The Review identifies key themes from individual reviews, including:
- The risk of abuse and neglect being overlooked when the focus is primarily on a child’s health condition
- The prevalence of children with complex mental health needs
- The impact of parental mental health and parenting capacity
- Challenges in finding suitable placements and support for children with complex needs*
- The unrecognised role of children as young carers*
- Cultural barriers that may hinder understanding of minority ethnic and cultural groups’ parenting approaches*
*Points 4, 5 and 6 struck us as relatively recent emerging priorities.
The reviews also highlighted instances where children’s voices were absent from records, and practitioners failed to grasp the complexity of abuse.
Despite these challenges, the report also identifies instances of effective multi-agency collaboration and good practice, such as timely information sharing and supportive school environments for children. It highlights the importance of learning from both failures and successes in safeguarding processes. CPOMS have recently published an article outlining three key steps settings can take to strengthen their partnership working arrangements.
The article concludes by emphasising the value of learning from practice reviews as a means of improving safeguarding practices, praising the NSPCC for compiling these reviews into a national repository accessible to practitioners.
Action Points for DSLs:
- QUICK WIN: Sign up to NSPCC’s CASPAR weekly updates and Andrew Hall’s Weekly Safeguarding Briefing to stay up-to-date with the latest safeguarding and child protection news. Reply to share any other high-quality information sources.
- OPERATIONAL/PROCEDURAL: How is child/pupil/student voice routinely built into appropriate aspects of your safeguarding practice and procedures?
- STRATEGIC: Consider your system for identifying and supporting young carers. Organisations such as Carers Plus (Yorkshire Area) can support schools in raising awareness. Please reply to share the name and contact information of the organisation responsible for young carers in your area.
