Child Protection Reform Programme
In a bid to improve the quality of services and as part of the response to the Audit and review titled "it's everyone's job to make sure I am alright", The then Scottish Executive launched a three year reform programme in 2002 which sought to improve the structures and services in place to ensure the safety and wellbeing of children in our communities.
The overall goal of the programme was to improve the protection of children at risk of neglect and abuse and reduce the numbers of children who need protection. More detailed aims and objectives for the programme were also prepared.
A team of professionals from a range of backgrounds including social work, education, health and the police force assisted the Executive in taking forward the reform programme and tackling poor performance locally.
The reform programme resulted in the following outputs:
· A children's charter, setting out what every child has the right to expect;
· A framework for standards which applies to all agencies;
· The development of multi-agency inspection for all agencies involved in child protection;
· Clarification of the role and remit of child protection committees;
· The development of a 24 hour child protection service;
· Increased awareness of child protection within communities;
· Inter-agency child protection training; and
· Child death and significant incident review guidance.
Child Protection Committees
Local Child Protection processes and services are the responsibility of the relevant child protection committee in that area. These committees, of which there are 30, consist of representatives from a range of backgrounds including the police, health services, local authorities, children' services and community planning structures and relevant voluntary sector fora amongst others.
It is the responsibility of the committee to:
· Clearly identify the key links that are required to be made with other bodies, and ensure that these links are made;
· In conjunction with other bodies, identify issues where either joint working would be beneficial or duplication could be avoided and ensure that action is taken to address these issues; and
· Have in place, and regularly review the effectiveness of, joint protocols around particular identified issues.
Individual members of CPCs are responsible for:
· Representing the commitment of their agency to promoting the safety and welfare of children and young people, preventing abuse and neglect and the protection of children and young people;
· Making strategic and operational decisions on behalf of their agency in relation to child protection;
· Facilitating communication between the child protection committee and their agency; and
· Contributing their skill and expertise to the work of the CPC.
Further information on the role and functions of CPCs can be found here.
Child Death and Significant Case Reviews
Scottish Ministers and their partners recognise the importance of ensuring that lessons learned from significant incidents are fed back into local and national arrangements. One of the key outputs from the child protection reform programme was the development of guidance for child protection committees for conducting a significant case review. The guidance has been developed with a view to introducing consistency in how decisions are made on:
· When to call for a review;
· What type of review to hold;
· The management of the process;
· The skills and expertise required to undertake the review;
· The reporting requirements of the review; and
· The implementation of any findings.
It is hoped that the guidance will provide more clarity on what should be done and how best to act on the lessons learnt from a significant case review, both locally and across Scotland.
Disclosure of Underage Sexual Activity
Balancing a child's right to confidentiality and privacy against the need to ensure they are safe and protected becomes a huge challenge for professionals when teenagers are sexually active. A short life independent working group is currently assessing existing information sharing practice and considering future procedures for handling disclosures of inappropriate sexual activity, taking into consideration the proposed changes to law being introduced through the Secual Offences (Scotland) Bill 2008.