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LSCB role
- The role of the LSCB
- LSCB Strategy
- LSCB Priorities 2008/9
- Summary of key LSCB responsibilities
Our vision is that all children in Lambeth will be nurtured and supported in their families and communities, so that they can achieve their full potential and enjoy a positive future.
- We will achieve this by aiming to : -
- Protect children from maltreatment, neglect, accidental injury/death, bullying, discrimination, crime and anti social behaviour.
- Prevent impairment of children´s health or development
- Promote circumstances in Lambeth that support and enable children to grow up with the provision of safe and effective care
- Performance manage our services to ensure that Lambeth children have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully
Everything that the Lambeth SCB does will be done with the overall intention of helping children in Lambeth achieve the government’s five outcomes: -
- Be healthy
- Stay Safe
- Enjoy and Achieve
- Make a positive contribution
- Achieve economic wellbeing
The role and structure of the Committee is based on that laid out in the Department of Health’s “Working Together to Safeguard Children” first produced in 1989, updated in 1999 and most recently updated and republished in March 2006. The core objectives are set out in section 14(1) of the Children Act 2004 as follows:
a. To co-ordinate what is done by each person or body represented on the
Board for the purposes of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children
in the area of the authority, and
b. To ensure the effectiveness of what is done by each such person or body
for that purpose.
The LSCB is the key statutory mechanism for agreeing how the relevant organisations
in Lambeth will co-operate to safeguard and promote the welfare of children
in that locality, and for ensuring the effectiveness of what they do. (Working
Together, March 2006)
The strategy of the LSCB is to work with the Young People’s Strategic Partnership to reduce the numbers of children in need of responsive safeguarding through the provision of support at an earlier stage in their lives. This early prevention and wider preventative agenda is managed through the Children and Young People’s Plan and the Children and Young People’s Partnership Board.
Universal Safeguarding:
Continue to raise community awareness around and support for children who are privately fostered.
Identification of private fostering arrangements led to 5 children being looked after from those arrangements during the last year. Private fostering is a hidden activity and there is a need to continually raise awareness within a population with greater mobility than other boroughs.
Raise professional and community awareness of e-safety on-line
This has become increasingly important with the prevalence of electronic communication.
Raise awareness of safe parenting practice in the community
This is an aspect of the LSCB’s general safeguarding responsibilities and will develop as the preventative services increase through the use of the common assessment and the Team Around the Child
Review Threshold Criteria
As new preventative services are commissioned e.g. Team Around the Child there is a need to continually review and adapt eligibility criteria to ensure that safeguarding is seamlessly integral and consistently provided across partner agencies and London as a whole.
Reduce the risk of harm to children from domestic violence
Lambeth has the highest incidence of domestic violence in London and there is a high proportion of children looked after or subject to a child protection plan where domestic violence is a factor.
Reduce the risk of harm to children from parents with mental health difficulties and or substance misuse issues
This priority has been identified through analysis of parental problems and issues and emphasises the need for early identification of issues and for closer working together between adults’ and children’s services.
Further improve the effectiveness and quality of multi- agency responsive safeguarding.
Children in need of responsive safeguarding are by definition at highest risk and will continue to be our greatest priority. The LSCB is particularly concerned to ensure that children with disabilities are safeguarded effectively and gather improved understanding of the ethnic profile of those with child protection plans and so ensure appropriate services for children from black and ethnic minority communities. Robust quality assurance mechanisms are being developed to support this.
Reduce the risk of harm to young people who place themselves in danger through risky behaviour through multi-agency safeguarding.
This need was identified in a Serious Case Review and requires greater awareness and ownership of the need for safeguarding of children across the whole age range, and a greater awareness of the dangers arising from risk-taking behaviour. The effectiveness of new procedures regarding children subject to sexual exploitation and missing from home or care will be closely monitored by the LSCB.
Strengthen safeguards for children through safer recruitment and allegations management in Lambeth agencies.
The need to ensure safe recruitment and safe care is a core responsibility of all agencies and service providers, and is a particular priority with the extension of the child care workforce.
Summary of key LSCB responsibilities
- Monitor the effectiveness of organisations´’ implementation of their duties under section 11 of the Children´s Act 2004.
- Ensure that information is available to children to know who they can contact when they have concerns about their own safety and welfare.
- Develop policies and procedures for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in the area of the authority.
- Develop and implement strategies to safeguard and promote the welfare of children who are potentially more vulnerable than the general population, for example children living away from home, children who have run away from home, or children with disabilities.
- Ensure that systems are in place to identify and support the safety and welfare of children who are privately fostered.
- Develop and implement a training strategy to meet the training needs of staff across all agencies to work effectively together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children who may be at risk of significant harm.
- Develop standards for the recruitment and supervision of persons who work with children and monitor compliance with the procedures.
- Ensure that systems are in place for all agencies for the investigation of allegations of breaches of safeguarding practices concerning persons working with children and monitor compliance.
- Establish a child death review panel to review all child deaths in the area.
- Undertake serious case reviews as required by Working Together to Safeguard Children 2006.
- Establish means of communication with the communities in the area to ensure that issues of safeguarding are understood by all communities and to provide the opportunity for the communities´ issues to be addressed by the LSCB.
- Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of what is done by the Local Authority and board partners individually and collectively to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and advise them on ways to improve.
- Participate in the local planning and commissioning of children´s services to ensure that they take safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children into account.