Newsletter

I am pleased to say that, despite the on-going restrictions caused by Covid, the Children’s Partnership and the Adults’ Board  have been able to arrange a few learning events over the past quarter and I was delighted to join most of these.

In October Dr Jenny Molloy shared her experiences of neglect and of being a care leaver. Her straight talking and personal reflections were really powerful. I know that the learning from the event will be incorporated into the work that Dr Lesley Ray is leading for the Partnership on neglect. Dr Molloy led another session in November on sexual exploitation and, though I wasn’t able to join it, I understand that there was similar positive feedback.

In December the Adults’ Board held its first conference for some time and its first event on line. The objective of the day was on learning from previous Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARs) – both at a local and national level. The main focus of the conference was on the learning about self-neglect and links to mental capacity. It is clear from cases that are raised with the SAR sub-group that these can be challenging cases to deal with – for example when do what appear to be unwise choices about lifestyle become so serious that they indicate a lack of mental capacity and a need for the state to intervene. There are a lot more information and toolkits available to support those who are having to make decisions and there are opportunities to raise the most complicated cases to be discussed at a complex case panel with other professionals.

In January 2022 we held our first SAR testing workshops. I had been keen to get people together from a relevant organisations to discuss the response to a range of scenarios. We ran separate sessions for managers and practitioners to look at the issues and gaps and used two different cases which had themes of self-neglect, non-engagement, mental capacity, risk assessments and information sharing. I was really impressed with the contribution of all of those who attended and some really important learning and gaps were identified. These will be incorporated into the work of the Board and its sub-groups. I am keen to run a similar exercise for the children’s partnership – but I am conscious that the teams have had a busy few months with both workload and the Ofsted Inspection.

I hope that you find useful information in this newsletter and wish you all a rather belated Happy New Year.

Sir Francis J S Habgood

Independent Chair for Buckinghamshire Safeguarding Children’s Partnership

Independent Chair for Buckinghamshire Adult Safeguarding Board

Over the last few weeks the Safeguarding Adults’ Board and partners have been supporting the Council’s safeguarding campaign. This has been an important reminder that, even though we have seen the numbers of safeguarding concerns rise in comparison to last year, the majority of reports come from professionals and few come from the public. Therefore, this is an opportunity to highlight the range of abuse that can occur, particularly those that have previously been considered ‘hidden’ or which occur online, and to encourage people to report any concerns. There will be further messages during Safeguarding Week (15 – 21 November).

In both the children’s partnership and the adults’ board we continue to ensure that any learning that comes from safeguarding reviews is embedded. Sadly there is a national trend that similar themes keep on emerging in reviews – so this has been a real focus for our work. A really good way of bringing that learning to life is through the use of personal stories and it was great to listen to Jenny Molloy at the end of September who talked about her life and experiences of neglect. It was clear from the Q & A session that there was lots of learning for those in attendance. If you missed that then she is coming back to talk about exploitation at the end of November.

The Adults’ Board will also be holding a virtual conference on 10^th December which will concentrate on the learning from Safeguarding Adults Reviews (SARs). One of the themes being covered is around self-neglect – sadly there continue to be vulnerable adults who are experiencing self-neglect and then decline support from agencies. The discussion will be an opportunity to draw on good practice and share learning from previous cases.”

Sir Francis J S Habgood

Independent Chair for Buckinghamshire Safeguarding Children’s Partnership

Independent Chair for Buckinghamshire Adult Safeguarding Board

Welcome to the June Safeguarding Partnership Newsletter, we are delighted you are reading this!

For those of you I have not been able to meet yet, my name is Jo Stephenson and I have recently returned to my role as the Partnerships Manager for the Safeguarding Children Partnership and Safeguarding Adults Board. As a Partnership we are really keen to communicate with all of you who play a role in keeping children and adults safe and we are looking at ways of bringing your voices into our work. We want to get better at testing the impact of what we do and sharing learning in ways that are easily accessible.

I am happy to see a wide range of items for you in this edition ranging from hard hitting domestic abuse campaigns, information on child safety from our child death review panel as well as information about new services for young people. We have also added in our book recommendations – please note these are from members of the team for your interest and due to the subject matter have adult content, not suitable for children. If you have any recommendations about media we can share such as books, YouTube and tick tok videos or resources let us know!

As ever, your feedback is always appreciated please do contact BSCP@buckinghamshire.gov.uk with your ideas, comments, compliments and feedback on how we can do better.

Jo Stephenson – Safeguarding Partnership Manager

Sir Francis J S Habgood

It was great to have over 160 people involved in the recent online conference on contextual safeguarding in May. Although virtual events restrict the opportunity for people to have conversations in between the formal inputs, it has proved a good way for us to run learning events during Covid times.

The early feedback from the conference has been very positive and it was really valuable to hear national and local views about contextual safeguarding and to hear about practical examples of what it means. If you didn’t get the chance to join the conference then information is available on the BSCP website.

The conference resulted from one of the recommendations in the BSCP thematic review into serious youth violence. The reviews used a local case study, and drew on other national reviews, to understand what opportunities were available that might have prevented the harm and risks that occurred in that case. A greater understanding of the wider context of the lives of the young people would have identified a richer source of information and options. It was good to hear that this is being put into practice in Buckinghamshire – but there are still opportunities to improve practice and the partnership will be helping to coordinate this over the next few months.

The conference really highlighted the importance of using case reviews, both in the adult and children’s safeguarding worlds, to identify opportunities to learn and to improve. Each of these reviews come with a series of recommendations that are then robustly tracked by the business unit to ensure that they are embedded. I would encourage everybody to look at the website for details of the most recent publications.

Sir Francis J S Habgood – Independent Chair for Buckinghamshire Safeguarding Children’s Partnership and Independent Chair for Buckinghamshire Adult Safeguarding Board