Safeguarding

Barnsley Safeguarding Children Partnership is the organisation responsible for agreeing how services and agencies work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people in the borough and ensuring that they do so effectively.  The Children and Social Work Act 2017 and Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018 places the responsibility on the three ‘safeguarding partners’, the police, the local authority and health, to formulate the local arrangements for partnership arrangements for safeguarding children in their respective geographical areas.

The partnership replaced the Barnsley Safeguarding Children Board on 1 April 2019 and has had an independent scrutineer since November 2021. The partnership brings together senior representatives from the key statutory, voluntary, and community sectors with a responsibility for delivering services to children and young people.

The chair of the partnership is accountable to the three safeguarding partners, the police, health and the local authority (through the Chief Executive and Director of Children's Services). Each agency representative involved in the work of the partnership is accountable to the governing body of their own agency.

The role of the partnership

Members of the partnership work to keep children and young people in Barnsley safe from harm, particularly those who are most vulnerable, and to make sure that they feel secure, well cared for, and able to reach their full potential.  They also provide support and training for those who work with children and young people, in whatever capacity, to make sure that they are fully aware of their roles and responsibilities in relation to safeguarding, and that they are appropriately qualified.

The work of the partnership falls into the wider context of our Children's Trust arrangements, which focus on improving the overall wellbeing of all Barnsley children and young people through the five outcomes - be healthy stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution, and secure economic wellbeing.  However, the partnership focuses primarily on the aspect of 'staying safe', which ensures that children and young people are cared for, have security and stability and are kept safe from:

  • maltreatment, neglect, violence and sexual exploitation
  • accidental injury and death
  • bullying and discrimination
  • crime and anti-social behaviour in and out of school

Partnership member agencies

Barnsley Safeguarding Children Partnership is made up of members from a range of agencies:

The following organisations are partnership members with a duty to make arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children:

Sub-committees to the partnership

The partnership structure has a number of sub-committees that bring extra focus to particular issues and priorities. This structure is reviewed regularly and amended if necessary to ensure multi-agency contribution to priority areas.

Working together to safeguard children

Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018 is statutory guidance from GOV.UK on inter-agency working to promote the welfare of children.

The guidance was further updated in December 2020 with factual changes in relation to information sharing, homelessness duty and references to domestic abuse. You can read more about the update to Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018.

In Barnsley, we developed our response to Working Together 2018 so we could implement the requirements set out by government.

We have subsequently developed further guidance, including an update to the child death review arrangements which form part of working together.

Partnership meetings

The Barnsley Safeguarding Children Partnership meet six times a year. Dates for 2023 are:

  • 13 January 2023
  • 17 March 2023
  • 12 May 2023
  • 07 July 2023
  • 08 September 2023
  • 10 November 2023

What to do if you're worried about a child

Contact us online for advice Don't use this form to report abuse

Our annual report

Our safeguarding children annual report is a document that we have a duty to produce. It gives an annual update on what we've delivered from our strategic plan.

Read the report

For children and young people

Get support and advice if you feel unsafe or worried about something.

For parents and carers

Information and advice about parenting, family problems and how to keep your child safe.

For professionals

Guidance, training and other resources suitable for professionals and volunteers who work with vulnerable children.

For schools

Information and guidance about safeguarding children in school, whatever your role.

Policies and procedures

The partnership procedures are available here. These define and guide the safeguarding role of all agencies working with children and young people.

Thresholds for intervention

Read the Barnsley thresholds for intervention guide for early help and beyond.

Children and Young People's Plan 2019-2022

The Barnsley Children, Young People and Families Trust has published their Children and Young People's Plan for 2019 to 2022.

This is a joint three year plan setting out what partners of the Children, Young People and Families Trust intend to do to improve outcomes for children and young people in Barnsley. It reflects our strong ambition and the strategy and steps being taken to support children, young people and families to achieve their potential.

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