Service manager Gloucester The Child’s Journey Gloucester GSCB Road shows 2012 Vicki Butler Service manager Gloucester Karen Watson – Service Manager within Children services.

How well do you know your Locality Gloucester (North and South)

How many children live in Gloucester? b) 28097 c) 31084 Answer c) 31084

How many CAF’s have been completed on children living in Gloucester since April 2012? Answer – a) 85

In the last 12 months how many contacts were about children in Gloucester? Answer- b- 5893

Of those contacts how many needed to have an initial assessment? b) 1852 c) 1926 Answer – a 1728

How many children have a child protection plan in the Gloucester? b) 117 c) 133 Answer c - 133

Quick recap - Munro May 2011 – Munro final report of three. What helps a professional make the best judgements they can to protect a vulnerable child? 15 Recommendations to implement ‘A child centred system’

Recommendations in a nutshell Government should review working together Inspection framework should look at the contribution of all partners including health, education, police, probation etc in the child’s journey LSCB’s have clear roles and accountability in terms of assessing the effectiveness of delivery and training LA’s and partners to secure sufficient provision of local early help for CYP Child should be at the centre of what we do

The case for early help Prevention will do more to reduce abuse and neglect than reactive services Co-ordination of services is important to maximise efficiency Good ways of identifying those children who are in need of early help and support. Services offering early help are not aimed just at preventing abuse and neglect but at improving life chances for CYP. Early help is an ambiguous term – referring to both early help when the child is young , but also the emergence of a problem at any stage of a child’s life. The moral argument to minimise adverse experience for CYP endorsed by UN rights of the child. Itis difficult to reverse the harm done to CYP development. It is cost effective – preventing more serious problems which are more expensive to put right. Research tells us that many features of family life are associated with adverse outcomes, mental health substance misuse, domestic abuse. How do we identify these children?

“Safeguarding a child is best achieved by responding to need at the earliest stage. The best protection is often secured by providing the appropriate help in the most appropriate way at the most opportune time” Lord Laming Proposals Build services around families Intervene early Improve accountability

The ‘windscreen’ – A continuum of need, assessment and service delivery   Talk through the windscreen Universal Vulnerable – may have unmet need at a low level – small levels of support may meet these needs – eg speech and language therapy Complex – needs will be more difficult to meet – will require several agencies to work together to meet these needs. This works best when they are working from a single plan – CAF. Acute – this is when needs have reached a high level and will often require specialists to work alongside other practitioners to resolve need, for example CP, Youth Offending etc.

What Children and Families say Parents, children and young people told us that when there are problems, they want to be able to get advice easily. They have also told us that they want to be able to get specialist support before things become a crisis. (Gloucestershire’s Children and Young People’s Plan 2009 – 2012)

What next? How well do we work together in Gloucester? Are we able to offer and provide early help? What can we do next?