Multi-Agency Approaches
Everyone's Responsibility
•Every Child Matters
stated this in regard
to securing all of the
‘five outcomes’:
“Families, communities, government, public services, voluntary organisations, business, the media and others have a crucial part to play in valuing children, protecting them, promoting their interests and listening to their views.”
(Chief Secretary to the Treasury, 2003, p14)
“Families, communities, government, public services, voluntary organisations, business, the media and others have a crucial part to play in valuing children, protecting them, promoting their interests and listening to their views.”
(Chief Secretary to the Treasury, 2003, p14)
•Sentiment repeated in the Staying Safe Action Plan
(DCSF, 2008a) and new ‘Working Together’ (DfE, 2013)
(DCSF, 2008a) and new ‘Working Together’ (DfE, 2013)
•Summarised by the NSPCC: “All adults must be alert to the
warning signs, all children given the opportunities and confidence to ask for help.” (NSPCC, 2011, p4)
"Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility
15. Everyone who works with children – including teachers, GPs, nurses, midwives, health visitors, early years professionals, youth workers, police, Accident and Emergency staff, paediatricians, voluntary and community workers and social workers – has a responsibility for keeping them safe.
16. No single professional can have a full picture of a child’s needs and circumstances and, if children and families are to receive the right help at the right time, everyone who comes into contact with them has a role to play in identifying concerns, sharing information and taking prompt action.
17. In order that organisations and practitioners collaborate effectively, it is vital that every individual working with children and families is aware of the role that they have to play and the role of other professionals. In addition, effective safeguarding requires clear local arrangements for collaboration between professionals and agencies."
HM Government (2015) Working Together to Safeguard Children
A guide to inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the
welfare of children
London: DfE ; available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-safeguard-children--2
Accessed 29.09.2015
Accessed 29.09.2015
Early Years Professionals have a crucially important role
Listening to and valuing
children in order to build their confidence;
Protecting them by being alert
to warning signs and taking correct and timely action to offer early help or referral where necessary;
Promoting their interests in
meetings with parents and professionals where decisions are made;
Supporting parents and carers in
the task of safeguarding;
Caring for children who have
experienced the effects of abuse and neglect.
One Possible Solution
One Possible Solution
Devon MASH started Apr 2010:
oHub includes
Police, Children’s Social Care, Probation, Health, Education, Adult and
Community Services, Mental Health Services, Early Years, CAMHS, Ambulance
oStaff employed by
individual agencies, but co-located
(or virtual connections)
(or virtual connections)
oInformation
securely shared within the hub, gathered by the relevant professional ‘lead’
from other teachers, health visitors, school nurses, police etc
Allows the ‘Hub’ to:
oSwiftly collate and share information
oMake joint
multi-agency risk assessment of
each case
oDeliver
co-ordinated intervention
Many local authorities
setting up something similar – York’s ‘Front Door’, Triage, Multi-Agency Referral Unit
Overall Definitions- Children Act 1989
The Children
Act 1989 charged local authorities with the "duty
to investigate … if they have reasonable cause to suspect that a child who
lives, or is found, in their area is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm" (section 47).
"Harm" is defined as ill-treatment (including sexual
abuse and non-physical forms of ill-treatment) or the impairment
of health (physical or mental) or development (physical,
intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural).
"Significant" is not defined
in the Act, although it does say that the court should compare the health and
development of the child "with that which could be reasonably
expected of a similar child". So the courts have to decide what constitutes "significant harm"
by looking at the facts of each case.
Children
‘in need’, under section 17 of the Children Act 1989, are children whose
vulnerability is such that
“he/she is unlikely to achieve or maintain,…a reasonable standard of health or development without the provision for him/her of services by a local authority; his/her health or development is likely to be significantly impaired, or further impaired, without the provision for him/her of such services; or he/she is disabled.
“he/she is unlikely to achieve or maintain,…a reasonable standard of health or development without the provision for him/her of services by a local authority; his/her health or development is likely to be significantly impaired, or further impaired, without the provision for him/her of such services; or he/she is disabled.
