MASH update

MASH is one year old!

In May 2017 MASH will reach its first anniversary. MASH has received over 23,000 contacts and referrals from professionals and members of the public since its launch. It receives 99 calls and 100 emails a day on average, with 35% of calls across 2016-2017 for consultations. 18.9% of referrals were from nursery, schools or colleges.

We are proud that we are able to offer professionals a direct call to a social worker for advice, information and consultation as few local authorities provide this.  

To coincide with our first anniversary, we will be launching our MASH Annual Report on 3 May 2017.  Some highlights from this report show that through the triangulation of information we are making co-ordinated decisions about children and adults. Timescales and caseloads of MASH professionals are also  inevitably linked.  Since 1 March our caseloads are now 15 referrals per day on average, meaning we have time to look deeply into each referral and understand the concerns being raised.

We have also worked very hard with the police to tackle domestic abuse and are able to report that incidents are being responded to through secondary multi-agency risk analysis, in live time.

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Escalation Process

Despite the high amount of referrals received, MASH has received a small number of case escalations - just 6 in 2016-2017.  If you are not happy with the outcome or decision from the MASH please tell us and use the escalation process. 

To feedback to the MASH or initiate a case escalation please email mashmanagers@warwickshire.gov.uk

To escalate issues from cases allocated to children's teams please contact the district Operations Manager.  

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You said. We Acted

We constantly seek and listen to feedback.  For example, feedback from professionals has highlighted that the Multi-Agency Referral Form (MARF) needs to improve.  We have made changes to the form, agreed last month by the Warwickshire Safeguarding Children's Board.  The new form and updated guidance is available on the WSCB website: www.warwickshire.gov.uk/wscb

Our annual report sets out a number of priorities following feedback and review of the MASH, including:

• When the outcome of MASH is an Early Help Single Assessment, there is a need to work with professionals to ensure a co-ordinated service is provided
• Ensure feedback is provided to the referrer and other agencies who provide information through triage 100% of the time.
• Develop an online form and improve advice and support available on the website

Workshops for school SLTs and safeguarding leads

Putting children at the heart of what we do workshops

We recently attended some of the headteacher briefings to advise that Warwickshire Safeguarding Children's Board will be holding workshops throughout 2017.  The aim of these workshops is to discuss what support other organisations need from WSCB to respond to children and families needs, in particular how to decide who is best to respond to a child who needs targeted support.  The workshops will include learning from Serious Case Reviews and the latest best practice from around the country.

For school consortiums we are offering to hold bespoke sessions for school senior leadership team and safeguarding leads.  If you're a consortium chair and would be interested in this please contact johncoleman@warwickshire.gov.uk

The workshops will be advertised and open to all professionals via WILMA in the next fortnight.  

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE VISIT WWW.WARWICKSHIRE.GOV.UK/MASH OR CALL 01926 414144

Early Help and Targeted Support

Early Help and Targeted Support services seek to prevent escalation and assist with de-escalation where there has been prior social care involvement.  Key components of the Service include:

Early Help Service

The Early Help Officers support professionals to work effectively at an Early Help level.  Key areas of involvement are:

• Training on how to use the Early Help Single Assessment (EHSA) and how to write quality safeguarding referrals with the MASH
• Day to day advice where the aim is that any Early Help exit from the MASH will be completed by someone from the Early Help team, brokering the appropriate level of support for each child/children. Advice is also available on possible referral routes to Early Help or specialist services (such as Single Point of Entry) pre-EHSA, advice on use of pre-EHSA action plan, how to manage situations arising through the EHSA episode and when to close episodes. Early Help Officers will broker support for parents / child where there is not currently a practitioner linked to the family to do this.

MASH 

The Early Help team members in the MASH also operate an advice line about complex and challenging cases in real time. This supports practitioners managing high level cases to develop confidence, reduce anxiety and increase the safety of the process.  It also ensures that front line practitioners do not feel alone and unsupported

Network Event

The team run practitioner network events and cluster events in specific districts to reduce issues of professional isolation and insular working. This allows practitioners to network with one another, share experiences and good practice.  As a broker of services at these meetings, we can ensure that knowledge about services is cascaded down to front line workers.

Early Help Clinics

Early Help Clinics support lead professionals holding cases to enable all the lead professionals or/and Early Help Single Assessment trained personnel to get together in one meeting and discuss cases of note. 

Early Help Single Assessment Oversight

Each Early Help Single Assessment is assigned to an Early Help Officer who will monitor the process of the episode, ensure action plans are acceptable and focus on outcomes for the child/children.  They ensure that episodes do not drift and if they are not effective, discuss options with the lead professionals.  They review records of the meetings and will broker additional services if required and available.  

Family Support Meetings

The team attend Family Support Meetings (FSM) to support, focus and model good practice to practitioners; increasing critical conversation skills and the ability to challenge other practitioners and to support practitioners to deal with challenging people. The current commitment is that Early Help Officers will attend initial Family Support Meetings to ensure a robust action plan is in place and all possible support accessed.  They will then only attend if the situation warrants it, with a particular focus on preventing escalation through the tiers (education, mental health, safeguarding).  Again attendance at these meetings prevents drift.

Family and Parenting Support

Family and Parenting Support services provide a range of services to support families (including parenting programmes) and are the main deliverers of the Priority Families Programme in Warwickshire. This is principally through a Family Support Worker Service that delivers a whole-family intensive approach that seeks to work in partnership with others and in collaboration with the family on key areas such as poor educational attendance, crime/ASB, financial exclusion, domestic abuse, contact with social care and health issues.  The focus is on significant and sustained progress that builds the independence and resilience of families.  

For more info go to http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/parentingsupport

Targeted Support for Young People

Targeted Support for Young People (TS4YP) inspires young people to achieve the skills to manage their lives, and what it brings, through a creative, challenging and supportive approach.

TS4YP has a unique method which is developed through a youth work approach: “The key focus of youth work is to enable young people to develop holistically, working with them to facilitate their personal, social and educational development, to enable them to develop their voice, influence and place in society, and to reach their full potential” (National Occupational Standards, 2010)

Youth work is a profession that requires degree qualification specifically in youth and community work as recognised by the national Joint Negotiating Committee. In Warwickshire, both full time and substantive hours staff working with referred young people are professional youth workers. Some referrals are allocated to extensively qualified staff directly supported by a youth worker.

TS4YP work with referred young people:

• who are at risk of becoming Looked After or who are Looked After
• who are NEET or at risk of becoming so*

[* If the young person is on a school roll a charge will be incurred]

The above are delivered through:

One to one support – We offer individual support for young people with more specific needs – Sessions can focus on resilience skills, behaviour in class and home, relationships, planning and problem solving, managing feelings, communication and confidence. [Criteria - Children Looked After, Edge of Care, Not in Education Employment or Training [NEET], Risk of being NEET.]

Structured Group work programmes are delivered to small groups (5-10) of young people who are judged to benefit from a group setting and/or a similar syllabus.

Informal groups, meetings and projects in the most disadvantaged communities, ie Camp Hill and Lillington, usually in one of the centres managed by TS4YP e.g. young parents group, NEET group, Voice of Young People, and open youth clubs.

TS4YP have also developed a specific course for young people of secondary age that are struggling with school attendance, Vertical delivered from our Kingsbury Outdoor Learning Centre.

For more information go to:

Targeted Support for Young People - further information

Targeted Support for Young People - resources for professional

Accessing our services

Family Information Service

The Family Information Service provide FREE information to families and professionals working with families in Warwickshire on a wide range of subjects including:

• Childcare
• Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
• Help with Family Finances
• Parenting Support
• Contact
• One to One Support 

 If you are not sure - JUST ASK! 

If you think we could help support a family in your school please get in touch via our helpline 01926 742274 or email familyinformationservice@warwickshire.gov.uk.

Why not link your school's webpages to the FIS one: www.warwickshire.gov.uk/fis

OR follow us on Facebook WarwickshireFIS, Twitter @WarksFIS OR sign up to our regular newsletter – www.warwickshire.gov.uk/parentupdate

 

Targeted Support for Young People

All forms and information can be accessed via http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/earlyhelp or via direct contact with our local teams

northearlyhelp@warwickshire.gov.uk, southearlyhelp@warwickshire.gov.uk or eastearlyhelp@warwickshire.gov.uk

Or call 01926 414147.  Principal routes of support that can be identified are:

Pre Early Help Action Plan

This can be used by any agency who would like to create an action plan with the family in order to clearly record what Early Help Support is being offered to a family.  This maybe supporting with breakfast club in the morning for a short time, helping with uniform costs, suggesting parents attend a Triple P course.

This is offered when the agency working with the family feel that needs can be addressed with the family themselves and there is no need to complete an assessment of the child/childrens needs.

Often this work is already happening within schools and other agencies.  This work has a significant impact on ensuring that the families needs are met at the earliest possible point using the most appropriate level of service.  This action plan is designed to record this.

Early Help Single Assessment

This is an holistic assessment of need for a child/children or YP.  It is used when a practitioner feels that the needs of a child/children or young person are not clear and an assessment will help to identify the issues and what support is needed.  This can be written by any practitioner in Warwickshire who has attended a day training on using the Early Help Single Assessment.   Once written each Early Help Single Assessment is allocated to an Early Help Officer who will support the practitioners in managing this process.

There are often Family Support Meetings following this assessment where the Family meet with professionals to plan the support to be offered.

The Early Help training is available on Wilma (SCC CS361) any issue please call the Early Help Officer Team on 01926414147

Post Early Help Action Plan

These plans are used once an Early Help Single Assessment and Family Support meeting process has ended but both the family and practitioners feel that action planning will still be useful after the more formal Family Support Meetings have ended.

Locality Panels

This is a multi-agency meeting held every four to six weeks in each locality.  The Locality Panel is a multi-agency panel designed to act as a single point of service allocation to children, young people and families where the professional support system and EHSA are not sufficient to improve outcomes, but where there are no immediate safeguarding concerns.  Referrals need to have exhausted all usual avenues of support.  It is expected that you will have a Early Help Single Assessment in process so can speak to your Early Help Officer about this. 

Information in relation to Locality Panels, including dates, contact details, referral forms can be accessed via the following link: www.warwickshire.gov.uk/priorityfamilies

Referrals can be made through the following link: ts4ypreferralinbox@warwickshire.gov.uk 

Safeguarding 

People in Warwickshire are safeguarded from harm, receiving the services they need, at the right time, effectively and efficiently. The Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) is a partnership between Warwickshire County Council, Warwickshire Police, NHS and other key partner agencies working together to safeguard children, young people and adults.

The MASH will deal with new safeguarding concerns, where someone is concerned about the safety or well-being of a child or adult, or thinks they might be at risk of harm. For example, a teacher may believe that one of their pupils is at risk of harm at home, or a doctor may think an older person is being neglected.

Within the MASH, information from different agencies will be collated and used to decide what action to take. As a result, the agencies will be able to act quickly in a co-ordinated and consistent way, ensuring that children and adults are kept safe. The MASH will involve representatives from the Warwickshire County Council Social Services, Police, Health, Probation and other key agencies working together in the same location. There are also links to other key services and agencies.

You can contact the MASH on 01926 414144 or at mash@warwickshire.gcsx.gov.uk