Safeguarding Social Care Patricia Denney Principal Officer

Safeguarding & Social Care Patricia Denney Principal Officer Safeguarding & Social Care, Children, Schools & Families, LB Camden

Service Description

What Is Our Service Capacity? Number of staff (387) How & where staff are based Duty and Assessment (hospitals, schools and community) Children in Need (North and South) Looked After Children (North and South) Children’s Provision e. g. Leaving Care, MALT Average number of children service targets 70 performance targets reported to Government Average number of children service is currently working with (2000)

What is the Client Group of our Service? Age range 0 to 17 yrs Geography Any child who lives in Camden. Children who attend a Camden school will be sign posted to the appropriate safeguarding service in their Local Authority

How do People Access our Service? Where do referrals come from? health, education, housing, voluntary agencies, general public, concerned relatives, self-referrals Majority from secondary health, education & the police What is the process for receiving referrals? CP phone call to duty, followed up by CAF within 48 hrs needed) CIN CAF referral (consent needed) (consent not What happens after a referral is received? decision made whether to accept or reject within 24 hours Case allocated to social worker within 24 - 48 hours initial assessment (7 days) Core assessment (35 days) Child protection conference (15 working days after last strategy discussion)

What are the Thresholds for our Service in Relation to Health? Level of Need Indicator Universal No additional needs, accessing universal services No SSC Level 1 Extra support needed for single agency e. g. minor health / behavioural problem SSC can give advice Level 2 Complex needs of child or parent/carer requiring multi-agency response e. g. disabilities, chronic ill health, substance misuse, mental illness or anything that would cause concern regarding child’s welfare and require further assessment CIN Level 3 SW is lead professional Child experiencing significant harm & need CP statutory involvement SW is lead e. g. physical/emotional/sexual abuse, neglect professional

How Does our Service Incorporate the Tools of Integrated Working?

Common Assessment Framework (CAF) Referrals into the service are made on a CAF Referrals can be made electronically via a CAF to: Duty & Assessment North or South Duty & Assessment Royal Free hospital or UCLH CAF encourages holistic assessments by assessing 3 domains: Development (health & education) Parent/Carer Family & environment Clinicians can collaborate with other practitioners electronically to help them complete sections of the CAF they do not have information on e. g. a GP could fill out the health domain and a health visitor could fill out the family and environment domain as they have visited the family in their house

Contact. Point • Practitioners can use the database to find out information about a child even when they are accessing a range of services that are inside and outside of Camden – these are the children who often fall through the net

Lead Professional We have a statutory obligation to act in the role of LP when there is a safeguarding concern When the level of need drops and a social worker is no longer needed to meet this level of need, other practitioners may take up the role of Lead Professional if more than one service is still involved with the child Examples of Lead Professionals in health: Health visitor School nurse Professions allied to medicine e. g. occupational therapist, speech & language therapist, physiotherapist Family development worker – Sure Start/children’s centre

Why Do We Need To Work In An Integrated Way?

Earlier Identification and Intervention… • A more complete picture of a child’s story is built up at an earlier stage, as clinicians will have access to more information • This will lead to earlier intervention by our service • This will lead to improved outcomes for the child