Child Protection Improvement Programme

Child Protection Improvement Programme – Update #10

December 13, 2018 by Lewis Worobec No Comments | Category Uncategorized

December Blog – part 1

After a busy summer and a slight pause in blogging, we are pleased to provide an update in two parts, of progress on the delivery of the actions from the Child Protection Improvement Programme (CPIP) and also highlight work underway across other policy areas.

The National Child Protection Leadership Group

The National Child Protection Leadership Group met on 2 October 2018 and is due to meet again in early 2019.  Discussions in October focused on the current development of a programme for future Chief Officer Leadership Events (COLE).  The group received an update from CELCIS on the development and testing of the Shared Dataset for Children and Young People in Need of Care and Protection.

Implementing the Children’s aspects of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015

Implementation of the 18 specific children’s actions within the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Strategy is overseen by the multi-agency Child Trafficking Strategy Group (CTSG), which last met on 25 October 2018.

At this meeting there was a discussion with the Home Office on the National Referral Mechanism reform and the possible implications for Scotland/the Scottish approach to supporting victims of child trafficking. The Child Protection and Human Trafficking teams in SG are taking forward these concerns with the Home Office in order to find an approach that is suitable to both Scotland and the UK.

Neglect

Public Consultation – Section 12 (“cruelty to persons under 16”) of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937

The Scottish Government’s public consultation on proposed changes to the criminal offence of child cruelty closed on 14 November 2018.  We are delighted to have received 221 responses which are currently being considered. The Scottish Government’s response will be published in 2019.

The Children and Young People Improvement Collaborative (CYPIC)

The Children and Young People Improvement Collaborative (CYPIC) brings together the Early Years Collaborative and the Raising Attainment for All Programme to deliver quality improvement (QI) throughout a child’s journey.  This aims to reinforce the link between children having positive experiences in the early years and educational attainment. The CYPIC remains closely aligned with the Maternity and Children Quality Improvement Collaborative where the focus is on maternity, neonatal and pediatric healthcare settings.

A series of CYPIC learning session titled ‘Working Together to Improve Outcomes’ took place on 13 and 14 November 2018 at the SEC in Glasgow. Over 700 practitioners, teachers and professionals from Community Planning Partners (CPPs) and National (third sector) Partners attended, representing early years, health, education, police, social work and third sector services.

Across the two days there were a range of excellent quality improvement projects that were showcased, with informative and thought provoking breakouts and a number of inspiring and influential speakers.   For more detail in relation to this event please visit http://www.cypic.co.uk/learning-session/

2018 Quality Improvement Awards Ceremony

The third annual Quality Improvement awards took place on 13 November 2018, supported by the Scottish Government and Healthcare Improvement Scotland. The awards celebrated and showcased the range of quality improvement practice that has been taking place across the length and breadth of Scotland to make services the best they possibly can be, for infants, children, young people and their families in all aspects of their lives. The shortlist of finalists can be found at the following link: https://www.cypic.co.uk/2018-shortlist/ .

Equally Safe

The Equally Safe Joint Strategic Board, which is co-chaired by the Equalities Secretary and CoSLA Community Wellbeing Lead, last met on 2 October 2018 to discuss The progress of Equally Safe, ahead of publication of the Year One Report.

The Equally Safe delivery plan was published on 24 November 2017 and is available to view at http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/11/5647.

The Equally Safe Year One Progress report will be published online at the start of this year’s 16 days of activism to end Gender-based violence.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)

Our consultation for the proposed Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Bill is now open. The Bill will seek to introduce protection orders for women and girls at risk, and place guidance for professionals on a statutory footing. Responses to this consultation will help to inform the development of stronger protections for individuals at risk of FGM, You can access the consultation paper at the following link https://consult.gov.scot/violence-against-women-team/female-genital-mutilation/ until 4 January 2018, and we welcome your views and contributions.  Work continues to implement Scotland’s national action plan to prevent and eradicate FGM, which was published in 2016.

Supporting Disabled Children, Young People and their Families Information resource

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that disabled children have the best start in life and is developing a resource to Support Disabled Children, Young People and their Families.

The resource is rights-based and has been developed through a process of co-production.  It aims to provide clear, accessible information on national policies, entitlements, rights and the different options for support available.  The guides to policies, legislation and service provision are interspersed with examples and real life case studies to showcase best practice.

The resource launched for consultation on 6 June 2018 and ran for a three month period. The consultation document included content that was gathered from across Scottish Government and from stakeholder engagement and was also available in British Sign Language and Easy Read.

During the 12 week consultation period officials presented the content, by way of a presentation and facilitated discussion to 11 areas in Scotland.  We met with 13 groups of stakeholders including parents, carers and young people with disabilities.  The consultation received 109 responses from 66 organisations and 43 individuals.  Respondents have given a wide range of views as well as suggesting further topics for consideration.

In addition to the feedback gathered at these events, we received 110 responses to our online consultation on the Citizen Space portal: 67 of these came from organisations and the remaining 43 from individuals, who were mostly parents.  Initial reading of the responses has found that they have yielded a wide range of views, as well as a number of suggestions for further content. The consultation responses will be formally analysed and a full report on the findings will be published in January 2019.

We aim to launch the resource in spring 2019.

Part two of the CPIP blog will be published next week.

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