How does the WSCB work?

The scope of WSCB's role includes safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in three broad areas of activity.

Activity that affects all children and aims to identify and prevent maltreatment, or impairment of health or development, and to ensure children grow up in circumstances consistent with safe and effective care. For example:
- mechanisms to identify abuse and neglect wherever they may occur;
- work to increase understanding of safeguarding children issues in the professional and wider community, promoting the message that safeguarding is everybody's responsibility;
- work to ensure that organisations working or in contact with children operate recruitment and HR practices that take account of the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children;
- monitoring the effectiveness of each organisation's implementation of their duties under the Children Act 2004 (Section 11) and Education Act 2002 (Sections 157 and 175)
- ensuring children know who they can contact when they have concerns about their own or other's safety and welfare;
- ensuring adults (including those who are harming children) know who to contact when they have concerns about a child or young person's welfare;
- supporting the development and implementation of the Common Assessment Framework in Wandsworth.

Second, proactive work to target particular groups. For example:
- developing and evaluating thresholds and procedures for work with children and families where a child is identified as 'in need' under the Children Act 1989 but where the child is not suffering or at risk of suffering significant harm;
- work to safeguard and promote the welfare of groups 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, children in custody or children with disabilities.

Third, responsive work to protect children who are suffering, or at risk of suffering harm or maltreatment, including:
- children who are physically, sexually, emotionally abused or neglected within families, including those harmed (or likely to be harmed) in the context of domestic violence, or substance or alcohol abuse;
- children abused outside families by adults known to them;
- children abused and/or neglected by paid or voluntary practitioners or carers, whether within institutional settings, or their own homes;
- children abused by strangers;
- children abused by other children or young people;
- young perpetrators of abuse;
- children abused through prostitution or sexual exploitation.

Where particular children are the subject of interventions, safeguarding work should aim to help them achieve all five outcomes to have optimum life chances. It is the role of WSCB to check the extent to which this has been achieved as part of the monitoring and evaluation role.

Whilst WSCB has a role in co-ordinating and ensuring the effectiveness of local individual and organisational work to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, it is not accountable for their operational work. Each Board partner retains their own existing lines of accountability for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children by their services. WSCB does not have the power to direct other organisations.

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Core Functions

The Core functions of WSCB are set out in regulation: WSCB has six main functions within the above areas of activity:

Policy, Practice and Procedures
Training, Communication and Awareness raising
Monitoring and Evaluation
Participation in Planning and Commissioning of services;
Serious Case Reviews; and
Child Death Reviews.

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Policy, Practice and Procedure

The WSCB has adopted the London Child Protection Procedures (revised September 2007. These cover the following WSCB responsibilities.

The development of policies and procedures for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in Wandsworth, including policies and procedures for action to be taken when there are concerns or allegations about a child's safety or welfare, including thresholds for intervention under the Children Act 1989 (Sections 17 and 47).

Arrangements for child protection enquiries under the Children Act 1989 (Section 47), including enquiries and local protocols for children/young people in specific circumstances such as children involved in prostitution or sexual exploitation, domestic violence, substance misuse, parental mental ill health, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, children missing from school, children who may have been trafficked and children living away from home.

Arrangements for investigating allegations concerning persons working with children, and for ensuring these are dealt with appropriately and within reasonable timescales.

The safety and welfare of privately fostered children. WSCB agencies must have procedures for notifying private fostering arrangements to the local authority. WSCB will review regular reports about the numbers of privately fostered children.

Co-operation by Wandsworth agencies with neighbouring children's services authorities (i.e. Local Authorities) and their Board partners to safeguard and promote the welfare of children who move between Wandsworth and other Local Authority areas, in line with the requirements of "Working Together" (DfES, DoH, Home Office, 2006). These procedures are to include geographically mobile families, such as asylum-seeking children, traveller children, children in migrant families, and children of families in temporary accommodation.

WSCB will also be responsible for local protocols in relation to:

the means for resolving professional differences of view in specific cases, for example, about whether a child protection conference should be convened;
attendance at child protection conferences, including minimum attendance;
attendance at family group meetings (also known as family group conferences);
involving children and family members in child protection conferences, the role of advocates and criteria for excluding parents in exceptional circumstances;
decision-making processes about the need for a child protection plan based on views of the agencies present at child protection conferences; and
handling complaints from families about the functioning of child protection conferences.

WSCB has responsibility for ensuring member agencies have effective and safe recruitment policies and procedures, based on national guidance, including checking the suitability of people applying for work with children and families.

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Training, Communication and Awareness raising

WSCB is committed to the provision of multi-agency training on safeguarding and promoting welfare that meets local needs. An annual programme of inter-agency, multi-disciplinary training is provided to ensure that persons who work with children or in services for adults who may be parents/carers are appropriately and adequately trained in safeguarding and child protection.

WSCB will decide the priorities for multi-agency safeguarding and child protection training in the local area and feed these into the local Workforce strategy. WSCB will monitor the quality of this training and will monitor that relevant training is provided by individual organisations to their relevant staff.

WSCB will undertake a programme for publicising its work, raising awareness in the wider community, including racial minority and faith communities, and among statutory and independent agencies, including employers, about how everybody can contribute to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. WSCB will also ensure service users' views are taken into account in planning and delivering safeguarding and promoting welfare services. Member agencies will do this by listening to and consulting with children, young people, their parents and carers.

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Monitoring and Evaluation

WSCB will 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 on ways to improve.

The Council's Safeguarding Standards Unit will ensure that relevant Management information is presented to the full Safeguarding Children Board in relation to the safeguarding activities of the Local Authority and Board Partners.

WSCB has a key role in achieving high standards in safeguarding and promoting welfare, not just through co-ordination, but also by evaluation and continuous improvement.

WSCB will require member agencies to self evaluate under an agreed framework of benchmarks or indicators and then share results with WSCB.

WSCB will co-ordinate the joint audits of case files to examine the involvement of different agencies, the quality of practice and lessons to be learned in terms of both multi-agency and multi-disciplinary practice.

WSCB will particularly focus on ensuring member agencies with duties under the Children Act 2004 (Section 11) and the Education Act 2002 (sections 157 and 175) are fulfilling their statutory obligations in relation to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.

WSCB will advise local authority and Board members about ways to improve services. WSCB might do this by making recommendations, helping organisations to develop new procedures, spreading best practice, bringing together expertise in different bodies, or supporting capacity building and training.

Where there is a concern that a WSCB partner or other body, agency, or in exceptional circumstances an individual, is not performing effectively in safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and WSCB is not convinced that any planned action to improve performance will be adequate, WSCB chair or a member or employee designated by the chair will discuss these concerns with the relevant individual and/or organisation.

If this fails to improve the situation, WSCB chair will inform them of the need to inform and involve the most senior individual(s) in the member organisation.

If this in turn fails to improve the situation, the chair will inform the relevant government inspectorate and / or department. Over the years, many serious case enquiries nationally have shown the importance of not ignoring difficulties with agency or practitioner performance, communication between practitioners or agencies, or disputes between agencies.

WSCB will as necessary and appropriate, feed into external inspection processes.

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Participation in Planning and Commissioning

WSCB will participate in the local planning and commissioning of children's services to ensure all members implement their duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in the delivery of all their services (Children Act 2004, Section 11 and Education Act 2002, Sections 157 and 175).

WSCB will contribute to the Children and Young People's Plan.

WSCB will undertake a monitoring role in relation to 'matters relating to the protection of children from harm' in relation to the sale and supply of alcohol and public entertainment (Licensing Act 2003).

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Serious Case Reviews

WSCB will undertake reviews of cases where a child has died or been seriously harmed in circumstances where abuse or neglect is known or suspected and advise on lessons that can be learned.

WSCB will always consider whether a serious case review should be conducted when a child:

sustains a potentially life-threatening injury or serious impairment of health and development;
has been subjected to particularly serious sexual abuse;
has sustained serious impairment of health or development through abuse or neglect;
their parent has been murdered and a homicide review is being initiated;
the child has been killed by a parent with a mental illness; or
the case gives rise to concerns about inter-agency working to protect children.

WSCB will develop and implement procedures (in line with the London Child Protection Procedures) for reviewing serious cases. WSCB will define organisational and individual roles for such reviews in accordance with "Working Together" (DfES, DoH, Home Office, 2006) and ensure organisations undertake those roles.

WSCB will define terms of reference and commission organisational and management "internal" reviews as appropriate. WSCB will arrange for an independent person to compile the overview report. WSCB will receive and endorse the report, agree recommendations and an action plan and will ensure the action plan is carried out and that learning is disseminated, lessons acted upon and improvements in local policy and practice monitored.

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Child Death Reviews

Since 1st April 2008 WSCB has the additional functions set out in regulations relating to reviewing all child deaths within the borough, and establishing a rapid response team for unexplained child deaths. WSCB has developed mechanisms for reviewing all unexpected child deaths in the Wandsworth area. These mechanisms and procedures are shared with all London local authorities via the London Child Protection Procedures.

The purpose of the review function is to collect and analyse information about the deaths of all children who were resident in Wandsworth, to identify any matters of general public health or safety concern and lessons from local unexpected child deaths (e.g. unusual patterns), whether these deaths are the result of abuse or some other cause (e.g. road accidents, unexpected health related deaths, etc.).

WSCB follows the procedures, detailed in the London Child Protection Procedures, for ensuring there is a co-ordinated response by all WSCB partners and other relevant persons to the unexpected death of a child.

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Wandsworth Safeguarding

Supporting and Protecting Todays Youth

How does the WSCB work?

Core Functions

Policy, Practice and Procedure

Training, Communication and Awareness raising

Monitoring and Evaluation

Participation in Planning and Commissioning

Serious Case Reviews

Child Death Reviews

Information for Children and Young People Information for Parents, Carers, Families and Friends Information for Professionals working with Children and Young People About Us Who are the WSCB? The role of WSCB How does the WSCB work? Sub-groups of WSCB Contact Us Policies and Procedures Resources Training		On this page: Core Functions \| Policy, Practice and Procedure \| Training, Communication and Awareness raising \| Monitoring and Evaluation \| Participation in Planning and Commissioning \| Serious Case Reviews \| Child Death Reviews How does the WSCB work? The scope of WSCB's role includes safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in three broad areas of activity. Activity that affects all children and aims to identify and prevent maltreatment, or impairment of health or development, and to ensure children grow up in circumstances consistent with safe and effective care. For example: mechanisms to identify abuse and neglect wherever they may occur; work to increase understanding of safeguarding children issues in the professional and wider community, promoting the message that safeguarding is everybody's responsibility; work to ensure that organisations working or in contact with children operate recruitment and HR practices that take account of the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children; monitoring the effectiveness of each organisation's implementation of their duties under the Children Act 2004 (Section 11) and Education Act 2002 (Sections 157 and 175) ensuring children know who they can contact when they have concerns about their own or other's safety and welfare; ensuring adults (including those who are harming children) know who to contact when they have concerns about a child or young person's welfare; supporting the development and implementation of the Common Assessment Framework in Wandsworth. Second, proactive work to target particular groups. For example: developing and evaluating thresholds and procedures for work with children and families where a child is identified as 'in need' under the Children Act 1989 but where the child is not suffering or at risk of suffering significant harm; work to safeguard and promote the welfare of groups 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, children in custody or children with disabilities. Third, responsive work to protect children who are suffering, or at risk of suffering harm or maltreatment, including: children who are physically, sexually, emotionally abused or neglected within families, including those harmed (or likely to be harmed) in the context of domestic violence, or substance or alcohol abuse; children abused outside families by adults known to them; children abused and/or neglected by paid or voluntary practitioners or carers, whether within institutional settings, or their own homes; children abused by strangers; children abused by other children or young people; young perpetrators of abuse; children abused through prostitution or sexual exploitation. Where particular children are the subject of interventions, safeguarding work should aim to help them achieve all five outcomes to have optimum life chances. It is the role of WSCB to check the extent to which this has been achieved as part of the monitoring and evaluation role. Whilst WSCB has a role in co-ordinating and ensuring the effectiveness of local individual and organisational work to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, it is not accountable for their operational work. Each Board partner retains their own existing lines of accountability for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children by their services. WSCB does not have the power to direct other organisations. Top of page Core Functions The Core functions of WSCB are set out in regulation: WSCB has six main functions within the above areas of activity: Policy, Practice and Procedures Training, Communication and Awareness raising Monitoring and Evaluation Participation in Planning and Commissioning of services; Serious Case Reviews; and Child Death Reviews. Top of page Policy, Practice and Procedure The WSCB has adopted the London Child Protection Procedures (revised September 2007. These cover the following WSCB responsibilities. The development of policies and procedures for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in Wandsworth, including policies and procedures for action to be taken when there are concerns or allegations about a child's safety or welfare, including thresholds for intervention under the Children Act 1989 (Sections 17 and 47). Arrangements for child protection enquiries under the Children Act 1989 (Section 47), including enquiries and local protocols for children/young people in specific circumstances such as children involved in prostitution or sexual exploitation, domestic violence, substance misuse, parental mental ill health, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, children missing from school, children who may have been trafficked and children living away from home. Arrangements for investigating allegations concerning persons working with children, and for ensuring these are dealt with appropriately and within reasonable timescales. The safety and welfare of privately fostered children. WSCB agencies must have procedures for notifying private fostering arrangements to the local authority. WSCB will review regular reports about the numbers of privately fostered children. Co-operation by Wandsworth agencies with neighbouring children's services authorities (i.e. Local Authorities) and their Board partners to safeguard and promote the welfare of children who move between Wandsworth and other Local Authority areas, in line with the requirements of "Working Together" (DfES, DoH, Home Office, 2006). These procedures are to include geographically mobile families, such as asylum-seeking children, traveller children, children in migrant families, and children of families in temporary accommodation. WSCB will also be responsible for local protocols in relation to: the means for resolving professional differences of view in specific cases, for example, about whether a child protection conference should be convened; attendance at child protection conferences, including minimum attendance; attendance at family group meetings (also known as family group conferences); involving children and family members in child protection conferences, the role of advocates and criteria for excluding parents in exceptional circumstances; decision-making processes about the need for a child protection plan based on views of the agencies present at child protection conferences; and handling complaints from families about the functioning of child protection conferences. WSCB has responsibility for ensuring member agencies have effective and safe recruitment policies and procedures, based on national guidance, including checking the suitability of people applying for work with children and families. Top of page Training, Communication and Awareness raising WSCB is committed to the provision of multi-agency training on safeguarding and promoting welfare that meets local needs. An annual programme of inter-agency, multi-disciplinary training is provided to ensure that persons who work with children or in services for adults who may be parents/carers are appropriately and adequately trained in safeguarding and child protection. WSCB will decide the priorities for multi-agency safeguarding and child protection training in the local area and feed these into the local Workforce strategy. WSCB will monitor the quality of this training and will monitor that relevant training is provided by individual organisations to their relevant staff. WSCB will undertake a programme for publicising its work, raising awareness in the wider community, including racial minority and faith communities, and among statutory and independent agencies, including employers, about how everybody can contribute to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. WSCB will also ensure service users' views are taken into account in planning and delivering safeguarding and promoting welfare services. Member agencies will do this by listening to and consulting with children, young people, their parents and carers. Top of page Monitoring and Evaluation WSCB will 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 on ways to improve. The Council's Safeguarding Standards Unit will ensure that relevant Management information is presented to the full Safeguarding Children Board in relation to the safeguarding activities of the Local Authority and Board Partners. WSCB has a key role in achieving high standards in safeguarding and promoting welfare, not just through co-ordination, but also by evaluation and continuous improvement. WSCB will require member agencies to self evaluate under an agreed framework of benchmarks or indicators and then share results with WSCB. WSCB will co-ordinate the joint audits of case files to examine the involvement of different agencies, the quality of practice and lessons to be learned in terms of both multi-agency and multi-disciplinary practice. WSCB will particularly focus on ensuring member agencies with duties under the Children Act 2004 (Section 11) and the Education Act 2002 (sections 157 and 175) are fulfilling their statutory obligations in relation to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. WSCB will advise local authority and Board members about ways to improve services. WSCB might do this by making recommendations, helping organisations to develop new procedures, spreading best practice, bringing together expertise in different bodies, or supporting capacity building and training. Where there is a concern that a WSCB partner or other body, agency, or in exceptional circumstances an individual, is not performing effectively in safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and WSCB is not convinced that any planned action to improve performance will be adequate, WSCB chair or a member or employee designated by the chair will discuss these concerns with the relevant individual and/or organisation. If this fails to improve the situation, WSCB chair will inform them of the need to inform and involve the most senior individual(s) in the member organisation. If this in turn fails to improve the situation, the chair will inform the relevant government inspectorate and / or department. Over the years, many serious case enquiries nationally have shown the importance of not ignoring difficulties with agency or practitioner performance, communication between practitioners or agencies, or disputes between agencies. WSCB will as necessary and appropriate, feed into external inspection processes. Top of page Participation in Planning and Commissioning WSCB will participate in the local planning and commissioning of children's services to ensure all members implement their duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in the delivery of all their services (Children Act 2004, Section 11 and Education Act 2002, Sections 157 and 175). WSCB will contribute to the Children and Young People's Plan. WSCB will undertake a monitoring role in relation to 'matters relating to the protection of children from harm' in relation to the sale and supply of alcohol and public entertainment (Licensing Act 2003). Top of page Serious Case Reviews WSCB will undertake reviews of cases where a child has died or been seriously harmed in circumstances where abuse or neglect is known or suspected and advise on lessons that can be learned. WSCB will always consider whether a serious case review should be conducted when a child: sustains a potentially life-threatening injury or serious impairment of health and development; has been subjected to particularly serious sexual abuse; has sustained serious impairment of health or development through abuse or neglect; their parent has been murdered and a homicide review is being initiated; the child has been killed by a parent with a mental illness; or the case gives rise to concerns about inter-agency working to protect children. WSCB will develop and implement procedures (in line with the London Child Protection Procedures) for reviewing serious cases. WSCB will define organisational and individual roles for such reviews in accordance with "Working Together" (DfES, DoH, Home Office, 2006) and ensure organisations undertake those roles. WSCB will define terms of reference and commission organisational and management "internal" reviews as appropriate. WSCB will arrange for an independent person to compile the overview report. WSCB will receive and endorse the report, agree recommendations and an action plan and will ensure the action plan is carried out and that learning is disseminated, lessons acted upon and improvements in local policy and practice monitored. Top of page Child Death Reviews Since 1st April 2008 WSCB has the additional functions set out in regulations relating to reviewing all child deaths within the borough, and establishing a rapid response team for unexplained child deaths. WSCB has developed mechanisms for reviewing all unexpected child deaths in the Wandsworth area. These mechanisms and procedures are shared with all London local authorities via the London Child Protection Procedures. The purpose of the review function is to collect and analyse information about the deaths of all children who were resident in Wandsworth, to identify any matters of general public health or safety concern and lessons from local unexpected child deaths (e.g. unusual patterns), whether these deaths are the result of abuse or some other cause (e.g. road accidents, unexpected health related deaths, etc.). WSCB follows the procedures, detailed in the London Child Protection Procedures, for ensuring there is a co-ordinated response by all WSCB partners and other relevant persons to the unexpected death of a child. Top of page