Welcome

Foreword from the Independent Chair

Thank you for giving your time to reading the first annual report of the Barnsley Safeguarding Children Partnership (BSCP). The BSCP replaced the Barnsley Safeguarding Children Board, on the 1 April 2019, as the partnership arrangement for ensuring that agencies work together to keep children and young people safe in Barnsley. You can read more about the governance arrangements on page 4. I am pleased to be able to say that one thing that has not changed is the shared commitment to improving practice and keeping children safe.

This report was prepared by the Partnership. I have reviewed the contents and, as the Independent Chair, I can say that the contents are an accurate report of the activities of the partnership and its subgroups.

The Partnership has played an important role in the Continuous Service Improvement Plan which takes a multi-agency approach to identify where action can be taken to improve the service that is provided to children and their families. The structured programme of audits of actual cases is a means by which the partnership takes a proactive approach to checking that cases are being managed in accordance with policies and that the correct decisions are being made. Initiatives like these contribute to the Partnership’s shared ambition to move from the current ‘Good’ Ofsted grading to ‘Outstanding’.

The report mentions the Local Safeguarding Practice Reviews (LCSPRs), formerly known as Serious Case Reviews, that were commissioned during the year. Due to the fact that they are connected to police investigations, they could not be published during the year but will be published in 2020/21. LCSPRs are another means by which the partnership demonstrates its willingness to learn lessons from cases.
BSCP can be proud of the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Training that it provides to staff working with vulnerable children and their families. It offers a wide range of courses that equip staff with the knowledge and skills they need to support children. It includes training for the Designated Safeguarding Leads in schools, these are teachers who have a particular role in respect of safeguarding children. The Partnership recognises the valuable role that schools play in identifying and working with children at risk.

Work has commenced with the Barnsley Safeguarding Adults Board to review the way that Young People transition into adulthood. For the vast majority, the necessary support and guidance is available to them from their friends and families. However, for some young people, it can be a very challenging time that can impact on their future life chances. A multi-agency audit gave very positive feedback on the support given to children with disabilities and complex health needs but it is accepted that there will be benefit in reviewing the support available to the wider group of young people. We will report on the progress made in next year’s report.

This report covers the period to the 31 March 2020 which is shortly after the lockdown was introduced in response to the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic. It is appropriate that details of how Safeguarding was managed during the COVID-19 crisis should feature more strongly in the next annual report. However, it is important to me to record that I saw that agencies did respond with a positive ‘can do’ attitude to the challenges faced and were determined to keep vulnerable children at the front of their thinking.
Members of the public play an important role in being the eyes in the community that can report any concerns regarding the safety and welfare of any child. Details of how to report any concerns you may have about a child are shown on page 18. Please remember, safeguarding is Everyone’s Business.

Bob Dyson QPM,DL
Independent Chair - Barnsley Safeguarding Children Partnership

The role of the Barnsley Safeguarding Children Partnership

Ensure that safeguarding children and young people is at the centre of everything we do Hold Partnership members to account – are we/they doing enough to keep children and young people safe?
Collect and share information about how well we are keeping children and young people safe and what more we could do.

We have created a ‘Plan on a Page’ which sets out:

• The Responsibilities of the Barnsley Safeguarding Children Partnership
• The Role of the Barnsley Safeguarding Children Partnership
• The Structure of the Barnsley Safeguarding Children Partnership It also outlines our Strategic Priorities

Strategic Priority 1 Sharing and Engaging

• The Partnership will continue to monitor service improvement through the Continuous Service Improvement Plan and a schedule of regular audit activity.
• The Partnership will continue to seek the views of children and young people.
• Safeguarding Awareness Week provides an opportunity for the partnership and community to come together with the message “Safeguarding is Everybody’s Business“

Strategic Priority 2 Helping, Empowering, Supporting

• Ensure the availability of quality multi-agency child protection training and the provision of quality safeguarding services.
• Supporting children and young people to have a voice.
• Help shape services and support best practice via the Designated Safeguarding Leads and other Forums.
• Ensure accessibility of information via the website and other resources.

Strategic Priority 3 Prevention

The synergy obtained from strong partnership working remains an essential element of effective safeguarding.
The continuing effectiveness of the work of the Partnership will continue to be subject to scrutiny
Ensure partners are kept up to date with emerging themes and key messages Support learning and development through Local Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews and Lessons Learned.

Strategic Priority 4 Accountability

• Continue to ensure that the thresholds are understood and correctly applied by partner agency staff and that effective use is made of the escalation process in cases where there are concerns about the decision making.
• The Partnership will continue to strengthen and evidence its own effectiveness through rigorous challenge, participation and engagement.

This is what we will do

• Let people know how to get help or report harm.
• Design and deliver effective training for all staff and volunteers.
• Provide children and young people and their families who have been harmed with support and information.
• Work across the Partnership understand and address the impact  of Coronavirus in communities to identify and respond to Hidden Harm for children
• Evaluate children and young people’s views of safeguarding and demonstrate if we have helped them to reduce risk
• Carry out Local Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews and Lessons Learned Reviews to improve the way we keep children safe.
• Continue to provide Performance Information to the Board to assure the Board that we are working together to prevent harm.
• Regularly challenge processes and performance at Board level to show all organisations are being held to account for the safety of children in Barnsley.
• Strengthen the role of independent scrutiny of Partnership Arrangements through a Peer Review.
• Identify any gaps for young people moving from children’s to adult services that may leave them at risk of harm.
• Ensure synergy and a joint response to shared themes such as Contextual Safeguarding including CSE and Child Exploitation / Modern Day Slavery / Harmful sexual behaviour /Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)/ Honour Based Violence /Forced Marriage (FM) and Prevent.

Our partners

We also have a very close working relationship with the schools, academies and colleges in Barnsley and representation from both senior and junior schools on the BSCP and its sub-groups.

• Barnsley College
• Barnardo's
• Barnsley Hospital
• Barnsley Safeguarding Adults Board
• Berneslai Homes
• Cafcass
• Healthwatch Barnsley
• NHS England
• NHS South West Yorkshire Partnership
• NHS Barnsley Clinical commissioning group
• South Yorkshire Community Rehabilitation Company
• South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue
• South Yorkshire Police
• National Probation Service

BSCP governance arrangements

Barnsley Safeguarding Children Partnership (BSCP) published its arrangements to meet the guidance contained in Working Together 2018 on 1st April 2019. We went live as the BSCP 1st April 2019. Find out more about the BSCP governance arrangements.

Working Together 2018 changes the governance arrangements that existed under earlier versions of Working Together and reflects The Children and Social Work Act 2017 which received Royal Assent in April 2017. Section 30 of the Act removes the requirement for local areas to have Local Safeguarding Children Boards. Sections 16 – 23 introduce a duty on 3 key partners (Local Authorities, Police and Clinical Commissioning Groups) to make arrangements with other partners as locally determined to work together in a local area to protect and safeguard children.

Under our previous arrangements, the Local Authority had the responsibility for safeguarding partnership arrangements. That has now been extended to include the Police, and the Clinical Commissioning Group on behalf of health. The three Safeguarding Partners have introduced regular scheduled meetings, chaired in rotation by each of the three Safeguarding Partners, where they meet with the Independent Chair to discuss such issues as the local priorities, the structure and functioning of the Partnership, the agenda of forthcoming Partnership meetings, the budget and any cases subject of Local Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews. This has strengthened the oversight of the Partnership.

Barnsley recognises and welcomes the added value that Independent Scrutiny brings to ensuring that local arrangements are effective. Independent Scrutiny is a strong feature in Working Together 2018.

The Barnsley Safeguarding Children Partnership will have the following aspects of Independent Scrutiny:

• It will retain the services of an Independent Chair. It is considered that there is benefit in having Partnership meetings chaired by an individual who is not the representative of any single agency and is able to bring their experience of acting as a critical friend, who encourages appropriate challenge, and plays an important role in holding agencies to account. The role is developing to include more aspects of scrutiny of arrangements.
• It will have an annual programme of independent case file audits. This will take the form of both single agency and multi-agency audits targeted at specific issues, for example Neglect and Child Sexual Exploitation, which will review cases against agreed criteria to independently assess if contact with children and families was in accordance with policies and procedures and that it was appropriate to the circumstances thereby producing the right outcomes.
• The BSCP commits to an active involvement in the Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council Scrutiny arrangements. This Annual Report will be the subject of a BMBC Scrutiny Committee meeting.
• The BSCP is committed to involving children and young people in having an active role in local arrangements. It works closely with the Children’s Trust Executive Group to consult with children and young people on the formulation of plans and strategies. The BSCP holds its meetings in Secondary Schools when practical and welcomes observers from the schools to the meetings. After the meetings, members of the BSCP meet with a focus group of students to gain a better understanding of what it is like to be a young person growing up in Barnsley and what current safeguarding issues affect their daily lives.
• Local elected members attend the BSCP as part of ensuring that local people are involved and have a voice.
• The BSCP commissions Independent Authors to conduct Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews inappropriate cases that meet the criteria set out in WTG 2018.
• The Partnership takes part in Peer Reviews when appropriate.

Governance structure

• Independent Chair: Bob Dyson

Governance Group Meeting (With Effect From 1st April 2020) between  Independent Chair And Three Safeguarding Partners Barnsley CCG, Barnsley Council and South Yorkshire Police.

• Barnsley Safeguarding Children Partnership
• Performance Audit And Quality Assurance Sub Group - Barnsley Council
• Child Exploitation Strategy Group - South Yorkshire Police
• Policy, Procedures And Workforce Practice And Development - Barnsley CCG and Barnsley Council
• Child Death Overview Panel – Barnsley Council Public Health
• Neglect Sub-Group - Barnsley Council
• Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review Sub-Group - Independent Chair
• Disability Sub-Group - Barnsley Council

The voice of the child

In Barnsley, we try to give every opportunity for the voice of children, young people and families to be heard. When possible, the Partnership Meeting is held, at least once or twice a year in a school, academy or college and afterwards, the young people engage with members of the Partnership to speak about what life is like for them living in Barnsley.

During 2019 to  2020 we had children from Holy Trinity give presentations at the Safeguarding Awareness Week Launch Event, we visited Outwood Academy Shafton and held the BSCP Meeting there in November and spoke to some of their young people afterwards and we invited children from Greenacre Special School to the BSCP Meeting at Barnsley Town Hall in January to give a presentation on what it means to have Special Needs, attend a Special School and what it means to be lonely. At the Launch Event for Safeguarding Awareness Week 2019, four young people from Holy Trinity School spoke about ‘Online Safety’ and what it means to them. Here are some extracts from what the young people said. The full transcripts can be read on the BSCP website.

Emily said:

We know that the internet has been a wonderful thing but it is not without it’s risks. We all know how to have fun online but not everyone knows how to keep themselves safe or how to report when things go wrong.

The internet can be a scary place and a lot of children and young people think that nothing can happen to them. Young people tend to be more careful in the real world than in the online world.

They wouldn’t go off with a stranger in the real world but they sometimes meet someone in person who they have only got to know online and often people lie about their age and gender. They put fake profiles on the internet and photos that they have cut and pasted from modelling sites to look appealing.

Young people often say that they are older than they are to look good and feel grown up but they are attracting older people to talk to without thinking.

Millie said:

Reporting is important. Children and young people can report to an adult that they trust at home or in School. There are organisations like Child-line, the NSPCC and CEOP for young people to report to. Parents and Carers can get information from the Parent Zone and CEOP as well as the Police

In 2016/17, CEOP received 40,000 reports of offences against children, up 76.4% on the previous year. 1,896 children and young people were safeguarded or saved. Only 4.5% of all reports to CEOP ended in a conclusion or conviction.

Over the past two years, CEOP have invested in new high-tech equipment to deal with the more sophisticated side of the internet, like underground paedophile gangs working together across the world in bringing misery for thousands of children and young people. CEOP also track and monitor the high-risk offenders including those who travel the world as child sex tourists, especially in poorer countries where children and their families have no choice. CEOP have reached out to millions of Children and Young People through their ‘Think u know’ campaign in Schools across the UK.

Schools in Barnsley offer internet safety sessions for Parents and Carers as well as for Pupils and Students. We would like to encourage any Child or Young person to report any concerns to a grownup who they can trust like a Parent, Safeguarding worker at School, Child-line, the NSPCC or the local Police and CEOP if necessary.

We wish that, as we said earlier, Parents and Carers would attend Internet Awareness and Safety sessions in order to realise the dangers that their children face on a regular basis. Safeguarding is everyone's business.

Safeguarding Awareness Week

The Barnsley Care4us Council were also represented at the Safeguarding Awareness week Launch and a specially commissioned video was shared with the delegates at the Launch Event. 

The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel

Safeguarding Children From Risk of Criminal Exploitation – March 2020 (It was hard to escape)

In March 2020 the National Panel published the findings of its first National Review into Child Criminal Exploitation.

The review sets out recommendations and findings for government and local safeguarding partners to protect children at risk of criminal exploitation. It is a qualitative study of 21 cases from 17 local areas regarding children who died or experienced serious harm where criminal exploitation was a factor.

In Barnsley we briefed our safeguarding partnership on the findings of the report and used those findings to further inform our training, particularly around Child Criminal Exploitation and Contextual Safeguarding. We bench-marked our Child Exploitation Strategy against the report to ensure that we are meeting all of the recommendations.

In October 2019 The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel announced the second National Review would be into:

SUDI in Families Where Children are Considered at Risk of Harm

The Barnsley Safeguarding Children Partnership have a particular interest in both the above reviews, the first, already published and informing our training and planning around Child Criminal Exploitation and the second around Sudden Unexplained Death of an Infant, because we have a number of incidents in the region that have prompted us to have a ‘Safe Sleep’ campaign, which will also be a particular focus of Safeguarding Awareness Week 2020. Safe sleeping remains an area of concern and focus of the partnership.

Multi-Agency Safeguarding Training

During 2019 – 20 we delivered directly or facilitated 124 training courses to a total of 2850 delegates. This is accepted regionally as being by far the most comprehensive child safeguarding training programme on offer.

Local Safeguarding Children Practise Review (LSPCR)

Sub Committee - Independent Chair

The LSCPR subcommittee is chaired by the Independent Chair of the BSCP and has the responsibility for overseeing the commissioning of Safeguarding Children Practice Reviews for cases that meet the criteria set out in Chapter 4 of Working Together 2018. It also manages the action plans from completed reviews to ensure that all learning points are addressed in order to improve our approach to safeguarding children in Barnsley.

Safeguarding Children Practice Reviews replaced Serious Case Reviews (SCR) and this subcommittee was known as the SCR subcommittee under the previous arrangements for partnership working to safeguard children.

There is one outstanding SCR, Child T, from those previous arrangements. The SCR report cannot be published at this time due to an ongoing police investigation. It is anticipated that the report will be published during the current year 2020/2021.

During 2019/2020, Rapid Review Meetings were held on two occasions to consider if individual cases met the criteria for an LSCPR. As a consequence of those meetings the decision was taken to commission an LSCPR in both cases, Child U and Child V. Neither of those reports were ready to be published during 2019/2020 and both are the subject of police investigations. It is anticipated that they will be published during 2020/2021.

There was one Learning the Lessons Review, ‘Child S’ completed that was commissioned in September 2018 and completed during 2019/2020. This relates to a case that did not meet the criteria for an SCR but in which it was considered that there was learning to be gained by completing a Learning the Lessons Review. The review was completed by an experienced Independent Author. Whilst this review is not subject of publication, the associated action plan is being implemented.

Child Death Overview Panel

Chair - Barnsley Council Public Health

The Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP) is intended to help Barnsley’s Local Safeguarding Partnership to develop a better understanding of how and why children die, and to inform further prevention work. It is the role of the CDOP to look at all deaths of children and young people in Barnsley, whatever the reason, to see if there is anything that we can learn from them and anything that might help us avoid such deaths happening in the future.

What we did

• Four CDOP meetings were held in 2019/20 during which 16 deaths were reviewed by panel, to see if there were actions that could be taken to prevent other deaths , three of which were deaths which occurred during that year.
• In 2019/20 14 deaths occurred; the majority (57%) of deaths in under 18 year olds were aged under 1 year of age and 14% occurred within the first four weeks of life (neonatal period)
• In 2019/20 Child Death Review partners reviewed Child Death arrangements across the Borough and strengthen ed the functions of the CDOP management and administration.

CDOP has supported actions taken in 2019/20 to help reduce risk factors:

• Reviewed road safety support to children and young people
• Asthma awareness raising. Ongoing work to develop paediatric individual care plans for asthma and other conditions to share with health care professional and others involved in care of a child as needed. ‘My Health Passport’ drafted.
• Introduced a South Yorkshire wide safe sleeping steering group which is working to develop a consistent approach to communicating key messages about safe sleeping and look to develop a regional campaign
• South Yorkshire suicide themed panel held to ensure all areas have a response and contagion plan in place and review and check what support services are available across all SY areas.
• We have reviewed how we work and clearly defined what each agencies role in CDOP is. We have implemented the use of eCDOP as a primary recording system allowing all agencies

Child Death Overview Panel

Chair - Barnsley Council Public Health

Revised CDOP guidance states that the geographical and population ‘footprint’ of child death review partners should be locally agreed and should cover a child population such that they typically review at least 60 child deaths per year. Reviewing at least 60 deaths each year will better enable thematic learning in order to identify potential safeguarding or local health issues that could be modified in order to protect children from harm and, ultimately, save lives. To enable the new statutory requirements to be met the four areas across SY have come together to strengthen the pre existing regional CDOP arrangements. Together we procured a new electronic CDOP system to allow collation of data at a Local Authority and South Yorkshire level. This allows for greater analysis and reporting of data to enable further examination, trends and learning to be gained, in order to prevent future child deaths.

Themed discussions have been held to review deaths from a particular cause, or group of causes, to provide an opportunity for greater understanding and shared learning. This year the two themes have been safe sleep and suicide.

What we will do - key recommendations for further action 2020/21:

• Develop and agree a ‘Keyworker’ role that ensures families are given a single, named point of contact. This person will usually be a healthcare professional and will act as a single point of contact for the bereaved family, who they can turn to for information on the child death review process, and who can signpost them to sources of support.
• Develop and finalise ‘My Health Passport’.
• Due to the current crisis, we had to quickly develop local guidance to ensure the child death process including the rapid response work could continue safely.
• In addition to the normal scrutiny of deaths, we are also now looking for any COVID-19 or related factors. Thankfully at the present time of reporting, we have not seen any COVID related deaths for children. However, we are ensuring that testing has taken place where deaths have occurred when appropriate.
• Work has continued to ensure we do not fall behind in the reviewing of deaths by CDOP and meetings and processes have continued (albeit virtually).

Child Exploitation Strategy Group

Chair - South Yorkshire Police

The Child Exploitation (CE) Strategy Group is responsible to the Safeguarding Children Partnership for overview of inter-agency working in all areas of CE including Contextual Safeguarding and County Lines. The Strategy Group is also responsible for the development and implementation of the Safeguarding Children Partnership CE Strategy and Work Plan.

What we did

In 2019 - 20 we carried out three multi-agency audits so that we are able to assure the Partnership that our partners are fully aware of the risks facing our children and young people from those wishing to try and harm them through CE. This includes on-line grooming specifically and on-line safety in the broader sense and pressures they may face from their peers in engaging in risk taking behaviours that might further expose them to harm.

As well as making sure the BSCP CE Strategy and Work Plan is kept up to date, the CE Strategy Group received regular reports and updates from the Multiple Vulnerabilities and Contextual Abuse Panel, which considers some of our most at risk children and young people and reports from the Missing Panel, that meets regularly to consider children and young people who go missing from home, the reasons why they go missing and what we can do to try and keep them safe.

What we will do

In 2020/21 we will continue to conduct regular audits of cases where children and young people have been exposed to or at risk of CE. We will continue to assess the local risks that our children and young people are facing, including Harmful Sexual Behaviour and we will make sure all our partners and people that work for them are aware of what CE is and for them to be constantly vigilant so that we can keep our children and young people as safe as possible.

Policy, procedure, workforce practice and development

Joint Chair - Barnsley CCG and Barnsley Council

We aim to ensure we have a workforce that is supported to safeguard children in Barnsley. We strive to ensure staff are well supported and feel confident and competent to undertake their safeguarding role. This is achieved through the provision of a comprehensive training offer and assurance that staff are attending relevant training and achieving required competency. Additionally, that this is underpinned by clear, comprehensive policies which are readily available for all staff to access. Moreover, that staff have access to safeguarding supervision to support them and the caseloads they manage.

The role of the PPWPD is to ensure the above structures are in place and maintain oversight of these to ensure they remain relevant and we are aware of emerging issues and learning

What we did

• Continued to offer a comprehensive training offer.
• Multi-Agency Safeguarding Training - During 2019 – 20 we delivered directly or facilitated 124 training courses to a total of 2850 delegates. This is accepted regionally as being by far the most comprehensive child safeguarding training programme on offer.
• Continued to revise and add to our training offer in response to need and through learning from Local and national Reviews, Best Practice, Research or due to emerging issues or themes. Reviewed all current policies and procedures to ensure they remain relevant and are up-to-date and established a rolling Tracker for review of policies
• Continued to quality assure the training programme offered Continued to develop a successful programme of learning for safeguarding leads
• Generated a substantial amount of income to reinvest in the training offer
• Organised several successful conferences/masterclasses Looked at how we can evaluate the impact of training and completed several surveys to determine this.
• On behalf of the BSCP the Barnsley Safeguarding Children multi-agency Training Programme represents one of the most comprehensive safeguarding training offers in the country with over 100 training courses, conferences and seminars on offer.

What we will do

In 2020 – 21 we continue to look to provide the same comprehensive training programme in a virtual format until we can return to face to face training. We will continue to keep abreast of what is happening locally and nationally in general and in relation to the impact of COVID-19 and ensure our policies and training reflect and address any gaps.

Safeguarding children with a disability

Safeguarding children with a disability or complex health needs subcommittee chair - Barnsley Council

• One of the more vulnerable groups in society is those who either have a disability and/or complex health needs.
• The partnership considers it very important that it continues to have oversight of this group of children and young people and that the needs of this vulnerable group are being met.
• The role of the Safeguarding Children with Disabilities or Complex Health Needs subcommittee is to make sure that partners are working together to ensure the support needed is available for this group of vulnerable children and young people and to work alongside colleagues and partners of the Adult Safeguarding Board to ensure appropriate arrangements are in place for when these young people transition into adulthood, particularly with regard to relevant training.

What we did

We carried out quarterly themed audits to give the Safeguarding Children Partnership assurance that children with disabilities and or complex health needs receive the support they need and that appropriate plans are in place to keep them safe. We worked with colleagues across the partnership to ensure that transition protocols are in place to support children and young people when they transition from receiving help and support from children’s services to accessing help and support from adult services

What we will do

• We will continue to work alongside partners in both children’s and adult services to ensure colleagues are aware of their responsibilities towards this group of children and young people and that services are available that meet their assessed needs.
• Listen to the voice of children and young people with SEND issues and support partners, to work collaboratively to improve services for children with special educational needs and disabilities
• Develop co-production work with young people to tackle bullying, loneliness and exclusion issues that young people have told us they want to be addressed
• Work with education settings in Barnsley, young people and families to improve the daily experience of all children with complex needs and disabilities.

Performance Audit and Quality Assurance Sub-Group

Chair - Barnsley Council

On behalf of the Partnership, we carry out regular checks of individual agencies safeguarding practice. We oversee and scrutinise key, cross cutting performance indicators. We secure quality assurance through findings from single and multi agency audits and use this information to improve practice across the partnership.

What we did

• Responsible to the Partnership for overseeing the Quarterly Performance Management Report and Quarterly Themed Audit Schedule.
• Co-ordinate single agency safeguarding Section 11 self-assessment audits and analysis, monitoring agency and action plans by reviewing summary data and determining response in respect of non-compliance and oversee the Section 175 and 157 audit process relating to schools and outcomes.
• In 2019 – 20 we undertook three Multi Agency Themed Audits and ongoing monitoring of Action Plans:
• In April 2019 we carried out an audit to assess the Quality and Timeliness of Section 47 Assessments
• In October 2019 we carried out an audit into Children who are Electively Home Educated to assess the quality of plans and support in place to keep them safe
• In March 2020 we carried out an audit into Children on a S.17 or S.47 for the Category of (Familial) Sexual Abuse

What we will do

In 2020 – 21 we will continue to carry out multi-agency audits to give the Board assurance that partners are doing everything they can to keep children and young people safe in Barnsley. We will continue to oversee multi-agency audits that test quality delivered by the BSCP Sub Groups. We will continue to scrutinise cross cutting performance indicators and measures, to secure evidence that children in Barnsley are safeguarded.

Neglect subgroup

Chair - Barnsley Council

The Neglect Sub Group was established in 2017 to help tackle Neglect. We recognise that neglect is a serious problem in Barnsley. The Neglect Strategy was launched and guidance and documents developed to support professionals and families in recognising neglect and what can be done to help sort the problem out.

What we did

There has been a significant reduction of the impact and prevalence of neglect in Barnsley through launching this initiative.

Everyone’s awareness has been raised to recognise the signs, symptoms and impact of neglect for children and young people 0-18 years.

Neglect is now identified at a much earlier stage and responded to consistently, confidently and appropriately at the right threshold of need with a timely response The strategy developed for referral pathways and management of neglect cases in Barnsley minimises the impact of neglect upon children and young people

Consistent multi-agency practice and approaches to neglect through training and development have been embedded and the children’s workforce will continue to strive to identify and mitigate the impact of neglect at the earliest opportunity

We have produced documents to help people understand and recognise Neglect, including a guide for parents, young people and professionals called ‘Neglect Matters’

What we will do

The BSCP will continue to work with partners, including the delivery of the Graded Care Profile training, to help them recognise neglect; support families in deciding how best to tackle neglect and improve outcomes for children, young people and families. The BSCP is confident that neglect is now firmly on everyone’s radar and the neglect strategy embedded in working practice and that the Neglect sub group can be retired with further work being conducted as ‘business as usual’

The safeguarding landscape in Barnsley

Although the figure fluctuates slightly for a number of reasons, there are c. 52,000 0 -18 year old children and young people living in Barnsley.

There are also c. 2,890 children receiving support through early help on an Early Help Assessment.

What to do if you're worried about a child

If the child is in danger call the police on 999 or (01142) 202020.

If you're concerned about a child, but they're not in immediate danger, it's still important to share the information with us as soon as possible.

If your call is not urgent contact the Assessment Service on (01226) 772423. Our offices are open between Monday and Friday from 9am to 5pm.

Out of hours emergencies

If you want to report your concern urgently and our offices are closed you can contact our Emergency Duty Team on 01226 787789. They work on weekends and bank holidays and deal with issues that can't wait until usual office opening hours.

Find out more information about who to contact if you're worried about a child.

Financial position

Summary

It can be seen from this report of activity that 2019-20 was a busy year for the newly formed BSCP and that this work evidences the

strong partnership arrangements across all agencies and their continued combined efforts to safeguard children and young people in Barnsley helping them achieve the best outcomes in their lives. This remains our imperative going forward in 2020-21, acknowledging the challenging events of the global pandemic of Covid-19 and the impact on children and families. All agencies are determined to keep safeguarding children at the forefront of their work and the Partnership operates to support them in their endeavours and to share learning and best practice to continually improve services.

During 2020-21 the Partnership will drive forward with the strategic priorities and continue with the work of the subgroups, whilst engaging with and listening to the voice of children and young people to reflect their priorities for keeping them safe from harm. We will learn from Practice Reviews, locally and nationally and ensure that learning is shared widely to improve practice and procedures where required. We will examine the quality of safeguarding work across the Partnership through our audits and information gathering and work together to address issues and to identify gaps in service provision for children. We will develop our work to support the most vulnerable children and, those with complex needs and disabilities to achieve a good transition into adulthood and work with partners to provide the right help and support where it is needed.

The Partnership will remain vigilant with regard to emerging safeguarding issues as they affect children and young people, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic situation and will respond to ensure that all agencies come together and are held to account to meet their safeguarding responsibilities.