As the named GP for child safeguarding, Dr Claire Taylor is part of Wandsworth’s multi-agency safeguarding hub (Mash), which brings together representatives from the police, health, social care, and voluntary sector bodies, to make decisions about vulnerable children who have been referred to them. “We get all the information together and then come to an initial decision about what happens next for those children,” she says. Whereas in the past information hasn’t always been shared in a timely way, it’s now improving significantly, because “social workers, doctors and nurses at the hospital and the police are all working so much more closely together”.
The change has come about because of Wandsworth’s decision to focus heavily on cooperation between agencies. In July 2019, together with the police and the clinical commissioning group, it launched the Wandsworth Safeguarding Children Partnership, which aims to work with all relevant agencies, including nurseries, schools and colleges, to keep children safe.
As well as holding a monthly operational meeting, the Mash team holds an audit meeting every month to review particular cases, which means, says Taylor, that members can learn from it immediately “rather than wading through months and months of a full review”.
Lucy O’Connor, a detective inspector with the South West Basic Command Unit, another member of Mash, says the audits enable members to “understand where other agencies, for example education or health, are coming from in relation to a case. We get so siloed in our own work – I’m a police officer, but they’ve got their own unique insights. So for me those meetings are really important.”
O’Connor also co-chairs the multi-agency risk vulnerability and exploitation (Marve) panel, which brings together agencies to share information on cases and discuss ideas about how to support children at risk of exploitation outside the home.
At the Mash meetings, Taylor has found that everyone’s voice matters, and that no one has to shout to be heard. “What is unique to Wandsworth is that social care is so warm and open,” she says. “We’re all very much on first name terms, and I think that’s quite unusual – it usually takes a long time to build that.”
The enthusiasm and openness of the Wandsworth social workers make it very easy to have good working relationships, which, she notes, form the “cornerstone of child safeguarding”. O’Connor agrees: Wandsworth, she says, has a strong culture of “learning and developing” in which people are encouraged to learn from their mistakes rather than being criticised for them.
Taylor is responsible for making sure all local GPs are trained to level 3 in safeguarding, so that they pick up early signs that a child may be at risk and ask the Early Help Practitioners’ Hub to put support measures in place. If they are still concerned, they can refer to Mash. “We’re trying to do more early intervention before things get so bad that they become child safeguarding issues,” she says.
There are approximately 265 children in care in Wandsworth. Lin Graham-Ray, who works for the South West London Health and Care Partnership, which brings together the NHS, local councils and voluntary organisations in six boroughs, is the designated nurse for looked-after children in the borough. Part of her role is to make sure that children entering the care system have a “safe person in health that they feel they can talk to, who will help them”.
Many children taken into care feel safer with nurses than with other professionals. “We have a real role in trying to be a conduit in making children feel safe and also supporting our social care colleagues without distancing them or making the children feel they have to choose between professionals,” says Graham-Ray. “That can be a challenge particularly when children come into care: they might be angry, confused, but it’s all about trying to build trust and relationships.”
Graham-Ray has found that Wandsworth social workers have been very receptive to partnership working: “It’s not an easy job, but we found a healthy balance of challenging each other without making the other one feel defensive. So it’s a welcome approach and I feel confident saying: ‘I’m really happy for you to challenge me about this, but this is my view.’” Similarly, a new multi-agency training programme has been met with “enthusiasm and excitement, to really look at how we can do this differently”.
Over the coming year, children’s services will adopt the family safeguarding model pioneered by Hertfordshire, which brings together multidisciplinary teams to tackle the trio of vulnerabilities: domestic abuse, parental substance abuse and parental mental ill health. Taylor is confident about the ability of the social care teams to adapt: “The social workers that I’ve worked with in Wandsworth are incredibly passionate and dedicated, and trying to change things for the better. The danger in child safeguarding is that systems get bogged down and things take way too long. In Wandsworth we are really trying to streamline that and the team are really proactive in that – they are real doers.”
Wandsworth, says Graham-Ray, is a “great place to work”, adding: “The partnership working isn’t something we’re talking about – it’s something we’re experiencing daily.”
