This item is reserved to discuss any issues raised by the Thurrock Local Safeguarding Children Board.

The Thurrock LSCB Manager gave an update of the work undertaken within Thurrock’s Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB). As part of the Children and Social Work Act 2017, Safeguarding Children’s Boards would be dissolved but it was the Local Authority’s responsibility to have a new safeguarding structure in place to match the new arrangements.

Earlier in the year, the new Working Together 2018 was published with the expectations of the new safeguarding arrangements. This included:

·         Moving the current accountability of 5 statutory partner agencies comprising of the Local Authority, Police, Health, Probation and Children and Family Court Advisory Support Services down to 3 to include the Local Authority, Police and the Clinical Commissioning Group;

·         The new category of ‘relevant agency’ would play a role in safeguarding children; and

·         Changes to the current serious case review process and accountability in the Child Death Review process.

To ensure a smooth transition, Thurrock LSCB has done the following:

·         Setup a new strategic board to prepare an implementation plan which would be published 3 months prior to the change to the new arrangements that needed to be in place by September 2019; and

·         Converse with the Essex and Southend Boards to see which areas could be improved on the ‘Working Across Essex’ approach.

As the existing Board was already doing well, the aim was to keep a similar process in place.

The Thurrock LSCB Manager stopped at this point to take questions from the Committee. Councillor Okunade sought clarification on what would become of the other 2 partner agencies that would be removed from the current 5 statutory partner agencies. The Thurrock LSCB Manager answered that they would form part of other services and over time, would see if they would become part of the relevant agencies. The existing partners would remain but the Board hoped to gain more.

Continuing on with the update, the Thurrock LSCB Manager referred back to the earlier committee meeting of 13 February 2018, where Members had queries on monitoring internet searches particularly suicide methods. To address those queries, he stated in internet safety for children:

·         Each school already had a high quality security software system in place that monitored the usage of school IT and media equipment;

·         A prevention self-harm toolkit was available on Thurrock LSCB’s website for schools to support teachers and young people going through challenging times. A similar approach was also being taken toward suicide ideation; and

·         The updated Department for Education’s “Keeping Children Safe in Education” document detailed schools’ responsibilities in online safeguarding.

Additionally, Thurrock LSCB had been highlighting risks and benefits of the internet to their children in years 5 to 11 through “Walk On-Line” roadshows. An adult version was also available to parents and carers. The next roadshow dates are as follows:

·         14 November 2018 – for parents and carers.

·         March 2019 – covers years 5 and 6 with 5,000 pupils due to attend.

The Thurrock LSCB Manager stopped at this point to take questions from the Committee. The Church of England Representative asked if there were plans to move the roadshow programme down to years 2. She felt it was quite late to start the programme for years 5 as many children younger than that were already accessing media and internet. The Thurrock LSCB Manager explained the plan was to roll the programme out to years 5 but it would be reviewed next year and would see if it needed to be moved down to a younger age group.

The Thurrock LSCB Manager continued with the update by saying they were currently undertaking two serious case reviews. The Board had also completed a series of multi-agency training and learning events covering child protection procedures, interfamilial abuse and psychology of the offender and prevent. There would be further learning events and the Thurrock LSCB continued to support Children’s Social Care in the signs of safety model and graded care profile2 tool for supporting cases of neglect.