Agenda item

Report by the Director or Children Services

49.1     Reg Hooke, Independent Chair of the East Sussex LSCB, introduced the annual report and highlighted some of the Board’s key activities during 2018/19, including:

• Operation Encompass. Following a pilot in Hastings, the Police are now required to inform a school immediately where a child has been exposed to domestic abuse so that schools can give appropriate support to the child in question;
• Contextual safeguarding. With the support of the University of Sussex the LSCB has taken a lead on ‘contextual safeguarding’. This is a multi-agency approach to understanding and responding to safeguarding risks outside of a child’s family life. It recognises the risks which can occur in different relationships that children and young people form in schools, neighbourhoods and online and works to intervene at that level;
• Lay Member activity. Lay Members form a critical part of the LSCB by providing additional challenge and scrutiny and the Committee were informed about some of the activities of these Members.  For example, during 2018/19 Lay Members met with young people from the Eastbourne Youth Forum to consider their priorities and attended the annual safeguarding in school conference;
• Serious Case Reviews. Members were advised that there had been no serious case reviews during 2018/19; and
• Pan Sussex Conference. In 2018 the PAN Sussex Conference was delivered with a focus on safeguarding adolescents. Over 100 delegates attended from a wide range of agencies. Topics included: contextual safeguarding approach to adolescents; understanding adolescent neglect; and transitioning from child to adult services.

49.2     Mr Hooke also drew the Committee’s attention to the revised version of the Department for Education’s guidance document, ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018’.  Key developments set out within the revised guidance include the replacement of Local Safeguarding Children's Boards with Local Safeguarding Children Partnerships, as well as significant changes to the child death review process.   With the requirements of the revised guidance in mind, the Committee were informed that new East Sussex Safeguarding Children Partnership arrangements were published in June 2019 and would take effect from 1 October 2019. 

49.3     The Committee then discussed:

• Operation Encompass.  Members recognised how important it is for schools to be made aware of what their pupils are experiencing in their home life so that extra provision can be put in place to support these vulnerable children;
• Promotion of child safety. Members discussed the importance of promoting safety to children, particularly in terms of the risks young people can expose themselves to.  The department agreed that it is important to promote safety within schools and other social settings.  Mr Hooke advised the Committee that the LSCB monitors any rise in specific types of accidents.  This includes, for example, accidents within the home.
• Regulated placements. Members discussed the use of unregulated placements for young people aged 18 and above.  The Committee were advised that young people in this group are normally placed in regulated care facilities, such as a foster home or supported lodgings.  In very specific circumstances though it is sometimes necessary to put in place a bespoke package which places a young person in an unregulated placement.  However, this only happens when all other options have been exhausted and the alternative would mean that the young person in question does not have a place to stay. 
• Child Death Overview Panel. Members noted that the Child Death Overview Panel is a statutory function of the Local Safeguarding Children's Board and questioned how child deaths will be reported under the new arrangements. Mr Hooke advised the Committee that child deaths will continue to be reported and will be included in the annual report of the new East Sussex Safeguarding Children Partnership.

49.4     RESOLVED – the Committee agreed to receive the LSCB’s annual report.