Issue - meetings

27.1     The Board considered a report to advise on the multi-agency arrangements in place to safeguard children in East Sussex.

27.2     The Board thanked Reg Hooke for his work as Chair of the ESCCP and wished him well in his future endeavours.

27.3     The Board RESOLVED to note the East Sussex Safeguarding Children Partnership Annual Report for 2020-2021.

24.1     Reg Hooke (Independent Chair of the East Sussex Safeguarding Children Partnership) introduced the report, which was the first report of a full year of the new safeguarding partnership arrangements and the Chair’s eighth and final report to the Committee before standing down. In introducing the report, the Independent Chair highlighted:

·         The report had been formatted using a new template which was being adopted nationally and focussed on the impact of partnership activity across its four priority areas (education safeguarding, child exploitation, embedding a learning culture and safeguarding under 5s); use of evidence; assurance undertaken by the partnership; and learning.

·         COVID impact – the COVID pandemic had created challenges for safeguarding children; through lockdowns and school closures reducing child visibility, a shortage of health visitors, and safeguarding visits having to be made remotely. The ESSCP was now seeing these challenges factor into cases being referred for case review.

·         Particularly positive and innovative work the ESSCP had undertaken in the past year, included:

o   establishing a pathway for information sharing between A&E and secondary schools when children attended A&E due to self-harm, so that schools were informed and could provide additional support;

o   establishing a task and finish group on Elective Home Education to ensure multi-agency processes were working as effectively as possible to identify children most at risk and potential intervention methods; and

o   undertaking work, under the partnership’s education safeguarding priority, on peer-on-peer sexual abuse.

·         The ESSCP had conducted a review of its partnership arrangements which had been largely positive in its findings, but identified some areas for development. These were to continue to develop the partnership’s relationship with adult services; to continue to expand opportunities for the partnership to hear the voice of children in all its work; and to expand representation on the partnership Board to include all relevant partners.

·         The partnership had particular concerns about the risks faced by very young children; children in families with domestic violence; and vulnerable children being drawn into criminal and sexual exploitation. These would continue to be areas of focus for the ESSCP’s future work.

24.2     The Committee welcomed the report and the new format. In discussion, the following points were raised:

·         Elective Home Education (EHE) – the Committee welcomed the partnership’s work on safeguarding of EHE children, as it had been identified as an area of concern for the Committee; and would welcome further information on this work and its impacts in the next update to the Committee.

·         Child Mental Health – the Committee noted the concerning number of children attending A&E due to self-harm and the number of referrals to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS); and asked whether the new integrated working arrangements to share incidences of self-harm between A&E and schools was expected to reduce these figures in future years. The Independent Chair did not expect that these numbers would reduce in the very short term, as the considerable challenges facing children and young people, from COVID and other societal pressures,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24