Scottish Child Protection policy – 'It’s Everybody’s Job to See I’m All Right’ - says that we all have something that we can contribute. Traditionally, the call used to be for ‘experts’ to resolve or avoid the systemic problems and critical incidents that continue to afflict child protection and welfare. Latterly, thinking has begun to develop that suggests that we all have some experience that others might find useful. This complementary approach is underpinned by the widely-known ‘Community of Practice’ concept. http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/slf/previousconferences/2007/seminars/developingascottishcommunityofpracticeforchildprotection.asp

1. A Scottish Community of
Practice for Child Protection
Peter Ashe and Bridget Rothwell
at the Scottish Learning Festival
September 2007
© Crown Copyright

2. Some assumptions?
Houston Community Nursery • Have an active role re CP at your
SFEU institution?
Great Western Pre- School • Perhaps asked to get a handle on
SWIIS Foster Care Scotland how your institution ‘proofs’ its
Argyll training policy and practice re CP?
Kinnoull Primary School
• Know about ‘Safe and Well’?
The Founders Education Society
Carleton Nursery
Dundee City Council Social Work
Department
Dundee Science Centre
Museum of Lead Mining
Ruchill Primary School
PGDE @ University of Glasgow
John Wheatley College
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3. Today’s Agenda
• Background (well, OK, history)
• ‘Safe and Well’
• A modest Prospectus
– Evidence-base for practice
– Training and support
– Networks and support
Our Learning Intentions!
• For you: interest you enough to consider joining in;
• For us: acquire some guidance on who to talk to
next.
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4. It’s everyone’s
job… (2000)
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5. Key Findings of ‘It’s everyone’s job’
• Child protection a ‘low priority’
• Lack of accountability right through
the organisations to the most senior
level
• Under-funding and under-staffing
• Repeated failures of basic
professional practice
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6. The Child Protection Reform Programme (CPRP)
Summary history
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7. Today’s CPRP Context
Role implications for
– School CP co-ordinator?
– Head Teacher &
managers?
– Whole school staff?
– Child Protection in
Education Manager
(CPEM)?
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/08/0191408/14093
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8. School CP Co-ordinator
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9. “The qualities required of the CP Co-ordinator are:
• Accessibility and readiness to listen
• Empathy with children and young people
• Clear thinking and ability to be objective
• Good record keeping and report writing skills
• Prepared to seek advice and draw on
others’ experience
• Familiar with the roles of other
professionals who work with children and
young people and who are concerned with child
protection
• Determination”
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10. Some role implications
E.g. “Information:
• Help all staff to maintain an
awareness of child protection issues and
to know when and how to refer to the CP
Co-ordinator
• Ensure school-based information on
care and welfare and child protection
issues is up to date and easy to find
• Provide advice”…re CP
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11. Head Teacher and Senior Managers
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12. Expectations include…
“Policies and development planning:
• …Undertake strategic development of
relationships with partner agencies in order
to reach compatible policies and procedures on
care and welfare and child protection
• Ensure that contracts with service providers
and other services used by the school
reflect appropriate consideration of care and
welfare and child protection”…
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13. More expectations…
“Staff preparation and support:
• Ensure training for all staff on child
protection is given appropriate priority
• Ensure recruitment and induction
procedures give due regard to child
protection
• Ensure support and de-briefing for
staff involved in child protection cases”
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14. Whole school team
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15. “Every school should ensure that all staff are:
• aware of their role in helping to keep children and young people safe
• and well trained in seeing signs that children and young people need support, are
at risk, are suffering neglect or being abused
• understand their responsibility to explain to children and young people that they
must pass on information when they believe children and young people are at risk of
harm
• know who to contact when they have concerns or hear allegations
• feel supported to contribute to the school’s role in taking action or supporting
children and young people following identification of concerns
• helped to ensure their work is properly carried out in ways that prevent harm to
children and young people and maintain the safety and wellbeing of all involved”
[and] Key staff providing personal support for children and young people
• feel confident to ask for help themselves, to ensure capacity for supporting
children and young people when required
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16. CP in Education Manager (CPEM)
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17. Expectations include:
• E.g. Support and advice
– guide and advise staff and school CP Co-ordinators on
aspects of their day-to-day work in which care and welfare and
child protection issues need to be considered
– have the capacity to discuss in detail with staff in schools
and services any complex concerns which require
consideration and senior involvement
• E.g. Staff development
– staff in key roles for child protection and personal support are
enabled to network and share good practice
– staff in key roles in child protection and personal support are
enabled to learn from practice in Scotland and other
countries
– education authority staff have opportunities for multi-
agency training and networking
© Crown Copyright

18. Potential for shared language
Possible kinds of abuse & neglect: Vulnerabilities & signs:
– Physical injury caused by others – Domestic abuse
– Physically punished by blows to the head, shaken, or – Drugs
punished using an implement
– Sexual abuse or organised abuse such as prostitution or – Alcohol
ritual abuse – Mental illness
– Failure to thrive, even though they have no specific medical – Difficult and non cooperative parents/carers
condition
– Cultural/ethnicity
– Emotional abuse
– Physical neglect – Disability - i.e. learning difficulties and complex needs and
– Physical or emotional abuse such as a parent/carer physical
pretending the child or young person has a medical or other – Neglect
condition or causing the child or young person to have one
– Faltering growth (a.k.a. failure to thrive)
– Being emotionally or physically affected by parental drug or
alcohol abuse – Sexual abuse
– Racial abuse – Peer abusing/sibling abuse
– Forced to accept cultural practices such as circumcision or – Learning disabled parents
forced marriage
– Fabricated or Induced Illness. (FII) (previously Factitious or
When children’s and young people’s own behaviour puts Induced Illness)
them at risk, or when their behaviour may be a response to – Poor parenting capacity and association with outcomes for
the trauma of abuse or neglect, children
– inappropriate use of computers
– Young carers
– ill-judged relationships
– inappropriate social behaviour such as bullying – Emotional abuse
– misuse of drugs or alcohol – Cases where things have gone wrong
– sexually explicit language or behaviour
– Over chastisement
– eating disorders
– self-harming – Internet related abuse
– running away
© Crown Copyright

19. Sometimes, conversations need to develop…
…and cross boundaries
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20. Good things beginning to happen
• CPCs development, a national network
– Lead officers
– Training leads
• Joint Inspections
• Safe and Well guidance beginning to percolate
into educational settings
• Serious Case Review guidance & practice
• SCCPN start-up
• Training Framework start-up
© Crown Copyright

21. Prospectus for Practice Network Support
Multi-
Agency
Resource
Scottish Child Service
Care and
Protection National
Network Training
Framework
© Crown Copyright

22. Scottish Child Care and Protection Network (SCCPN)
Objectives:
• disseminate policy and practice messages from existing national and international
evidence
• facilitate a coordinated approach to the evaluation of practice and policy
developments
• establish research partnerships to undertake new research to an international
standard. Identification of research priorities
RESEARCH Coordination of research
Research utilisation
Harmonisation of methodology
NETWORK HUB EVALUATION Coordination across Scotland
Coordination of outcome measures
Collation of literature
DISSEMINATION Application to Scottish Context
Dissemination of practice messages
© Crown Copyright

23. Half a sec, how to view knowledge and learning?
• Knowledge as:
– Assets
• Chunked down into
constituent parts
– But also relationships
(Communities of Practice)
• Sources as well as
recipients of knowledge
• Learning:
– The value of stories
– The stickiness of messages
Cross, J. (2007)
© Crown Copyright

24. Model for working collaboratively
Knowledge
creation
Knowledge Researchers
dissemination & Knowledge
and diffusion Practitioners validation
Knowledge
adoption
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25. National Training Strategy
Original Remit for CPSTG (child protection
strategic training group)
– Delivery of a multidisciplinary training framework –
building on the work already developed by the SWSI
(Social Work Services Inspectorate) Child Protection
Training Group
– Develop a national inter-disciplinary suite of training
materials on child protection to underpin this
[And later
– Rec 27 Western Isles report – multi agency national
resource]
© Crown Copyright

26. Training Framework overall structure
Levels
Rich Case examples Specialist 4
& advanced
Investigation &
assessment
Prevention & 3
recovery
Foundation 2
Awareness Raising
1
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27. Topics within Level 1
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28. First, make contact with the initial Community
• First, get them (local Show & tell sessions
trainers) together
– Perth workshops • “Just bring a little bit (not
• Broach the idea the Whole Thing) that
– Explain the basic concepts you’re happy to talk
– A wee bit on re-usable about” (i.e. widgets)
learning • Checklist: “…make sure
– Show & tell sessions to mention…”
• (‘bring & buy’) - used a
simple checklist to help • Give people time to talk
trainers describe a session
they’d be happy to share
• Show & tell
• Exchange resources and
contacts
© Crown Copyright

29. Next, widgetise things
• Why? To lower the bar to
entry (facilitate sharing)
• All sorts of training
exercises
– Also vignettes and case
studies
– Handouts
– Etc.
• Needed to make implicit
explicit
– Describe the material
• Where it sat within the
curriculum
• What needed to go before
it & what could come
after
• What it might link with
– Provide the session content
– Brief the potential re-user
• What you need to bring
on the day, etc.
© Crown Copyright

30. Then, publish & share
© Crown Copyright

31. Materials and new approaches
Café Conversations about
Child Protection:
– People bring their
experience with them, and
share it
– Democratic, LA-wide
process – right across
departments and staff-groups
– Can involve up to around
100 a time (but does need a
lot of table hosts for this scale)
– Further materials:
• The Shared Space materials
• A conversation about Café
Conversations
© Crown Copyright

32. What next for the Training Framework
2007/08 Intentions:
• Publish more materials
• Network contact and development
– Operational networks (CPC training leads etc.)
– Strategic/structural networks (VSWDG etc.)
• Rehearsal for admin. support for training
strategy resource (within Shared Space)
• Proposal for the way ahead 2008-09
© Crown Copyright

33. On reflection re network context: policy view?
NB.
Ste
reot
Spoke – the grateful recipient y pe w
arni
ng
Hub – the fount of Knowledge
Spoke – the grateful recipient Spoke – the grateful recipient
© Crown Copyright

34. Rather smugly, we thought it would be like this
Overlapping,
shared
memberships
© Crown Copyright

35. …in fact it’s probably more like this
© Crown Copyright

36. The Western Isles Report
• Tells the story of three children
and their neglect and abuse over
a period of many years
• Between 1990 and 2000
professionals recorded 220 health
concerns, and allegations or
incidents of sexual physical and
emotional abuse and neglect
• In this inspection we found that
information was shared but
was not acted upon.
• The overwhelming emphasis
was on helping the
parents…..(who were) unable to
change sufficiently within timescales
important to the child (and)
decisions needed to be made to
separate them from their children
© Crown Copyright

37. Rec 27, multi-agency National resource and a
networked approach to CP practice
The Scottish Executive should establish a multi-agency
national resource for those working with complex child
protection issues. This should offer consultancy and co-
working for staff in relevant agencies. It should set up a
managed care network, based on the model of
managed clinical networks, and establish a register of
recognised experts who could be called upon if required.
It should set up a database of relevant research and
contribute expertise to qualifying training and
continued professional development for staff working
in relevant agencies. The Scottish Executive should, in
conjunction with this resource, develop a national
register of staff suitably qualified in joint
investigative interviewing
© Crown Copyright

38. Rec 27, multi-agency National resource and a
networked approach to CP practice
The Scottish Executive should establish a multi-agency
national resource for those working with complex child
protection issues. This should offer consultancy and co-
working for staff in relevant agencies. It should set up a
managed care network, based on the model of
managed clinical networks, and establish a register of
recognised experts who could be called upon if required.
It should set up a database of relevant research and
contribute expertise to qualifying training and
continued professional development for staff working
in relevant agencies. The Scottish Executive should, in
conjunction with this resource, develop a national
register of staff suitably qualified in joint
investigative interviewing
© Crown Copyright

39. Rec27 and the Business Need
Requirement summary Activity in CP Dealt with?
• Facilitated sharing of expertise Ad hoc, CPCs? Jt Inspections More to do
skills experience and
knowledge (sharing to extend
as far as consultancy and co-
working). These to be
arranged/ supported by
Memoranda of Understanding
(MoUs)
• Relevant research evaluation & SCCPN Softer aspects of KT?
dissemination
• development & maintenance of the National Strategy More to do, especially in terms of use
national suite of training materials
• contribution of expertise to No No?
qualifying training & CPD
• registers of staff suitably qualified No No?
in specific skills e.g. JIIs
• reduced duplication in the e.g. stance of CPC Working Groups Could do with help
development of procedures etc.
© Crown Copyright

40. Experts - Experience
• No-one wants to be ‘an expert’
– Modesty
– Dangerous position to be in
• What about ‘expertise’?
– Still risky
– Anyway, “who says you are?”
• We all know something that someone else
might find useful…
…If they ask nicely
© Crown Copyright

41. (Usual) ‘interest’ = “I’ll take”
(our) ‘experience’ = “I could offer…if you asked”
© Crown Copyright

42. ‘soft infrastructure’ for consultancy and co-working
Draft Model Structure for a CP C&CW Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
Constituent parts:
Some form of identification of the context e.g. investigation; case work; debriefing of a practitioner; informal second opinion; twinned team;
etc. etc. This would probably be expanded upon within the ‘brief’ set out in section 4 below.
Identification of roles (or characteristics) of both parties (provider and recipient of C&CW):
– e.g. a provider - ‘Expert Advisor’ (EA), and a recipient - ‘Senior Investigating Officer’(SIO) (might equally be the ‘Caseholder’, or ‘Lead
Professional’(LP))
– Also, the outline role of the Expert Advisor.
– What the outer limits of the roles are, and/or what roles are co-adjacent.
– e.g. an Expert Advisor is not the same as an ‘Expert Witness’ (EW) (although an EA may become or translate into an EW at some
point in the process)
– What would ‘accredit’ someone to hold a given role:
– e.g. an up to date and accurate CV, giving adequate coverage of relevant expertise
– or the fact of being formally allocated the case responsibility, etc.
The responsibilities of both parties:
– e.g. a list of the EA’s responsibilities, or the LP’s responsibilities
Also the obligations of both parties:
– e.g. the EA should enable the LP’s organisation to meet their disclosure obligations.
Some form of Terms of Reference:
– standard lists of headings.
– different levels of detail under any given heading, appropriate to the nature of the C&CW episode envisaged/underway.
Some form of ‘contractual agreement’:
– the formality, legal enforceability, and detail of this should be appropriate to the nature of the C&CW episode envisaged/underway.
– Some standard headings would be used, though.
– Logistical aspects like recording, communication between the parties, escalation thresholds for any issues that can be predicted
(known unknowns rather than unknown unknowns) etc.
QA, monitoring. Should we seek some form of alert and/or reporting to relevant QA arrangements that the C&CW is underway?
Other Aspects:
– There will be bound to be some.
© Crown Copyright

43. How it might work (a.k.a. science fiction)
Expertise?
Everyone has some
experience…which someone
else could find useful
© Crown Copyright

44. Power laws and information spread on networks
94
67
63
54
Child Protection Committee Chairs
• CPCCs Task Group on Consultation &
Involvement
• CPCCs Task Group on Public
Information
• CPCCs Task Group on Self Evaluation
6 and Inspection
2 Joint Investigative Interviewing Clinic
1
RLO Production Team
Safe Care Forum
SCCPN
Adamic, Lukose, Puniyani, Huberman, PRE 2001 West of Scotland CPCs Network
• WoS CPC Trainers
West of Scotland MCN for Child Protection
© Crown Copyright

45. Joining in?
http://www.elib.scot.nhs.uk/sharedspace/cp/pages/index.aspx
© Crown Copyright

46. Fin…
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47. Year 1 (2003/2004)
• Produced Children’s Charter
– Children should get the help they need when
they need it.
• Produced Framework for Standards
• Reviewed the roles of Child Protection
Committees and agreed a new model
• Agreed the development of a joint
inspection programme by a new unit
within HMIE
– The Services for Children Unit
© Crown Copyright

48. Year 1 (2003/2004)
• Letters of Assurance (1)
• Implementation of the Protection of
Children (Scotland) Act 2003
• Disqualified from Working With Children
List
© Crown Copyright

49. Year 2 (2004/2005)
• Raising Public Awareness
Information leaflet
What to do if you are worried about a child
Media Campaign in Grampian
Pilot 24 hour child protection telephone line
Internet Safety Campaigns
© Crown Copyright

50. Year 2 (2004/2005)
• Further work on embedding the
Framework and Charter
• Child Protection Committee Guidance
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51. Year 3 (2005/2006)
• Significant Incident Review Guidance
– www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations
– Letters of Assurance (2)
• Child Protection Strategic Training
Group
• Review/evaluation of Programme
© Crown Copyright