sent out additional communications messages during Private Fostering Week.

in August, a letter was sent out to schools and GPs explaining what private fostering is

Impact

At the moment, the impact is hard to measure - the reach of the awareness raising has been considerable, but in the board's annual report for 2015-2016, there will be a further assessment, reflecting on 18 months' worth of work

Child Death Overview Panel Annual Report 2013-2014

The statistical information in the Child Death Overview Panel's annual year report comes with the following reminder: Given the relatively small number of events that some of the following analysis is based upon; these figures should be viewed with some caution. Even in cases where differences in the data may appear to be significant, some variation may be purely down to chance

Key findings from data and case analysis in 2013-14:

There was an over-representation of child deaths from Asian or Asian British: Pakistani backgrounds (34.8%).

40% of the total premature deaths were a result of maternal pre-eclampsia For the first time in five years the coroner inquest stated “Hanging,” was the cause of

death. (8.4% of all deaths) (These cases have yet to be reviewed) 11.1% of all unexpected child deaths (4.3% of all deaths) had the contributing factor of

obesity. In the last 12 months there have been 8.7% of unexpected child deaths where the deceased had been diagnosed with weight management issues (clinically obese) prior to death. (These cases have yet to be reviewed)

The predominant categories of deaths are: o 1. Chromosomal, genetic and congenital anomalies (39.1%) o 2. Perinatal/neonatal event (34.8%)

A third of all congenital abnormalities were due to autosomal recessive conditions, in children born to consanguineous parents.

8.7% of all deaths could have been potentially preventable had the mothers sought medical help earlier when they stopped feeling their foetal movements.

Only 8.7% of all deaths were due to consanguinity in 2013-14. However in 47.8% of cases it was not recorded whether parents were consanguineous. It is the Panel’s views there is an under recording of consanguinity when compared to other information available to the Panel.

This is the second time in three years that co-sleeping was not identified as a significant theme for WF-CDOP.

Impact

There have been no preventable deaths in the borough due to co-sleeping for two years - this reflects consistent and co-ordinated work and the board wants to recognise the work of colleagues to achieve this. As CDOP data needs to be treated with the caution described above, it is too early to draw conclusions about some of the other figures for the last five years, but they can be revisited in the board's annual report next year.


The Local Authority Designated Officer's Report

The "LADO" follows up contacts and referrals about professionals working with children.During this period, the total number of contacts made to the LADO were 299; an increase of 90 on the previous year. However, a proportion of contacts result in the LADO giving advice and information - others are progressed to a point where they are recorded on the information system and the LADO follows the issue or allegation through to its conclusion - issues that needed to be entered on the system and followed up were slightly down on last year. 34% of these related to staff in schools. Only 1 of the referrals that needed to be recorded came from the police, and only referrals of this sort came from health agencies. The highest number of referrals and contacts come from the education sector as 34% of the total of 82 episodes were from schools settings or early years settings attached to schools. Of the 34%, over half of this related to teaching staff with a lesser proportion relating to school support staff such as teaching assistants or mid-day assistants.

Impact

The LADO report necessarily contains mainly quantitative data - but in readiness for our 2015-2016 annual report, we will look at whether there is any additional information from the LADO's report that it is appropriate for us to use by way of illustration. Certainly when the LADO brought the report to the Board, the report triggered a lively discussion and board members learnt a lot.

The Training Report

Every year the board receives a report from its training sub group about the take-up of our multi-agency training programme, and an assessment of its quality. For the last two years, we have tried to measure the impact of the training by asking those who attend the various sessions and courses to keep a record of how they use the safeguarding board's training to improve their practice. The board's training administrator contacts course attendees six months after their course to ask a set of questions. The following comments were collected.

"Enabled me to make a clear focus for staff re CSE within supervision in order for CSE to be an ongoing subject which is not lost"

"The importance of recording and having a chronology which will further be useful in reflecting. I have learnt the importance of convening professionals meetings and seeking clarity when I don’t understand a word used in a report."

"professionally challenge decisions that are not in the best interest of the child, family, etc. Be able to better protect vulnerable children from harm Write into our contracts the disclosure of prosecutions during the employment term listen very carefully to what a person may be telling me"

"It will make me escalate matters more readily;"

"My role is a staff support role. This training will impact positively on my supervision skills as well as my own training delivery I am more confident about communicating with young people that disclose The importance of recording and having a chronology which will further


be useful in reflecting. I have learnt the importance of convening professionals meetings and seeking clarity when I don’t understand a word used in a report."

"Write into our contracts the disclosure of prosecutions during the employment term"

Training delivery and focus

The board's training programme was due to deliver 29 different courses, several more than once, so that 41 sessions were planned. At its December meeting the board was asked to reconsider this - training had always been delivered by professionals from local agencies who were released by their employers to do this. This commitment was proving unsustainable. Meanwhile the training sub-group and its chair challenged board members to think again about the content of the programme - a third of which was essential safeguarding training that arguably duplicated what larger agencies delivered to their own staff, not as part of the board. The sub-group chair proposed more training on safeguarding topics based on the board's priorities, and on learning from local cases. There was agreement that the focus on priorities was the board's best way of delivering improved outcomes for children and young people. Over the course of the year, the training programme began to change in order to reflect this.

Section 4: Our plans for 2015-2016

We will report on these when the 2015-2016 year ends. We have set these priorities to try and have greater impact as a board, and look forward to the process of reflecting on their effect.

Practitioners know when and how to respond to Children in Need

The board is satisfied that the understanding, recognition and response of all practitioners leads to all children in need getting the right support at the right time and is in line with recognised good practice. This outcome will link with the findings from the SCR about 'Joe' and the Havering SCR where Waltham Forest was involved historically

Waltham Forest's "Think Family" approach is embedded

The board holds all partners across adult and children services to account to ensure that families with additional needs and those in need of statutory intervention (e.g. toxic trio of domestic abuse, parental mental health and parental substance use) receive support from agencies that takes into account all members individual needs and their interconnection with other members and takes a "Think Family" approach

Harmful Practices

The board is assured that adults and children who are at risk of harmful practices (early/forced marriage, faith based abuse, honour based violence, female genital mutilation) receive early intervention from practitioners who are knowledgeable of the issues. Communities most affected are activity engaged and influence the approach to these issues. Understanding of front line practitioners of all aspects of harmful practice is good.

A multi-agency strategic response to Child Sexual Exploitation


The Board leads and champions a multi-agency strategic response to address the issues of child sexual exploitation, children missing from care, home and education to ensure they are effectively safeguarded and the intervention they received is joined up

Adolescents and safeguarding

The board will lead on gathering national learning and good practice in supporting and exploring issues in relation to adolescents at risk

Working effectively across strategic boards

Residents in the borough experience a cohesive strategic joined up approach to the health, well-being and safety by WFSCB working with the other three strategic boards (Safeguarding Adults, Community Safety Partnership, and the Health and Well-being Board)

Young people's voices and the board

Accelerate recently commenced work to ensure that children’s and young people’s views, concerns and comments inform the priorities of the Board and the review of the effectiveness of multi-agency safeguarding arrangement (insp 7)

Improvements to practice will be evidenced, with a cycle of audit and learning

All the lessons learnt from work under the learning and improvement framework, led to improved quality of practice which can be evidenced through a cycle of audit and re audit, cascade of learning, and evidence improved practice/outcomes

Capturing and acting upon local concerns

Ensure that the priorities and plans in the annual report and business plan fully reflect local concerns and provide a clearer picture of how the Board’s influence, scrutiny and challenge are driving sustained improvement in front line multi-agency practice. (Insp 3)

Section 5: Conclusions about the state of Children's Safeguarding in Waltham Forest

The year 2014-2015 was a challenging one across the whole safeguarding system.

Ofsted inspectors commended the rapid progress and 'grip' of the Waltham Forest Safeguarding Board role in the system - fulfilling its statutory duties to monitor the work that agencies do to safeguard children; and producing guidance and frameworks for those activities, which in turn the board implemented.

Child Sexual Exploitation was a high profile issue across the country. Waltham Forest was the first London borough to work with the Metropolitan Police and run a campaign to raise awareness. Our carefully targeted work with taxi firms and hotels drew praise from across London and was later used as the basis for work in other boroughs.

The board became a place where member organisations held each other to account increasingly as the year went on. However there can be no complacency and as a board we know we have to work continuously to model and lead the idea that challenge from one


professional to another is a constructive, positive behaviour, which adds greatly to the child protection system. We also know we have to keep working at our efforts to bring the voice and influence of children and young people into the work of the board.

Most importantly though, Waltham Forest is an exciting, vibrant place to work despite its challenges, and it is a privilege to hear from the borough's children and young people.


Section 6

Agency attendance at Board 2014/2015.There were five meetings during this time period.AGENCY MEMBER

ATTENDEDDEPUTY ATTENDED

AGENCY NOT REPRESENTED

WF FAM 5/5

WF FAM (Children and Families) 3/5 2/5

WF FAM (Educational Improvement) 3/5 0/5 2

WF FAM (Public Health) 4/5 1/5

WF FAM (Early Help) 5/5

WF FAM (Adults) 4/5 1/5

WF CCG (Director Governance and QA)

4/5 0/5 1

NHS NELFT (Designated Doctor) 5/5

NHS NELFT (Integrated Care Director)

5/5

WF CCG (Named GP) *Please note this post was vacant from June 2014 – November 2015)

2/5 3

WF CCG (Designated Nurse) 5/5

Bart’s Health Trust (Director of Nursing and Governance)

5/5

Probation Trust 3/5 0/5 2

Community Rehabilitation Company 2/5 0/5 3

Police (Borough) 3/5 0/5 2

Police (CAIT) 5/5

Schools (Primary) 4/5 0/5 0

Schools (Secondary) 0/5 0/5 5

PVI 4/5 0/5 1

The board's budget was agreed for three years in 2013, so the contributions remain the same as last year and will be the same again for 2015-2016


INCOME AMOUNT (£)

London Borough of Waltham Forest 176,800

NE NHS Foundation Trust 5,000.00

Barts Health NHS Trust 5,000.00

National Probation Service 2,000.00

CAFCASS 550.00

Met Police via London Council 5,000.00

NHS Waltham Forest CCG 35,000.00

The Independent Chair and accountability

As Independent Chair of the Waltham Forest Safeguarding Children board, I am, like all independent chairs, accountable to the local authority chief executive. In Waltham Forest, this is Martin Esom. I told the Ofsted inspectors what very good dialogue and holding to account exists in Waltham Forest. During 2014-2015 we have been meeting monthly and I hope my assessment of the work around Child Sexual Exploitation conveys just how much leadership there has been from the local authority chief executive on this issue and how much we have tested ourselves out to ask whether failings in other places could happen in Waltham Forest. As well as monthly meetings where I report on my work, I have a written appraisal at the end of the year. Last year I also had a survey, suggested by the local authority chief executive, to test out what board partners thought of my leadership. During 2014-2015 I have tried to respond to the comments they made. The Director of Children's Services, Linzi Roberts-Egan, is the other statutory post holder who I have an absolutely critical relationship with, and we meet monthly as well. Both Linzi and Martin support me greatly, and also challenge me in a constructive way, and I would like to thank them both.

Section 7 - Having your say on this report

We know as a board that we are not as good as we want to be at using the voices of local children and residents to influence our work. If you are part of a community group or organisation and would like me to come and talk about this report and the work of the board, then please do invite me to do so. If you would like to comment on any of the issues in this report, your views are important to us. You can contact the board via the board manager on [email protected]


mailto:[email protected]

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