Southwark safeguarding children board

Southwark Safeguarding Children Board

The Children Act 2004 requires each Local Authority to have a Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB).

Protecting Young Southwark

The aim of the board is to make sure that children and young people in Southwark are kept safe from harm and abuse. Its job is to co-ordinate the work of everyone working with children and their families so they can protect children effectively. For more information please see the Department for Education website.

The work of the Board

• To develop policies and procedures for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children see the London Safeguarding Children Board
• To raise awareness with the local community and professionals in the area of Southwark of the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children
• Carrying out monitoring and regular audits to check services are effective
• Working to prevent abuse by learning lessons where abuse has taken place and putting changes into place
• To undertake Serious Case Reviews (SCR) and advise on lessons to be learned and ensure the lessons are implemented by agencies
• To ensure a coordinated response to unexpected child death, including the collection and analysis of this information
• To participate in the development of the Children and Young Peoples Plan of Southwark Council
  
• To work with the Children's Trust Board (CTB) and support the transition to Health and Well Being Boards
• Involving the whole community, including faith groups in safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children through publicity and public consultation
• Making links to other aspects of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. For example: monitoring the arrangements for private fostering, developing the policy for missing children

Who are we?

Southwark Safeguarding Board has an Independent Chair, Mr Chris Davies CBE, DL and members of the Board are from:

• Adult Social Care Southwark Council
• Child Abuse Investigation Team (CAIT) Metropolitan Police
• Community Action Southwark
• Child and Adolescent Mental Health
• Child and Family Court Advisory Services Southwark Council
• Children's Services Director
• Children's Specialist Services and Safeguarding
• Early Years Southwark Council
• Guys and St Thomas' Foundation Hospital
• Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
• NHS Southwark
• Police Public Protection Metropolitan Police
• Primary school Head teacher Representative
• Probation
• School Governors Association
• South London and Maudsley NHS Trust (SLaM)
• Southwark Council: Councillor with lead responsibility for Children's Services
• United Kingdom Borders Agency

The structure of the board

The Southwark Safeguarding Children Board meets five times a year. These meetings are arranged in order that the Executive board meets three times. The main purpose of these meetings is that the Section 11 report of each individual agency is presented to the board and there is scrutiny of the report and agency activity for the year. The Executive Board is largely comprised of Chief Officers offering mutual scrutiny of services and making authoritive decisions on priority action.

The Main Safeguarding Children Board meets a further two times and takes an overview of each agencies contribution to safeguarding services in the borough, considers reports on statistical data relating to safeguarding and receives reports back from the sub-groups. The Main board is comprised of Senior and Chief Officers of a wide group of organisations

The board has a number of sub-groups who do more detailed work in specialist areas and report back to the main board. There are five sub-groups concentrating on Human Resources, Policy Practice and Procedure, Quality Assurance and Training, considering issues arising from Serious Case Reviews and the Child Death Overview Panel.

The board publishes an Annual report setting out a review of the year and an Annual business plan. 

Local Links

Children and Family Court Advisory Service
Community Action Southwark
Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Metropolitan Police
My Learning Source
NHS Southwark
South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
Southwark Council
United Kingdom Border Agency

Future developments

• Developing the safeguarding services following the Munro Review of Child Protection and the governments response
• The Safeguarding Children Board is currently planning the recruitment of two lay members to the board
• Local pilot of new way of supporting the work of and governance for the Child Death Overview Panel
• Supporting the transfer from Children and Family Trust arrangements to the newly proposed Health and Well Being Boards
• Promote the local use of the Common Assessment Framework (and review whether there is unnecessary use of statutory intervention).