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This newsletter is for everyone working with children and adults in Waltham Forest.
Please share with your colleagues and encourage them to sign up to get it regularly.
Team Around the Person is an approach used in safeguarding adults, which developed from Team Around the Child and Team Around the Family approach used in safeguarding children and young people.
Team Around the Person is a multi-disciplinary approach (applicable to young people and adults in Waltham Forest) to provide support where there are emerging concerns, for example around health needs, housing, exploitation, community safety, or fire risks.
The approach aims to prevent escalation of safeguarding concerns by coordinating care across all services to improve joint working. It aims to maximise visibility and understanding of risk factors, and promote shared accountability in relation to it.
The approach can create opportunities for multi-agency professionals to work together effectively to understand and manage risk for a children, adults and their family, and to provide support that promotes and maintains good outcomes in a community context.
What is a Team Around the Person meeting?
A Team Around the Person meeting centers around the resident in question, and all the different professionals who provide or could provide support. It is a process that happens in partnership with the resident and their family, with their wishes and feelings kept at the heart of the discussion. Residents should be given the option to attend the meeting if they wish.
How is this different from a professionals' meeting?
A professionals' meeting is one that only professionals and / or practitioners are invited to, without involvement or attendance of the resident under discussion.
A professionals' meeting is the exception rather than the rule. These meetings will be held for different reasons, such as agencies needing to address challenges in delivering support services to a resident once risks have been identified.
These meetings are helpful when services need to share information more effectively, or if there are safeguarding concerns regarding a resident’s safety that need to be addressed and / or escalated, and the resident is reluctant to engage.
If a person does not want to share information or wish to have a Team Around the Person meeting held with them or on their behalf, professionals should do everything possible to support them.
It is important to record details related to the present situation, identify why it is not being escalated at present and what the situation might look like if it was escalated.
Professionals should:
- Be open and honest with the person themselves and seek their consent to share information with others
- Share information without consent if, in their judgement, the need to secure consent can be overridden in the public interest
- Seek advice when in doubt
- Keep a record of decisions and reasons for them – whether the decision is to share information or not. If a professional decides to share, then it is important to record what has been shared, with whom and for what purpose
- Decisions should be made in line with Making Safeguarding Personal
See pages 28 / 29 in the ‘Guide to thresholds and practice for working with people, carers and families in Waltham Forest’ for more details.
If the needs of the person change and at any time you think they are at risk of immediate harm or abuse, professionals must raise a safeguarding concern, contact the Waltham Forest MASH on 020 8496 300 and / or email WFDLiaison@walthamforest.gov.uk.
A professional can apply the Team Around the Person approach by taking the following steps:
Step one: There are emerging safeguarding concerns about a resident; but attempts to support them in reducing safeguarding risks are not successful and risks remain. Examples of specific risks are hoarding, dementia or self-neglect.
Step two: Make a referral to MASH if one has not been made already. If MASH referral has been made, email WFDLiaison@walthamforest.gov.uk to find out if a social worker has been assigned for support.
Step three: Has resident given consent for data to be shared?
If YES to step three, you have the following three options:
- Lead support professional to contact other professionals / carers / family members providing support for resident, or who could provide support, for a Team Around the Person meeting
- Submit residents' anonymised details to the Team Around the Person Network for multi-agency discussion (information below)
- Call a professionals' meeting with involved agencies
If NO to step three, you can do the following:
Examples of potential outcomes taking these steps might be:
- Joint visits with different agencies (for example; London Fire Brigade to accompany housing manager to offer support to a resident who is hoarding, to help them reduce fire risks)
- better understanding of case history and needs of the resident, with their voice placed at centre of support delivered
- A better understanding of which avenues of supported explored and delivered, and the outcomes from these
Team Around the Person Network is a simple, straightforward way to consult with multi-agency safeguarding partners to support residents who aren't responding to service-specific solutions. Regular attendees to the meeting include safeguarding leads from Whipps Cross hospital, Change Grow Live, Adult Social Care, London Fire Brigade, and others.
When does it happen? Professionals across different services and organisations come together for an online meeting on the last Thursday of every month, between 2 and 3pm, to consider new avenues to support and safeguard residents with emerging needs in Waltham Forest.
Who is it for? Professionals are invited to refer residents with emerging safeguarding needs, who are not responding to traditional avenues of support from that service. The value of the network meeting lies in the fact that it brings together a range of professionals, each bringing their specific expertise, to consider new ways of working together to safeguard residents.
How do you join? Professionals should join the network by contacting the Safeguarding Adults Board coordinator and asking to be added to the meeting.
How do you refer a resident for discussion? Professionals on the Team Around the Person Network calendar invitation are sent a Forms link, where they are invited to give a brief description of the resident's safeguarding concern, taking care to keep all details anonymous.
Colleagues across the partnership are encouraged to access resources to support safeguarding practice in Waltham Forest:
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This newsletter is brought to you by the Strategic Partnership Boards, which is made up of Waltham Forest Safeguarding Children’s Board, Safeguarding Adults Board, Health & Wellbeing Board and SafetyNet (our Community Safety Partnership).
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