Children's services improvement board

Summary

The requester asked for minutes and papers from the Children's Services Improvement Board from January 2024 to the present, and the Department of Health and Social Care disclosed all requested information.

Key Facts

• A colleague from Barnett is shadowing teams to identify improvements in child exploitation work.
• The Youth Justice workstream is in early stages with a 'plan B' if resourcing is not approved.
• Leeds Local Authority is being invited to present their early help hub model as a best practice example.
• 70% of children in care are there due to issues surrounding domestic abuse.
• Temporary staff are being hired for 12 months to clear the CAHMS waiting list.

Data Disclosed

• 18th June 2024
• July
• 70%
• 12 months
• Level 2 needs

Original Request

Dear sirs, Please provide minutes of the meetings held by the children's services improvement board and any associated papers from Jan 24 - present Kind regards

Data Tables (15)

Full Response Text

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experience of working with child exploitation and there could be good learning. JG added that the colleague from Barnett joined the recent scrutiny event and will be coming back to work alongside teams who are doing the work by shadowing and sitting in on meetings. This will enable them to determine where improvements can be made. JG said initially the staff were not sure if this would be helpful, however they did feel heard and listened to and she believes this will be a positive experience moving forward. The first meeting is scheduled for 18th June 2024 to enable planning to take place. Regular meetings will follow to update on progress.

Children with Disabilities (CWD) This workstream is just beginning – update to be provided at next meeting scheduled for July.

Quality Assurance / Information Sharing / Data / IT DM – this workstream is being worked through, follow up meeting next week.

Youth Justice / Support JG mentioned there is currently no workstream as such, whoever she is chairing a group to consider the development of a service. The IOM Complex Safeguarding is being developed in a proposal which was presented to the members of the workstream group. However, she did state that although the model in principal was accepted as a new way of working together it will require resources. She added that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done as it is in its early stages. JG mentioned that she does have a ‘plan B’ is if resourcing is not approved.
DM gave brief explanation of the proposal for the benefit of those who are not in the Youth Justice Group:

Early Help / Family Support MS reported to the group that the Public Health early intervention working group has now been split into two sections. The first group involves the wider stakeholders which is looking at the wider early intervention definition and high level principles of early intervention across all ages. The second smaller group is looking at ACES specifically and some real interventions perhaps for parenting etc. DM mentioned she is looking at exploring developing early help interagency hubs targeted at level 2 needs of the Harkiner model for
vulnerable families. DM has identified Leeds LA as one model of good practice and has suggested inviting Leeds to present online on their

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development journey. She added they have early help clusters and an early help hub and it is not quite clear what the difference between the two are.
She stated that she was informed that this module was previously offered on the island however due to lack of funding the service was terminated.
Action: DM to invite Leeds LA to present their model online DM mentioned that in her previous organisation she had done some GEO mapping and was surprised that 70% of children in care were because of issues around domestic abuse. Another issue mentioned was around early help with parents that are incarcerated and providing early help and support to those children and what that service would look like. DM asked the question of Probation and Prison – if this is a concern regarding children whose parents are incarcerated.
DC stated they are starting to look at having more family days where prisoners have more contact with their children via storybook. The Prison has increased the number of opportunities for family days which was part of the responses from HMIP. There was discussion about the possibility of a protocol where if a parent/carer goes to prison this is reported in order for other colleagues, potentially Education to be able to provide some early help / support to the child/children affected, similarly to operation encompass DM queried with DR if this is something that they see at CAHMS clinics, i.e. young people who have parents incarcerated, developing trauma based behaviours. DR stated this is not statistically apparent, although it has been noted that there is a large immigrant population and a lot more single parent families which in turn means fewer support options or family members who would provide support when a family or child needs it.

DD agreed to share the Guidance and Resources for Schools in Supporting children Impacted by Imprisonment. Action: Share above document with the CSIB

JG mentioned that following on from the iThrive meeting earlier, a business case is being developed. This will be by setting up a single point of access into CAHMS focusing a lot on early help.

DR gave a brief overview of what this would look like: The iThrive framework is around better integrated services for young people, making better use of what is already in the community-identifying the strengths and gaps within the community and having a shared language. It’s about all services getting involved at an earlier point and providing what they can.
Temporary staff are being brought into CAHMS for a period of 12 months to essentially work through the waiting list. The commissioning of a single point of access and early intervention which will allow young people or families to refer themselves.

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The 2nd part of the business case is going out for tender for a service that can provide psychological intervention. This should reduce the number of referrals as they are able to access psychological interventions before they look towards at medication etc., which would be a step down for some young people. It was also mentioned that the rate of autism has increased on the island which could be due to the island attracting more neuro- diverse people i.e. programming, gaming etc. This may be referred to as the Silicon Valley Effect.

Family Action are looking into courses for parents of young people with autism and ADHD. SM queried the impact this will have on the Island Plan as the island trade is attracting the more neuro-diverse community. This will place a strain and impact on services and bring additional challenges which will need to be looked into at some stage.

049/24 External Presentations, Meeting & Proposals 19th April – Tynwald Leaving Care Presentation KS gave brief update on the presentation by who presented to Tynwald members. spoke about journey from beginning to end and the big changes made which then built on until became involved in the implementation of the Children and Young Persons legislation in Northern Island. DM commented that following this presentation, interest and traction has been gained with a number of people requesting to have further conversations with .

Empowering Families to Thrive – Edge of Care Conference JG gave an update on the conference that was well attended and received by all. There was a lot of feedback and positive comments. Quite a few people in the audience were surprised to realise the kind of impact and difference that early intervention can have on children and young people. The attendance of Fatima Whitbread was well received.

Corporate Parenting Board KS gave an update on changes to the Corporate Parenting Board. Due to it being the year end the last meeting of the year was held. In light of the Ofsted recommendations it was decided to recreate the group with a focus on what Ofsted asked for as well as listening to the voice of the child more clearly to get their views and have better oversight. The Health, Learning and Social Policy Board will have oversight of the group. The current corporate parenting do not have any statutory powers DM Section 25 Section 2 Section 2 Section 25 Section 25 Section 2

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which hopefully when the new legislation comes into effect this will be incorporated.

050/24 Links with other projects / meeting DC – updated the group on developments in relation to domestic abuse, he added that initial consultations held with all agencies in relation to were well attended. This is now moving to the next phase to see what it will look like as an operating framework (similar to MARAC but bespoke to the Isle of man) Following the outcome of the consultation. They will then move to l the possibility of training people to ensure everyone is clear about rules and responsibilities.

DC 051/24 Items for Escalation Action: TOR to be updated to include CAHMS as a membership and to be distributed.

052/24 AOB

DM 055/24 Date(s) of next CSIB & Work Stream meetings 2024 24-28 June Workstreams 23 July 6th CSIB ALL

Date of next meeting:
Tuesday 23 July, Belgravia House Boardroom, 09.30am

CSIB Minutes March 2024 Private & Confidential 25 March 2024 3

039/24 Terms of Reference review All members agreed the terms of reference reflect the purpose and membership of the Board. Approved

040/24 CSIB Work streams & Action Plan update Master Action Plan shared with the CSIB members. There is a lot of narrative to provide context around the Ofsted report and the Children’s Champion report.
Going forward the large text narrative will be reduced to a few lines and the action plan will be separated into the different work streams. These will be finalised and shared with the CSIB. Project team meets for the first time in April, and members will be the chairs from each work stream. An updated action plan will be available before the next CSIB meeting, in time for any queries to be put forward. It was noted that there are a number of recommendations in the master action plan for 16+/leaving care/residential, however not many for other work streams. Concern that some recommendations could get lost.
DM confirmed all recommendations will be allotted to the relevant work stream. Final structure of work streams reviewed by the Board with the confirmed chairs of the various work streams shown below: Work stream Chairperson(s) Youth Justice / Support Julie Gibney Early Help / Family Support Deirdre Mahon General Social Work Practice / Fostering & Adoption Janette Angus & Ed Coates Co-chair Quality Assurance / Information sharing / IT Deirdre Mahon & Victoria Creed Children with disabilities Deirdre Mahon initially Safeguarding / Child Exploitation Christine Impey 16+ / Leaving Care / Residential
Janette Angus &

Noted that the children with disabilities work stream won’t be a long piece of work, as a lot of the issues identified have now been addressed, and there are also businesses cases in where required.

Section 25

CSIB Minutes March 2024 Private & Confidential 25 March 2024 4

The work regarding leadership and court & legislation, DM and JG don’t feel a specific work stream is required. However this will be discussed more in depth outside of the Board. DM will report to the Health, Learning and Social Policy Board (HLSPB), via the Quality and Compliance team, once a quarter to provide an update on progress being made. Escalations are to be included. General Social Work practice / Fostering and Adoption First meeting has been held, a lot of work has already taken place within Manx Care.
16+ / Leaving Care / Residential Care Children with disabilities (CwD) originally included in this work stream, however staff attending this meeting felt that CwD would get lost in the bigger project and needed their own work stream.
Some of the biggest concerns are about the lack of legislation in place to support young people in care, leaving care and support for care leavers. Action: Add leaving care to the corporate parenting agenda
Youth Justice / Support JG has written a proposal explaining what this team could look like and what responsibilities will be of each member organisation.
The proposal will be shared at a meeting on Wednesday 20 March with partnership departments to review, and to discuss in collaboration where changes are required. A further update will be available at the next Board meeting, once the group has met. Action: Ensure criminal justice lead from DHA is included in the Youth Justice group. DESC also have a business case in at the moment, to help as many young people as possible have access to education. This includes young offenders, and young people who cannot be included in a general school population.

JG/IP

JG

CSIB Minutes March 2024 Private & Confidential 25 March 2024 5

Safeguarding / Child Exploitation Initial update provided by DM in CI’s absence. In terms of the continuum of need and threshold matrix, CI has:
• Completed an initial scoping consultation with a number of partner agencies, including schools seeking their views about the existing document and what they would want from the two documents.

• Draft of Continuum of Need and Threshold Matrix was circulated to the same partner agencies for comments and amends. These had been incorporated into the documents.

• The documents were presented to AIP on 14 March 2024 for final comment to be back with CI by 22 March for Board approval on 17 April.

• CI will then be planning with the Children’s subgroup, via workshops and other media, the most effective ways to ensure all partners are comfortable and familiar with the new documents, and using them for reference.
JG shared that vulnerable adolescent strategy was started 18 months ago. Strategic group felt small changes to the strategy are required due to gaps identified. When the context was discussed, there were less gaps found than initially thought.
IP mentioned it was referenced in AIP, needs to be a joined approach not just one agency. Identified during a scoping exercise that issues around threshold and consent was identified. This will be a priority for the Safeguarding Board going forward.
Links in with the 16+ and early help work streams as well.
DM met with Lesley Walker and CI regarding the interfaces with the CSIB and the role of the Safeguarding Board. It was found to be complicated with some duplication and needs to be streamlined.
Agreed a Memorandum of Understanding would make it easier to share information surrounding recommendations and improvements following serious case reviews, and where these should sit. It was concluded that DM would invite Lesley to the meeting to discuss this further. Action: DM to invite Lesley Walker to attend CSIB

DM

CSIB Minutes March 2024 Private & Confidential 25 March 2024 6

Quality Assurance / information sharing / IT Meeting occurring this week.
Looking at the recommendations within the report that may be more difficult to meet, as these are not in the Mandate to Manx Care for 2024/2025 which has already been set for the financial year.
A proposal can be put forward to ensure these are in

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