LSCB

Welcome to Bedfordshire LSCB



Welcome to the Bedfordshire Local Safeguarding Children Board website.

We want to make sure that children and young people feel safe and cared for in Bedfordshire and hope that this website is useful to those who want to know more about the work of the Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB).

LSCBs have been established by the government to ensure that organisations work together effectively to safeguard children and promote their welfare. In Bedfordshire this includes social care services, education, health, the police, probation, the voluntary sector, youth offending team, Connexions, early years services as well as District councils and Yarlswood – in fact, any organisation providing services for children.

I hope that children and young people, families and communities will use the website as well as professionals working with children.

Laura Eades
Chair of Bedfordshire LSCB

What does the LSCB do?

Bedfordshire Local Safeguarding Children Board is an inter-agency forum for:

  • Coordinating the work done by the various agencies to safeguard children and promote their welfare, and

  • Ensuring that this work is carried out effectively

The LSCB's objectives and purpose.

The Children Act 2004 places a duty on children’s services to establish local boards and sets out the agencies that will be ‘Board partners’ on the LSCB. The Act also places a duty for the authority and Board partners to cooperate with each other.

Further guidance for the LSCB is set out in "Working Together to Safeguard Children: A guide to inter-agency working." This defines the LSCB as, “the key statutory mechanism for agreeing how the relevant organisations…will cooperate to safeguard and promote the welfare of children…and ensuring the effectiveness of what they do.”

The LSCB also has a role to contribute to the planning and delivery of children’s services through the Children And Young People’s Strategic Plan (CYPSP).

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children means:
  1. protecting children from maltreatment

  2. preventing the impairment of children’s heath or development

  3. ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care; and

  4. undertaking that role so as to enable those children to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully

The scope of this role falls into three broad areas of activity:

Activity that affects all children and aims to identify and prevent maltreatment or impairment of health or development, and ensure children are growing up in circumstances consistent with safe and effective care.
For example:
  • Mechanisms to identify abuse and neglect wherever they occur

  • Work to increase understanding of safeguarding children issues in the professional and wider community, promoting the message that safeguarding is everybody’s responsibility

  • Work to ensure that organisations working, or in contact with children, operate recruitment and human resource practices that take account of the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children

  • Monitoring the effectiveness of organisations’ implementation of their duties under section 11 of the Children Act 2004 (arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children)

  • Ensuring children know who they can contact when they have concerns about their own or other’s safety and welfare

  • Ensuring that adults know who they can contact if they have a concern about a child or young person

Proactive work that aims to target particular groups, for example:
  • Developing and evaluating thresholds and procedures for work with children and families where a child; has been identified as ‘in need’ under the Children Act 1989, but where the child is not suffering or at risk of suffering significant harm

  • Work to safeguard and promote the welfare of groups of children who are potentially more vulnerable than the general population, for example, children living away from home, children who have run away from home, children in custody, or disabled children

Responsive work to protect children who are suffering, or at risk of suffering harm, including:
  • Children abused and neglected within families, including those harmed in the context of domestic violence or as a consequence of substance misuse

  • Children abused outside families by adults known to them

  • Children abused and neglected by professional carers, within institutional settings, or anywhere else where children are cared for away from home

  • Children abused by strangers

  • Children abused by other young people

  • Young perpetrators of abuse; and

  • Children abused through prostitution


Accountability and governance

Although the LSCB’s role includes coordinating and ensuring the effectiveness of work done by member organisations to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people, it is not accountable for the operational work. This remains with the individual organisations and services. The LSCB does not have the power to direct other organisations.

The Strategic and Operations Board of the LSCB is chaired by an Independent Chair, Laura Eades.

The work of the LSCB has been divided between sub-groups, overseen by the Operations Board. The chairs of the sub-groups sit on the Operations Board.

The subgroups are:
  • Policy and Procedures - responsible for developing policies and procedures for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and ensuring they are compliant with national requirements.

  • Audit - responsible for monitoring the effectiveness of work done to safeguard and promote the welfare of children

    • Training Commissioning - will sit above the Training, Development and Implementation Group (TDIG) to commission, monitor and scrutinise the training on behalf of the LSCB. Representatives of agencies sitting on this group will be at a senior level, able to release resources and speak on behalf of their agency
  • Training & Development Implementation - responsible for undertaking an annual training and development needs analysis and delivering a programme of multi-agency training to meet the identified needs

  • Communications - responsible for developing and implementing the Communications strategy for the LSCB, including improving interagency communication, raising public awareness and working with local media

  • Serious Case Review Panel - responsible for reviewing cases where a child has died or has been seriously harmed in circumstances where abuse or neglect is know or suspected, and advising on the lessons that can be learned;

  • Child Death Overview Panel - (this becomes statutorily operational in April 2008), responsible for reviewing all deaths of children aged 0-18 years resident in Bedfordshire at the time of their death, to identify patterns or trends and consider how such deaths might be prevented in the future

I hope that this gives you some idea as to how the LSCB functions if you have any queries or questions please do not hesitate to contact us, for contact details see the contacts page.

Sally Stocker
Business Manager LSCB


What to do if you are worried about a child


LSCB News
Group A Training - 1st July 2009 - now fully booked. Next date is 8th October 2009
 The next Group A Training course on the 1st July 2009 is now fully booked. We will be running this course again on the 8th October 2009. Group A training is for people who are in contact with children and young people and with adults who are parents/carers. You will be in a position to identify concerns about maltreatment and need introductory training on how to work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Examples of people in Group A include district nurses, occupational therapists, dental service staff, drug and alcohol service staff, health care assistants, housing and hospital staff, youth workers, child minders, private foster carers, connexions staff, Ambulance and Fire Service staff, housing contractors, police officers, reception staff, voluntary organisations including youth clubs, sport clubs and leisure staff. If you are unsure as to whether this is the right course for you please contact Sue Fanthorpe who will be able to assist you. To book a place please complete an application form found in the training programme and send to the LSCB for processing. Closing date for this course is the 14th September 2009.

 New E-Learning package on Awareness of Child Abuse & Neglect
 E-Learning The Bedfordshire LSCB have purchased a new E-learning course on Basic Awareness of Child Abuse & Neglect which is free of charge to all LSCB member agencies in Bedfordshire. We are also able to offer this free of charge to voluntary organisations. All Independent agencies will be charged at £12.50 per applicant. We also have 200 places on the Domestic Abuse e-learning course. To access this exciting innovative way of training please complete the online booking form in the links page on this website. Virtual college will then email you with your individual username and password. The course is ideal for everyone who comes into contact with children, young people, their parents or carers through their work in either the statutory or voluntary or independent sector and is endorsed by Bedfordshire Safeguarding Children Board and is in line with our Training Strategy. The e-learning module and on-line assessment provides a flexible delivery route for Basic Awareness of Child Protection and Safeguarding Children. For a free demonstration, learners can visit the e-Academy portal www.safeguardingchildrenea.co.uk and select the ‘Demos’ option on the top navigation bar. Recognition of Achievement The training modules incorporate a number of challenges and questions that will enable the user to determine their level of understanding. When ready they can proceed to the online quizzes, which will test their knowledge and record the results on their personal training record.When learners successfully achieve the pass mark for an individual module, they will be eligible for a certificate on completion. Welcome to the e-Academy The aim of the Safeguarding Children e-Academy is to improve the education and training process for those individuals and organisations who work with children. We hope that the e-Academy will play an important role in helping facilitate the adoption of e-learning with member organisations who share similar issues within the field of child protection, and by doing so, create a powerful focused team who can quickly develop effective learning solutions. What is the e-Academy? The e-Academy is an innovative solution, specifically structured to enhance the learning process for those individuals and organisations who work with children. There are vast numbers of people who need appropriate training in areas of child protection, who struggle to engage in the traditional classroom based delivery. The e-Academy will provide an alternative route to an excellent range of learning resources that can be accessed online. By utilising the internet to provide access to online resources there are no geographical restrictions. It will utilise a virtual learning environment, e-learning modules and online assessment to create a blended learning solution that enables a flexible, quality and consistent provision that engages learners. A key part of the e-Academy model is the bringing together of a number of members within the field of child protection who share similar training requirements, and by doing so, create a powerful focused team who can quickly develop effective learning solutions. In addition, the e-Academy will play an important role in helping facilitate the adoption of e-learning within member organisations. The Benefits of the e-Academy The e-Academy introduces a new dimension to the education and learning process by providing a vehicle for member organisations to share ideas and solutions. The introduction of e-learning can bring a number of benefits, including: • Providing a flexible delivery route with learning taking place at a pace, place and time to suit the learner. • Ensuring a high quality, consistent message is delivered. • Improving the engagement and retention of learners. • Helping close the loop through online assessment. • Creating a cost effective delivery model. What do the e-learning modules include? Each of the e-learning modules include a mixture of scenarios, challenges and progress checks to reinforce the learning process. What equipment is needed to undertake the e-academy programme? All that is needed is access to a computer that has an Internet connection. The system has been optimised to allow minimum access time, but a broadband connection is preferable. The modules have been developed using Flash technology and a Flash Player needs to be installed on the computer. This software is freely and easily downloadable from the Internet and the relevant link is included with the training material.

 Domestic Violence Website
 This website provides advice, facts and information regarding support services to assist anyone wanting to flee domestic violence. www.bedsdv.org.uk

 Safeguarding Children and Inter-Agency 2 day training course - 22nd & 23rd September 2009
 The next 2 day training course will be held on the 22nd & 23rd September at Keech Cottage. This training is for people who work regularly with children and young people, and with adults who are parents or carers, and who may be asked to contribute to assessments of ‘children in need’. You will have responsibility to identify and act on concerns about maltreatment and need training on how to work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Group B includes GPs, hospital and community health staff including health visitors, practice nurses, paediatricians, A&E staff and midwives. Family & Children’s centre workers, Children’s residential workers, teachers, education welfare officers, social workers, adult mental health and learning disability staff, probation officers, and many others. To be eligible for this course you must have undertaken awareness training (or similar. Closing date is 24th August 2009.

 Training calender from April - Dec 2009
 Please see the training section for all information regarding LSCB safeguarding children training. We will also be holding various specialist courses, details to be confirmed. To apply for any training course please complete the training application form and return to the LSCB team.

 Safer Recruitment for Managers - 28th September 2009
 This is a newly developed 1 DAY multi-agency course designed to assist all those responsible for recruiting staff or volunteers to work with children, young people and families. It will assist all Agencies to meet their statutory Safer Recruitment responsibilities under s.11 of the Children Act 2004.‘Robust recruitment and vetting procedures should be put in place to help prevent unsuitable people from working with children… People who recruit staff to work with children must have the appropriate training.’ (Statutory Guidance on making arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children under section 11 of the Children Act 2004.) The first course will be held on Thursday 11th June 2009 (fully booked) and then at quarterly intervals - next date is the 28th September 2009. There will be a specific Course tailored to meet the training needs of HR managers on Tuesday 12th May 2009 and applications are particularly welcomed from Local Authorities - including District Councils, Police, Probation Service, all local NHS Trusts, Connexions, Youth Offending Teams, Prisons, Housing Authorities, Registered Social Landlords and HR Managers from the Private Voluntary and Independent sector.

More News!!!