Coventry Safeguarding Children Board newsletter

Coventry Safeguarding Children Board

Chair's Welcome

Janet Mokades

This is the first newsletter from the Coventry Safeguarding Children Board. I became Chair of the Board in September and since then we have refocused our attention on safeguarding across the range, for children and young people. We are charged both with protecting children and young people from harm and with making their lives better and happier.  This newsletter tells you something about what the many different organisations in Coventry are doing together to make life better for Coventry’s children and young people.

In future it will also look at issues and problems for children and young people and what more can be done by all of us to help solve some of those.

At its meetings, the Board has been listening to Coventry children, young people and young parents to find out what works to make their lives better and make them feel safer. These are some of the things we have been told.

A teenage parent who had been in care told us that having an experienced, mature health professional who stayed on the case consistently, listened to her and really knew about childcare and parenting, had helped to turn her into an effective parent.

Young people from a Coventry secondary school with multiple serious difficulties told us how having a school safeguarding support worker who really stuck with them, even when they were in hospital for instance, helped them to weather their personal storms and get their lives back on track.

These cases tell us just how much good, committed workers who stick with troubled young people are valued and what a difference they make to young lives.

Young parents whose children had previously been taken into care had help and support from a Children’s Centre and from social care. They were given the chance to learn how children develop and how to be effective parents. They told us how this had changed their lives and those of their children who then came home.

Primary school children told us they feared for their safety. The police now visit all Coventry schools twice termly to reassure children.

These success stories show how lives can be changed when health services, social care, schools, the police and others work together well. We are collecting these Coventry success stories to learn from them and in this newsletter you can read and learn from some more.

Janet Mokades

Independent Chair, 
Coventry Safeguarding Children Board

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Success Story

Liz’s story            

Agencies involved: Probation, Fry Housing Trust, Springboard and SureStart

Liz and her four children were referred to Springboard after she moved into a women’s refuge in order to leave a home situation involving domestic violence perpetrated by Liz’s brother.

Liz moved into rented accommodation with her children as she started with Springboard.  She felt this gave her a fresh start, with the chance to move away from a damaging social circle of friends that were using her for her money and to stay with her.

After she moved away, Liz found that life was less stressful; she could manage her money better and spend more quality time with her children.

Liz worked with Springboard and attended both one on one and group sessions at her local SureStart centre. Both she and her children enjoyed these sessions, and Liz loved being able to watch her children play and see how this benefited their lives.

With Springboard, Liz developed a plan for her future, including how she could fulfil her desire to work with other women who have been victims of domestic violence. She has now applied for a voluntary position at Coventry Refuge Centre for Women and her children have settled into school and nursery.

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Cross Border Event

Cross Border Event

In February, members of the Coventry Safeguarding Children Board got together with members of the Warwickshire Board to look at improving communication and joint working across borders. There was a very good turnout with representatives of all the key services such as schools, hospitals, social care, probation, the two councils and others.  We discussed what currently works well and what doesn’t and fixed on some things that we thought we could improve.

Information sharing was one.  We agreed that some staff were uncertain of what to do when asked to share information and afraid of doing the wrong thing. So we agreed to produce short, clear guidance on a pocket sized laminated card.  These cards are being printed and will soon be distributed. If you are interested in receiving the cards, please email your full details to coventrylscb@coventry.gov.uk. We hope that they will help people to share information quickly and appropriately whenever a child is at risk.

People doing the same jobs in Coventry and Warwickshire often have different titles and the areas covered by various services such as health or the police are not always clear to people on both sides of the border.  This can cause delays and difficulties so we also agreed at the event that the Warwickshire Board would produce a map and contacts list showing who is responsible for what in which area.  This work is under-way.

These two initiatives will help people to work together more effectively across the borders to keep children safe.  Participants felt that the event had been fruitful and agreed that the two Boards should continue to communicate and work together and that we would hold more joint events in the future. 

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Family Drug and Alcohol Court Service

FDAC Seminar

Coventry LSCB held an oversubscribed lunchtime seminar to hear about the development of Coventry FDAC (Family Drug and Alcohol Court) and the experiences of mums in Coventry who have had repeated removals of their children.

FDAC is a new approach, working with parents with substance misuse, helping them to be better parents and enabling families to stay together. In return for intensive support parents commit to ensuring that children are safe in their care. 

Attendees also heard a summary of research of the experience of Coventry mums. These highlighted areas where professionals and organisations can support mums who told us about the importance of trust, time to listen and a respectful relationship.

Agencies will work together making the most of diverse skills, to transform the lives of children, young people and families. 

The FDAC pilot aims to launch 1st October 2015. 

Contact Beverley Barnett - Jones for more information.

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Working with the Voluntary Sector

During the last 12 months, Coventry Safeguarding Children Board has worked to improve relationships with Voluntary Sector, establishing links with Voluntary Action Coventry. 

The Voluntary sector is represented on three key boards: 

  • Coventry Improvement Board
  • Community Safety Partnership 
  • CSCB  

This connectivity provides a setting to strengthen and increase effective communication across the voluntary and statutory sector on the essential priority of Safeguarding Coventry Children.

The CSCB acknowledges that the voluntary sector are often better placed within the locality and communities to recognise diverse needs, to tackle the  impact of inequality, discrimination and social exclusion on childrens lives, to promote and advocate for children through improved partnership working, acting early and providing specialist assessment and interventions . 

Recognising the role of the voluntary sector working with vulnerable children and their families the board is committed to supporting the Coventry Children & Young People – Voluntary Sector Network forum.

Children and Young People Voluntary sector forum has brought together key statutory and voluntary sector people to promote cross-sector working on safeguarding children & young people, hosting  workshops to present, inform and debate  on a range of multi-agency collaboration i.e. Safeguarding Children Board, Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH), working with Thresholds to support a dialogue to ensure referrals into Children’s Social Care are made and responded to protect and identify needs of vulnerable children. The forum plan for the year includes presentations and debate on Child Sexual Exploitation Prevention and Early Help.

Through the forum the childrens voluntary sector have provided case studies that evidence the richness of improving outcomes for children, and have engaged in a pilot staff survey focused on safeguarding as part of the CSCB quality assurance priority. 

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A Big Thank You...

St John Fisher Primary School
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St John Fisher Primary School

As you may be aware the Coventry Safeguarding Team have recently relocated offices. 

As we had settled in we felt as if there was something missing, the office seemed bare and empty. We felt like we needed colour in order to make people feel welcome to our new office.

St John Fisher Primary School came to our aid and offered to help by creating several pieces of art work for our office.

The theme for their art work was ‘What makes them feel safe and happy?’

We would like to say thank you to the Head teacher, Denise Mooney and all the talented children for the fantastic pieces of work they have created for us. 

Everyone is welcome to view the art work in the Safeguarding Board's Office located in Civic Centre 1, Room 123.

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Safeguarding Survey

The Coventry Safeguarding Children Board is very keen to establish the views of the whole workforce about safeguarding children in our City.  The Effectiveness and Quality sub group has therefore developed a short questionnaire.

The survey is for all staff who are involved in work with children in Coventry as we are keen to gain a wide insight into safeguarding across the City.  The questionnaire will take a maximum of 10 minutes to complete. Results will be analysed and fed back to the Coventry Safeguarding Children’s Board in September 2015.