Technical Notes 2023, Issue 64 - Joint Inspection of Services for Children at Risk of Harm – Publication of Inspection Report

1. On 26 September 2022 the Care Inspectorate wrote to the East Dunbartonshire Community Planning Partnership to advise that the Care Inspectorate, Education Scotland, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland and Healthcare Improvement Scotland would undertake a joint inspection of services for children at risk of harm in East Dunbartonshire.

2. The remit of these joint inspections is to consider the effectiveness of services for children and young people up to the age of 18 at risk of harm.

3. The inspections look at the differences Community Planning Partnerships are making to the lives of children and young people at risk of harm and their families.

4. The active phase of the inspection took place between October 2022 and February 2023 and the inspection report was published 18 April 2023. A copy of the report (link opens in new window).

5. The inspection report highlights areas of good practice and areas for further development and concludes on an assessment grading for a single quality indicator 2.1, from the inspection framework, ‘impact on children and young people’. The inspection report has graded the services in East Dunbartonshire as ‘Good’. An evaluation of good is applied where performance shows important strengths which clearly outweigh any areas for improvement. The strengths will have been assessed as having a significant positive impact on children and young people’s experiences and outcomes.

6. The report highlighted the following strengths and areas of good practice:

• Many children and young people said that they got the right help to make and keep loving relationships with those they cared about. We saw how some were being supported to maintain relationships with brothers and sisters, as well as with parents.
• Support for children’s wellbeing, planning of care and provision of good nurturing relationships was rated as good or better in regulated care inspections.
• Almost all children and young people told us they felt safe where they lived all or most of the time. Asylum seeking young people felt well supported, safe and helped to maintain cultural links. Interpreters were provided for individual children or parents.
• Young people were being listened to about what mattered to them, felt involved and were aware of their rights. Many children and young people had the opportunity to develop consistent and enduring relationships with key staff.
• Children and young people had been directly engaged in service developments such as the House project. In other examples, including record keeping, they were influencing changes in practice.
• Staff we spoke with demonstrated a child-centred approach to providing services to improve the wellbeing of children and young people.
• Statutory and voluntary agencies were working well together to provide practical support for children, young people and their families. A range of services from pre-birth to teenage, provided early and effective intervention in response to emerging concerns.
• Children and young people had benefitted from their safety and wellbeing having been a key priority for leaders throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

7. The scrutiny partners concluded that they were confident that partners in East Dunbartonshire have the capacity to make changes to service delivery in the areas that require improvement. This was based on the following factors:

• Evidence of strong partnership working, and staff and leaders being committed to improving outcomes for children, young people and families.
• High levels of confidence from staff in their knowledge and abilities, supported by evidence from records reading.
• Similar levels of support from staff about their leaders’ ability to continue to drive change and make improvements.
• Well-developed management information and self-evaluation practice capable of identifying areas for improvement and further action.
• Collaborative inter-agency practice, including the role of the third sector, providing services to children at risk of harm and their families.
• Recent commitments to changes in practice, including the introduction of the Safe and Together model, and an emphasis on trauma informed practice.
• The partnership’s own self-evaluation had already identified many of the areas for improvement found by the inspection team, which showed that they knew themselves well and had a solid foundation to make improvements.

8. Scope for improvement was identified in awareness and consistent availability of advocacy services, further opportunities for the voices of children who were, or had been, at risk of harm to inform strategic planning, scope to improve the quality of chronologies, waiting times for access to specialist CAMHS services and scope to further develop analysis of impact and outcomes for children and their families.

9. An action plan will now be developed in response and overseen by the Child Protection Committee.