El desarrollo de las actividades de las Pymes del sector comercio de insumos de

4. ACCESS TO SERVICES

STANDARD 3

The Board/Trust promotes access to services by children and families and concerned members of the public where there are child protection concerns.

4.1 Promoting access to services requires Boards and Trusts to provide information about the nature and availability of services, in a wide range of formats, to families and children. Requests for services need to be responded to in a timely, sensitive and professional manner. It is also important that those seeking support for themselves or others are assured that referrals are responded to speedily and appropriately.

4.2 Key Findings Information

4.2.1 Boards, through their ACPCs, have at various times produced information for children and families and the general public about how to recognise child abuse and neglect and how to report concerns to the relevant agencies. These initiatives have been undertaken collaboratively with the other key statutory organisations represented on ACPCs and with the relevant children’s voluntary organisations.

4.2.2 ACPCs and CPPs, working collaboratively have recently developed a regional ACPC information and communication strategy to address their public communication responsibilities as outlined in CtSC.²⁸The regional approach was developed to provide a common and informed response to the range of current and complex child protection issues in the public domain. This is to be commended and has the

potential to maximise opportunities to harness the powerful influences of the media in a positive and educational way.

4.2.3 Campaigns to encourage child protection referrals to Trusts’ children’s social services have been sporadic and were not supported on an ongoing basis by the availability of easy to access information in a range of formats and settings, including yellow pages and telephone directories; community information services; Board and Trust websites;

sponsored links on all relevant websites; libraries and other public services settings;

28 CtSc, Chapter 4, paragraph 4.2.

health centres and hospitals; buses, shopping centre trolleys and similar advertising initiatives.

4.2.4 Most community-based children’s social services offices had leaflet displays about early years services, community nursing and paediatrics, specialist facilities and resources as well as projects provided by community groups and voluntary organisations. However, there were few Trust-produced leaflets promoting and explaining the core statutory services for children in need or at risk and how to access them. There was an absence of information on child protection services in reception areas within Board and Trust headquarters and in their publications.

Directories of services, where they existed, were often out of date.

4.2.5 ACPCs have produced a range of reports and information leaflets which give a broad overview of multi-agency child protection activity in their area. In some Boards and Trusts there were good examples of collaborative work to produce information leaflets in different languages, with agencies such as the Multi-Cultural Resource Centre²⁹and Chinese Welfare Association.³⁰This is to be commended and should be expanded to include the needs of the increasing number of immigrant families living here. Where high quality information leaflets had been produced, they were not always available and there was no consistent process for updating and reprinting leaflets.

GOOD PRACTICE EXAMPLE:

“Safe Parenting Handbook”, DHSSPS with ACPCs

The “Safe Parenting Handbook”, which was produced by the DHSSPS in partnership with the 4 ACPCs, is a comprehensive, user-friendly document which identifies the range of issues and challenges faced by parents in raising their children. It

acknowledges the circumstances in which parents may need support, and sets child protection within this broader context. It provides information on how to access a range of services and describes the processes involved. Contact information for all the Trusts, for ACPCs and for children’s voluntary organisations is included. The handbook is available in Cantonese, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Polish and Russian, French and Tetum and is on the DHSSPS website. ³¹

OUR CHILDREN AND

YOUNG PEOPLE - OUR SHARED RESPONSIBILITY

INSPECTION OF CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES IN NORTHERN IRELAND

29 Information about the Multi-Cultural Resource Centre can be accessed at: http://www.mcrc-ni.org/

30 Information about the Chinese Welfare Association can be accessed at: http://www.cwa-ni.org/

31 The “Safe Parenting Handbook” can be accessed at: http://www.dhsspsni.gov.uk/show_publications?txtid=12653 .

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Duty Systems

4.2.6 All of the Trusts offered both an office duty system and an out-of-hours emergency response service. The arrangements varied considerably both between and within Trusts, in respect of geographical accessibility, operating hours and in whether duty/intake services were provided by a specialist team or as part of the generic responsibilities of the local children’s services team.

4.2.7 Problems were identified in relation to the out-of-hours service and the limited skills and knowledge base of some staff in dealing with highly complex child protection cases and problems with children in residential children’s homes.

4.2.8 While the office duty system in most areas facilitated the taking and recording of referrals, significant problems were reported by professionals in other disciplines and agencies in relation to feedback regarding these referrals and allocation of cases for assessment.

4.2.9 Reception and waiting areas were variable in terms of their accessibility, décor and privacy. Parents and young people reported that it was difficult to contact their social workers or, in their absence, to speak with a senior social worker. The frequent changes in social workers and the lack of information about who to contact if their social worker was on sick leave or annual leave, was a frequently expressed frustration by parents and children.

4.2.10 Arrangements for the provision of accessible local community-based children’s social services were variable and individual Trusts have experimented with different models within the main centres of population. There is a demand for local offices which are user-friendly and can accommodate functions such as office duty, face to face interviews with children, young people and families, one to one work with young people, case conferences and LAC reviews. Recent advice from the British

Association of Social Workers (BASW), endorsed by the inspection team, stresses that

“social workers need to become as integral to community life as family doctors if the relationship between the profession and service users is to be improved”. BASW advocates "social workers should be deployed in the places where a need for their services is likely to be first identified".³²

32 Johnston, I., “Professional Social Work”, BASW, August 2006

GOOD PRACTICE EXAMPLE:

Ormeau Road Family and Child Care Office, South and East Belfast Trust

The Ormeau Road Family and Child Care office is user-friendly and characterised by the following features:

- situated on a main arterial route serviced by local and regional transport;

- onsite car parking with additional parking in adjacent streets;

- an obvious and unambiguous sign indicating the service available within the building;

- bright, fresh and welcoming reception/waiting room facilities with appropriate décor and furnishings;

- wall display with a number of relevant leaflets;

- pleasant and professional reception staff with evidence of appropriate respect for privacy and confidentiality; and

- appropriate and accessible case conference room with a separate smaller meeting/interview room.

4.2.11 A number of the Trusts inspected had difficulty in providing a consistent and timely response to requests for services and this seriously impacted on the ability of children and families to access support. Levels of referrals were only one part of the problem.

Difficulties with the transfer of cases between teams in some Trusts had created serious backlogs and pressures for duty and intake teams, children in need teams and for LAC services. Even when there were clear protocols for the transfer of cases these were often not implemented in practice. Trusts were experimenting with a range of models for restructuring services to streamline appropriate case allocation.

4.2.12 All but one of the Trusts inspected had a backlog of cases for allocation, raising serious issues about parents’ and children’s ability to access services and about Trusts’ capacity to discharge their delegated statutory responsibilities.

OUR CHILDREN AND

YOUNG PEOPLE - OUR SHARED RESPONSIBILITY

INSPECTION OF CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES IN NORTHERN IRELAND

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4.3 Recommendations

Boards and Trusts must ensure that:

20. adequate and appropriate information is available to potential service users and