Children in need of help and protection (health and wellbeing needs in South Tyneside)

Any child may be in need of help and protection at any time. There is no single factor which is a necessary or sufficient condition for a safeguarding concern to arise, and children may be in need due to an organic condition, a single occurrence, or a persistent set of circumstances.

All those who work with children on a professional or voluntary basis, have a legal obligation to safeguard children in need. This is set out in statute and described in Working together to Safeguard Children. Professionals are trained to be alert to signs that a child's safety and wellbeing are at risk, and take safeguarding action. The practice of safeguarding is embedded in universal services such as nurseries, schools and health care.

Safeguarding is underpinned by 2 key principles:

• Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility : for services to be effective each professional and organisation should play their full part; and
• A child-centred approach: for services to be effective they should be based on a clear understanding of the needs and views of children

The South Tyneside Safeguarding Children Board offers advice and local protocols for safeguarding and ensuring that agencies work together.

Safeguarding Children Partnership

For a proportion of children, direct statutory intervention is needed to protect them from harm. In this JSNAA topic, "children in need of help and protection" means those children for whom a referral has been made to Children & Families Social Care, which is South Tyneside Council's statutory child protection service.

Over the past 10 years, the demand for statutory child protection protection has risen steadily. A National Audit Office Report published in October 2016 noted that over the previous 10 years:

• The rate of enquiries made by local authorities when they believe that a child may be suffering or is likely to suffer, significant harm increased by 124%, and
• The rate of children starting on child protection plans rose by 94%

Related JSNAA topics:

• Poverty & child poverty
• Autism
• SEN
• LAC
• LD
• CAMHS
• Early Help
• Mental Health
• Domestic Abuse
• Alcohol
• Substance misuse
• Teenage pregnancy
• Sexual health
• Pregnancy and teenage pregnancy

• The demand for help and protection for children continues to rise in South Tyneside, although the number of children who are looked after by the local authority is gradually reducing.
• The need for help and protection is affected by a range of factors and the interaction between them. The social and economic context of the Borough impact on levels of child poverty, which has a clear causal effect on the need for help and protection.
• Parental capability is the most significant determinant of outcomes for children - the impact and interaction of factors such as mental health and well-being, alcohol and substance misuse, domestic abuse and offending all have a critical impact on safety and outcomes for children. The availability of services to support effective parenting plays an important role in the help and protection that children need.
• South Tyneside Council holds statutory responsibility for child protection, and will continue to resource the service to ensure that children get the best possible start in life, and aspire to a bright future. Resource allocation will become increasingly challenging due to the ongoing re-structuring of local government finance.
• The more significant the intervention, the greater the cost both in financial terms, and for the child and family. Strengthening preventative services enables children to live safe and prospering lives, which requires practitioners form all agencies to confidently act as Early Help Leads.
• Children and Young People's use of social media offers opportunities to support their safety and engagement, but also poses risks of exploitation and abuse. The partnership response to children's safeguarding will continue to evolve to respond to emerging trends and issues.

1. Continued integration across the partnership to ensure that children in need are identified at the earliest possible opportunity and families have access to the right service at the right time.
2. Continued drive to provide support / help at an early stage to prevent families escalating to a statutory threshold for intervention. 'Think Family' approach and a Common Core of Skills and Knowledge for Early Help Practitioners. Support for Lead Practitioners to ensure that services are coordinated around the needs of children and their families.
3. The Families First Project will work with South Tyneside's most vulnerable children, young people and families, and support them to stay together where this is a best interest decision.
4. Refreshed practice response to children and families where domestic abuse is a feature including services for children, victims and perpetrators.
5. A range of practice responses to neglect including the introduction of the graded care profile. Ensure that responses across the partnership enhance protective factors including parental resilience
6. Improve insight into children and families experience of early intervention and support so that services reflect needs and priorities for each child, each family and for the Borough.

There is no single factor which is necessary or sufficient to create a risk to a child's safety or wellbeing. Research evidence indicates a significant association between families' socio-economic circumstances and the chances that their children will experience neglect or abuse (Joseph Rowntree foundation, see references). The interactions between contributory factors are complex and frequently circular, affecting families' capacity to protect and support their children:

• parenting capacity, which can be affected by a range of factors such as economic situation, prior education and educational experience; physical and emotional well-being; offending;
• family capacity for protection, including capacity to accept and invest in support to enhance their protective role;
• extent of child or adult disability including physical, learning and mental health difficulties
• negative adult and child behaviours, for example domestic violence or substance use, sometimes provoked or exacerbated by family stress;
• positive adult and child behaviours, promoting social support and resilience; extended family support
• external neighbourhood factors: the social and physical environment

As children develop independence and in particular, move into adolescence, they become a key agent in their own situation, and their need for protection will be affected by their learned experience, emotional and mental well being. Other factors include their social, educational and economic circumstances; cultural context and response; diversity and peer context. The risks for young people evolve, and vulnerabilities include children and young people who experience homelessness; who go missing; and who are vulnerable to exploitation (including sexual exploitation). Other risks associated with adolescence are sexual health, drug and alcohol misuse.

Those children who meet the legal definition of a Child in Need as detailed in the Children Act 2004 are:

• Unlikely to achieve or maintain, or have the opportunity of achieving, or maintaining a reasonable standard of health or development without the provision for them of services by a local authority.
• Their health or development is likely to be significantly impaired or further impaired without the provision of such services.
• They are disabled (Sec.17/10 Children Act 1989).

When a child is referred to Children and Families Social care, this means a request for service is made for a child who is not in need at the time. The risk of harm to the child will be assessed and a decision made about the level of support required. Where the assessment concludes that the child is in need, the intervention is classified as:

• A child who requires support/intervention to secure their safety and enable them to develop
• A child in need of protection (Child Protection Plan)
• A child who needs to be cared for by the local authority (Looked After Child)

The Department for Education publish annual statistics on children in need of help and child protection which provide a national oversight. The most common primary reasons for referral for children in need at 31 March 2016 were

• 50.6%, abuse or neglect
• 17.4%, family dysfunction
• 9.6%, child's disability or illness.

Nationally on 31 March 2016,

• 3% of children under the age of 18 in England were assessed as being in need of help or protection, a total of 394,400 children, of whom :
• 50, 310 children were on Child Protection Plans with the most prevalent recoded reason being neglect
• 70, 440 children were Looked After

This number was 4% more that on 31^st March 2011 and in line with the general increase in the child population. The number of children in need has remained broadly stable over the past few years. The number of children in need on 31 March of any year is a snapshot and considerably lower than the number of children that local authorities work with throughout the year.

Of these children:

• 52.7% are male, 45.3% are female and 2.0% are unborn or of unknown gender.
• The largest age group is those aged 10 - 15 years accounting for 30.6% of children in need; 23.6% are under 5 years of age.
• The percentage of children in need at 31 March with a disability was 12.7% in 2015 / 16, a decrease from 14.2% in 2010 / 11.

National information on Children in Need is available using the Local authority interactive tool (LAIT).

In South Tyneside, we look at the local picture for Children in Need in comparison with the national and regional picture, and by comparison with our statistical neighbours which are Local authorities with similar characteristics to our own. Figures are shown as numbers and also rate per 10,000 children aged 18 and under. Our current statistical neighbours are:(NE) Gateshead, Hartlepool, Redcar and Cleveland, Sunderland, (NW) Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Salford, St. Helens, Tameside.

Children in Need are all those children who South Tyneside's Children and Families Social Care Service are supporting.

Referrals

• Between the 1 April 2015 and the 31 March 2016, 1937 Children in Need referrals were made to Children's Social Care, which remains higher than our statistical neighbours, North East and national rates.
• See Figure 1 and Table 1 in the associated slide pack.

Children in Need

The number of children in need (CIN) decreased 2015 / 16 from 1495 at the beginning of the year to 1367 at the end of the year, as shown in the graphs below (this includes all children who are CIN, CP and LAC).

• See Figure 2 and Figure 3 in the associated slide pack
• It is of note that there was a fairly high level of churn with 3007 children having CIN status during the course of 2015 / 16.

Children in Need: Age

The largest age group of children in need are 10 - 15 year olds, accounting for 29% of children, followed by 5 - 9 year olds (24%), 1 - 5 year olds (20%) and 16+ year old (18%). Children under 1 year olds and unborn children are the smallest group accounted for 9% of children in need in 2015/16.

• See Figure 4 in the associated slide pack

Children in Need: Ethnicity

The largest ethnic group for children in need is White British (85%). There are 7% of children in need were the ethnicity is unknown (i.e. unborn  / refused / not obtained).

• See Figure 5 in the associated slide pack

Children in Need: Disability

The percentage of children in need with a disability in South Tyneside is 14.4%, which is higher than that of the national and North East percentages (both 12.7%) in 2015 / 16.

Children subject to a Child Protection Plan:

The number and rate of children subject to a child protection plan (CPP) decreased in 2015 / 16 from 195 at the beginning of the year to 182 at the end of the year, as shown in the graphs below. The rate (62.3 per 10,000) is significantly higher than the national rate but a little lower than statistical neighbours.

• See Figure 6 and Figure 7 in the associated slide pack

More children ceased to be subject to a CP plan than started in 2015 / 16 and the number of CP plans started reduced by 8% as compared with in 2014 / 15.

15.2% of children becoming subject to a plan in 2015 / 16, had a previous CP Plan, this is an increase from 10.6% in 2014 / 15, although this proportion is in line with national rate (16.6%) and the statistical neighbours (15.9%). Good performance is generally considered to be between 10-15%.

• See figure 8 in the associated slide pack

Categories of Abuse

Neglect remains the largest category of abuse in South Tyneside and is higher than among comparators, as demonstrated below.

• See figure 9 in the associated slide pack

Education, Health and Care Plan (SEN)

South Tyneside Council have a Special Educational Needs (SEN) Team offering a service to children who

• Have a statement of special educational needs under the provisions of the Education Act 1996; OR
• an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan under the Children and Families Act 2014.

In January 2016, there were 185 Children and Young People in with statements of special needs, and 694 children with EHC Plans. Further information about the cohort is available in the JSNAA topic "Special Educational Needs".

Looked After Children

• At the end of March 2016, South Tyneside Council looked after 289 children and Young People. Further information is available in the JSNAA topic "Looked After Children".
• Information about South Tyneside's Children in Need is available using the Local authority interactive tool (LAIT) at GOV.UK.

• For families with complex needs, seamless access to public services in order to support a holistic service which holistically addresses health, education, early help and social care needs.
• Connecting of pathways for co-occurring factors such as mental health; drug and alcohol misuse; domestic violence; to ensure a coherent, holistic response for children and families that overcomes qualification barriers for service. This is being explored through a partnership project for Integrated Locality Teams.
• Response and intervention for families and young people aged 10 - 16 years who are at risk of being taken into care by the local authority
• Better insight and response to children whose experience includes domestic abuse, including raising awareness and developing partnership response to children and families who have experienced domestic abuse, and to perpetrators. (Domestic abuse evaluation Report to the Community Safety Partnership, 7 December 2016).
• Better insight and response for families and children where neglect is a factor.

• The birth rate in South Tyneside is stable and forecast to reduce.
• Demand is high and increasing nationally and the demand for help and protection for children continues to rise in South Tyneside, although the number of children experiencing statutory intervention appears to be gradually levelling.
• There a significant range of factors which affect parenting capacity, and this means that need and demand cannot sensibly be projected.

Everyone who works with children, including teachers, GPs, nurses, emergency workers, health workers, police, youth workers, voluntary and community workers and social workers is responsible for identifying children in need of help and protections, and for acting to safeguard their welfare. In Working Together To Safeguard Children, the government has set out statutory responsibilities to safeguard children, and provided guidance to support practitioners to recognised signs of abuse and neglect. The South Tyneside Safeguarding Children Board is responsible for co-ordinating the work of statutory partners and challenging the effectiveness of front-line practice in safeguarding and supporting children.

The table below identifies levels of risk, and the corresponding services available.

ISIT

Provides our 'front door' for referrals in to Children's Services. The ISIT (Integrated Safeguarding and Interventions Team) is a multi-agency team which receives contacts and referrals from professionals and members of the public who are concerned about a child. The team includes representatives from Education, Early Help, Police, STFT and Probation services, who are co-located to enable swift and effective information sharing and decision making. "Virtual" team members from NTW, Housing and Adult Social Care extend the reach of the ISIT.

Strengthening and Supporting Families

There are 4 child protection and proceedings teams that work directly with children and young people who are at risk of significant harm, ensuring that their wishes and feeling are heard and considered. Their remit includes: families in the pre-proceedings process, public and private law proceedings, looked after children, and children who are subject to supervision orders or a child protection plan.

Edge of Care (Families First)

The service will provide various outreach and in-reach interventions; and offer short break weekend accommodation for young people where this is an assessed need and part of their Support Plan. We will work in partnership with families in the community, foster care families, adoptive families and our residential children's homes to help and support them to stay together, or to separate positively, based on best interest decision-making.

Specialist services

These services offer specialist support and intervention:

Youth Justice - The Youth Justice Service (YJS) is a multi-disciplinary agency working in partnership to reduce entrance to the youth justice system and prevent re-offending.

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services The Lifecycle Service provides a whole person tier 2 therapeutic and non-therapeutic services to young people of any age and their families. Tier two supports young people who have difficulties with attachment, behaviour, eating disorders, development, emerging OCD, anxiety and depression. A key role for the Lifecycle Service is providing the children and young people's IAPT programme (Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies). The lifecycle service collapses the age boundaries associated with young people service to ensure there are no issues with transition.

Children and Young People's Service (CYPS) - Northumberland Tyne and Wear Foundation Trust The service consists of a multidisciplinary team of mental health practitioners including psychiatrists, nurses, social workers, psychological therapists and psychologists, occupational therapists and administrative staff. The integrated team operates to meet tier 3 specialist mental health needs of all children and young people regardless of their circumstances or other needs. The service can also provide consultation, advice and support directly to families but also to other agencies working with children and young people presenting with mental health.

Homefinder service - Young people who are 16 - 17 and homeless present at the Homefinder service based within South Tyneside Homes, where we have a commissioned service run by the De Paul Trust dedicated to ensuring that young people receive accommodation and support, with referral to Children's Social Care if needed.

Matrix works with young people under 18 in South Tyneside, their families and carers. The service provides help, support and advice to those whose lives have been affected by drug and alcohol misuse or those who are at risk of developing drug and alcohol problems.

Sanctuary South is a multi-agency project which builds on learning from the successful Police led "Operation Sanctuary" investigating sexual crimes against vulnerable people. The service offers interventions for young people who are the victims of sexual exploitation, including confidential and comfortable space, and specialist support provided in partnership with Barnardo's.

Operation Encompass safeguards children and young people who are affected by domestic abuse through information sharing and reporting protocols that ensure that schools are aware of an incident affecting children at the earliest possible opportunity.

The Council has delivered a programme of awareness raising and a range of tools to support schools in addressing the FGM and the PREVENTduty. Each school has a Home Office accredited Single Point of Contact.

Young Persons Domestic Violence Advisor (YPVA) Provides a safe and supportive response to teenagers aged 13- 17 who are direct victims of relationship abuse and a range of interpersonal violence. This could include abuse in intimate and family relationships, gang related violence, "honour" based violence and cyber stalking.

Bright Futures

Bright Futures works with young women aged 11 - 25 around a range of issues to raise their self-esteem and confidence around a range of issues which affect them including alcohol and substance misuse, sexual health and relationships, homelessness, family relationships, friendships, school, education, training, crime and anti-social behaviour.

Relationships Works

Relationship Works, based in Ocean Road Community Association, provides young people with advice about family and sexual relationships through a number of drop-in sessions and educational intervention at schools, to educate teenagers about healthy relationships.

Government policy has a longstanding focus on the value of early help in preventing more significant interventions: "Early Intervention offers our country a real opportunity to make lasting improvements in the lives of our children and forestall any persistent social problems and end their transmissions from one generation to the next and to make long term savings in public spending" (Early Intervention: The Next Steps - An Independent Report to Her Majesty's Government by Graham Allen MP)

Social care intervention is governed by statute. The LCSB has agreed safeguarding and child protection procedures which all local agencies work to.

South Tyneside Council: Safeguarding Children Partnership

The range of research evidence available to support this topic is extensive and the third sector organisations below offer a range of research-based resources.

NSPCC

Action for Children

The Children's Society

Barnardos

Ofsted have a range of thematic reviews available at: GOV.UK: Ofsted Social Care Survey Reports

Children and Families Social Care (CFSC) has adopted a child-centred approach to practice, and all contacts, assessment and interventions include engagement with the child or young person. Children and young people are asked their views and preferences; this is reflected in individual assessments, plans and practical support and intervention. CFSC uses a range of evidence based tools and techniques to engage children, including participative and visual play;

At the time of publication, we have more to do in understanding and responding to, the experience of children and families who are engaged in safeguarding and protection services.

NYAS

The National Youth Advocacy Service is commissioned by the authority to provide independent advocacy. The NYA works as part of a regional framework to ensure children and young people:

• have a say in decisions made about their lives;
• are able to share their concerns about their circumstances;
• are listened to and heard;
• are treated fairly in the course of their contact with the Council.

Engagement and Participation Service

The Participation and Engagement service works to ensure that children and young people are involved in all decisions affecting their choices and lives. South Tyneside's Engagement Strategy builds capability across the services, so that we can hear and respond to the voices and views of children and their families.

We have identified two themes that are missing from this and associated needs assessment:

• The impact of domestic abuse on children in need, and
• The Impact of neglect

Local Strategies and Plans

South Tyneside Children and Families Strategy (and Child Poverty strategy) 2017 -20

South Tyneside Safeguarding Children Board; https://www.southtyneside.gov.uk/article/35808/Safeguarding-Children-Board

Market Position Statement for Care and Independence, September 2016, South Tyneside Council

Early Help Strategy 2016 - 18, South Tyneside Council

Children & families Service Improvement Plan, April 2017, South Tyneside Council

National Strategies and Plans

HM Government; Working Together to Safeguard Children, March 2015

HM Government; Putting Children First; December 2016

HM Government; Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice - 0 - 25 years - statutory guidance for organisations which work with and support children and young people who have special educational needs or disabilities 

Additional Resources

HM Government ; What to do if you are worried a child is being abused : a guide for practitioners, March 2015

Department for Education Characteristics of Children in Need 2015-16 ; SFR 52/2016, November 2016

National Audit Office; Children in Need of Help or Protection; October 2016

Joseph Rowntree Foundation ; The relationship between poverty, child abuse and neglect : an evidence review; March 2016

Department for Education; Statistics collection - children in need and child protection, GOV.UK: Statistics for children in need 

Department for Education, report of Graham Allen MP , 2011, GOV.UK: Early intervention: the next steps

Last updated: 12/06/2017