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Welcome to the latest edition of Linked, Durham Safeguarding Children Partnership new e-bulletin. We’ve brought together information from a number of partners and we hope you find the articles useful and informative. It is anticipated there will be a new bulletin every month, so if you have ideas around content or potential items for inclusion moving forward, get in touch with Stephen Winship in the Business Unit - stephen.winship@durham.gov.uk
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- We are in the final stages of developing our brand new DSCP website, and once it's up and running those not already on the mailing list, will be able to subscribe to this e-bulletin direct from a dedicated page on the website. In the meantime I would ask that new individuals register their interest via dscpsecure@durham.gov.uk.
- You will soon also be able to see DSCP news, events and items of interest on Twitter, so get ready to follow us - @DurhamSCP
- There has been significant work over recent months looking at 'learning opportunities' - much more on this in the May bulletin.
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The Children's Commissioner - 'The Big Ask'; Online Safety Bill and more...
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National Panel - Findings on Coronavirus
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The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel undertook a thematic analysis of rapid reviews reported to the Panel during the initial Covid Outbreak between March and September 2020 and developed a Practice Briefing on the findings: Supporting Vulnerable Children and Families during COVID-19.
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The briefing sets out the key findings and recommendations from the analysis, which highlighted COVID-19 presents a situational risk for vulnerable children and families, a summary of these findings is provided in the briefing document.
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The Children's Commissioner - 'The Big Ask'
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The new Children’s Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza is asking for your support. Her role is to speak up for children and young people across England and Dame de Souza needs help to gather children’s views and priorities for the future, so that she can make sure the government takes them into account. Dame de Souza has just launched the Childhood Commission, a once-in-a-generation review of the future of childhood. This review will identify the barriers preventing children from reaching their full potential, put forward solutions and set ambitious goals for the country to achieve.
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The first stage of this work is gathering the views, opinions and experiences of all children and will carry out the largest ever consultation with children in England, called The Big Ask, to find out what children’s concerns and aspirations about the future are.
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The Big Ask will be launched on Monday 19 April 2021 as an online questionnaire (click for link), and further information will be forwarded when it is launched. Dame de Souza is hoping to reach as many children as possible and your cooperation will be crucial to ensure that vulnerable and ‘hard to reach’ children have their voices heard.
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If you have any questions, please get in touch with a member of her team at;
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Reporting Child Exploitation - down to us all !
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Child exploitation covers not only CSE, but also criminal, County lines, Modern Day Slavery and trafficking. The pandemic over the last year, with the obvious isolation of children from others, has increased this risk. We should all remain vigilant, be professionally curious - if it doesn’t feel right, look right it probably isn’t, so report it. The flowchart shows a clear pathway around decision making through the referral process and action.
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It all starts off with you, the concerned professional completing the Child Exploitation Risk Assessment form, which can be found on the DSCP website and within the multi-agency procedures too. Every week there are multi-agency risk review triage meetings where all cases are graded as H/M/L. From here key decisions are made on allocation, intervention and perhaps disruption tactics at the higher level of risk. This Child Exploitation Vulnerability Tracker process (CEVT) is well established where children at risk of exploitation are managed according to risk, but it relies on those doing the assessment knowing about the children !!
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Brook Traffic Light Tool - Harmful Sexual Behaviour
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Brook’s nationally recognised Sexual Behaviours Traffic Light Tool and training provides a highly visible, multi-agency response that helps professionals to identify, understand and respond appropriately to sexual behaviours in young people. (Brook UK) The tool may also be useful in distinguishing between 'normal' age-appropriate behaviour and behaviour which causes concern (see also Harmful Sexual Behaviour DSCP Procedures).
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Please note, the tool should only be used by staff who have had appropriate training through Brook UK.
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The tool uses a traffic light system to categorise the sexual behaviours of young people in order to help professionals make decisions about safeguarding, assess and respond to sexual behaviours appropriately, and better understand the differences between healthy sexual behaviour and HSB. The tool lists examples of presenting sexual behaviours within four age categories (0–5 years, 5–9 years, 9–13 years and 13–17 years) and grades them as either red (outside safe and healthy behaviour); amber (has potential to be outside safe and healthy behaviour); or green (safe and healthy sexual development).
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Online Harms White Paper—Online Safety Bill
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In April 2019, the Government published its Online Harms White Paper for consultation and in December 2020, it published its final legislative proposals to protect children from online abuse.
The Online Harms Bill sets out a new duty of care to make companies take responsibility for the safety of their users, including children and young people.
The new regulatory framework will require companies to prevent the proliferation of illegal content and activity online and ensure that children who use their services are not exposed to harmful content.
The legislation will tackle illegal activity taking place online and prevent children from being exposed to inappropriate material, as well as addressing other types of harm that spread online. It will hold technical giants to account for the way in which they address this content on their platforms.
The Online Harms Bill will be ready later this year, information on the government’s response to the consultation is available at gov.uk.
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The development of training continues through the Restoration Plan. Going forward the Business Unit will coordinate the Offer, rather than the delivery. See the schedule below for what's available now. The GRT awareness sessions are getting lots of interest, so book early to avoid disappointment. TRAINING SCHEDULE 2021.
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There are also some really informative narrated briefing sessions on the e-learning platform covering the Signs of Safety and the Harm/Worry Matrix. Neglect awareness is also available as self study with others, so check them out ! All have links to supporting documents and if you're already registered on the DSCP e-learning site you are good to go.
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This is an exciting program coming to you in May and June exploring the world of coercive controlling domestic abuse. This is not to be missed, with spaces going fast. There is still availability for the screenings and a limited number for the workshops.....
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