Issue 19 | October 2022
Welcome to the October edition of Pass It On News.
Bringing you the headlines and new policies, procedures and guidance from your West Sussex Safeguarding Adults Board.
KEY POINTS: September 2022 Board Meeting
September saw us holding the third meeting of the full Safeguarding Adults Board in 2022. The meeting was well attended by a wide range of Board partners, who discussed a full agenda of key safeguarding topics. The topics discussed included:
- trends in safeguarding data over the last three months;
- a Safeguarding Adult Review (SAR) which is due to be published shortly;
- a case study presented by the West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service;
- an update on the changes from the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to the Integrated Care Board (ICB); and
- an overview of digital safety and preventing harm online.
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Welcome to our new team members
We hope you will join us in welcoming our two new team members to the Board Support Team. We have recently welcomed Aimee, our new Board Support Officer, and Julie, our new Communication and Support Officer. Aimee and Julie have joined Ru, Emma and Laura, who all look forward to continuing to work with you, supporting the work of the Board.
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NEW: Quarterly feature on learning from Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARs)
We will be promoting key themes from our published SARs to help you know and understand how practice needs to improve to minimise the future risk of vulnerable adults. This edition’s focus is on Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) and person-centred approaches.
Using these approaches moves away from professionals deciding what is best for an Adult and, instead, places the Adult at the centre of our work to make sure their needs, goals, and desired outcomes are understood and met, and that this is considered in context of the Adult’s values, beliefs, protected characteristics and any health or social care inequalities.
MSP and person-centred approaches should be at the heart of all safeguarding processes. However, these practice areas have featured frequently in SARs as needing improvement, and featured as a key theme in three out of our six published Reviews in 2021/22.
You may already be aware that we have created the following resources to support your learning to ensure your practice is current. If not, please do have a look/listen:
We’d welcome any feedback you have on these to: SafeguardingAdultsBoard@westsussex.gov.uk.
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NEW WEBPAGE: Preventing radicalisation into violent extremism
We have recently added a new webpage to our website about preventing radicalisation into violent extremism. The information on this page was provided by the Community Safety and Wellbeing Team at West Sussex County Council. It includes information about your role as a professional in preventing radicalisation into violent extremism, and how to refer into the West Sussex Prevent process.
UPDATED: 2022-2025 Strategic Plan
Following feedback from the Health and Wellbeing Board in June, the 2022-2025 Strategic Plan has been updated to include a new paragraph (6.3) regarding the cost of living crisis.
Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARs): Liaising with families and representatives
The SAR subgroup would like to share the following reminder with you, regarding contact with families and representatives when making a SAR referral.
When you inform a person or their family/representatives that a SAR referral is being made, it is important to be clear so as not to elevate hopes and/or convey inappropriate expectations of a SAR. Please therefore explain that the referral is being made because it may meet the SAR criteria, which is:
- the adult had/has care and support needs, and
- abuse/neglect appears to have contributed to their death/harm, and
- there may be an indication for multi-agency learning.
A SAR is not another investigation into the incident, a complaints process, or a route to apportioning blame.
Please be clear that you are not making promises that this process is the right step and it is not a foregone conclusion that a review will be appropriate or will happen. Rather, you are asking via the referral for consideration if a SAR may be appropriate or not. Please also be very clear that the process for deciding on the outcome of a referral may take some time due to the scrutiny and governance process involved, which may include further information to be sought. At times, this process can take a number of months, but updates will be provided to you regularly by the Board Support Team in order for you to keep the family updated.
REMINDER: Multi-Agency Risk Management (MARM) referrals
Are you familiar with the remit of our newest Board subgroup, and how the subgroup could help you with complex casework? The MARM subgroup considers cases of adults who remain at high risk of harm despite previous intervention efforts.
The purpose of the subgroup is to ensure that multi-agency communication and information sharing takes place on a regular basis, and to support professionals and their managers in managing the most challenging and concerning cases. The subgroup is comprised of professionals from across the statutory and voluntary Health and Social Care sector, who can support caseworkers to devise a risk management plan and to co-ordinate multi-agency working.
If you have a challenging case, regarding which you would benefit from multi-agency input, please refer to the information about the MARM subgroup on the Our Subgroups page of our website.
Coming soon
Safeguarding Adults Week 2022
21-27 November 2022 will see Ann Craft Trust host this year's Safeguarding Adults Week. This year the theme is ‘Responding to Contemporary Safeguarding Challenges’, and each day will see a focus on a different safeguarding theme.
For more information about the week, including how you can get involved, visit the Ann Craft Trust website.
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Special edition newsletter
In recognition of Safeguarding Adults Week 2022 we will be producing a special edition newsletter, promoting our website and resources. If you would like us to include a mention to any events or initiatives that you are running for Safeguarding Adults Week, please let us know via SafeguardingAdultsBoard@westsussex.gov.uk.
Publication of two Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARs)
We will shortly be publishing two new SARs to our website. Please do support us in sharing the SARs, as well as the accompanying learning resources, within your organisations.
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