Working Together to Safeguard Children 

Closing date: 6th September 2023

In this consultation, the DfE are seeking views on how best to strengthen effective multiagency help, support, safeguarding and child protection across the system.

They advise that they are “consulting on revisions that keep a child-centred approach in a whole family focus and ensure that every individual and agency understands their role and is playing their part in delivering effective multi-agency support, intervention and protection”

Proposed changes strengthen the guidance in five key areas:

• A shared endeavour introduces expectations for effective multi-agency working and practice principles for working with parents and carers.
• Multi-Agency Safeguarding Arrangements clarifies roles and responsibilities, introduces a partnership chair and deepens accountability and transparency.
• Help and support for children and their families includes stronger expectations on Early Help and family networks, clarifies permissions on working with children under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 and emphasises support for disabled children.
• Decisive multi-agency child protection introduces new national multi-agency child protection standards for practitioners and approaches to harm outside the home.
• Learning from serious child safeguarding incidents.

Make sure to have your say HERE.

Information Sharing Advice for Safeguarding Practitioners

Closing date: 6th September 2023

The last substantive update of the Information Sharing Advice was in July 2018 to reflect the revised Data Protection Act 2018 and introduction of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

Recent national reviews (such as the Independent Review of Childrens Social Care and the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s review ‘Child Protection in England’) have evidenced confusion, anxieties and poor practices of practitioners sharing information to protect children and recommended improved training and guidance for practitioners. In February 2023, the Government published Stable Homes, Built on Love, which responded to the recommendations, and has committed to revising and consulting on the Information Sharing Advice to address practitioners’ perceptions that there are legal impediments to sharing information.

The purpose of the Information Sharing Advice is to:

• instil confidence in practitioners about the legal framework that supports the sharing of information for safeguarding and promotion of welfare purposes.
• provide a straight-forward guide to practitioners on the core principles of timely and effective information sharing, that can be applied to day-to-day decision making.
• support organisations to develop processes, policies and training for their practitioners about information sharing.

Make sure to have your say HERE.

Alright Charlie – CSE Primary School Resource - free video, workbook and downloads available for professionals and young people

'Alright Charlie’ is a preventative resource pack that addresses child sexual exploitation (CSE) and grooming in a way that is age appropriate. A fantastic insight into CSE for both professionals and young people aimed at Year 5 and 6 and onwards. 

Basis Training, together with the Blast Project supported the development of a gender neutral, age appropriate video resource (Alright Charlie) for raising awareness of child sexual exploitation (CSE) in primary schools.  

Credited: https://basisyorkshire.org.uk/resource/alright-charlie-cse-primary-school-resource/ 

Youth warnings, reprimands and cautions will no longer be automatically disclosed to employers who require Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) certificates from 28 November.

The changes, which come as a result of a Supreme Court judgment that found some elements of the existing filtering rules for Standard and Enhanced DBS checks were disproportionate, are intended to make it easier for people with certain convictions to find employment.

A county lines drug gang forced 40 children to deal cannabis and cocaine at a single school.

The teens, some as young as 14, had been supplied with drugs and dealing kits including deal bags and scales. 

Police say grown-up dealers had a network of 40 pupils dealing at the school which has just over 1,200 pupils - meaning one in thirty was possibly selling drugs.

It is suspected that girls as young as 14 at Kingsdown School in Swindon, Wiltshire, have been pestered for sex in exchange for cocaine.

And the dawn police raid yesterday - on the eve of GCSE results - revealed the extent of the teens coerced into the operation.

Wiltshire Police arrested a 27-year-old man during the raid. He has since been released under investigation.

Sgt Nathan Perry, who planned the 7am raid, said: "We found the person we're looking for, we've managed to safeguard the children who were at risk and we've found drugs.

"We all know about county lines and the risks associated with that.

"The difficulty with this type of drugs operation is that it's specifically targeting very young children in order to get them to deal drugs.

"Some of the information we've been passed is that children are not only being coerced into this activity, but they're also being physically threatened.

"If they go to police or teachers they'll be harmed," he added. 

Police were said to have been alerted to the gang at Kingsdown School.

A pair of older teen boys, both 16, are believed to have been supplying a network of up to 40 children in their mid-teens at the Swindon school.

The 27-year-old was arrested during the morning raid on suspicion of possession of class B drugs with intent to supply and inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.

The raid came as Swindon police focused their sights on modern slavery.

Nationally, police have increasingly turned to modern slavery laws to target drug dealers who force children and vulnerable adults to peddle their product.

Sgt Perry said those convicted could expect sentences of up to 15 years imprisonment.

"You've got children being exploited and young kids being forced to run the drugs. We will take it seriously," he said.

"The sheer nature of the exploitation of these young people is unacceptable.

"If we don't do something to stop that they're potentially going to be at risk for the rest of their lives.