Joint inspection of services to protect children and young
people in Aberdeenshire Council area.
3 December 2009
The inspection of services to protect children1 in the
Aberdeenshire Council area was carried out in August and
September 2009. We looked at the services provided by health,
the police, the Council and the Children’s Reporter. We also
looked at the services provided by voluntary and independent
organisations. Our report describes how good they are at
protecting children and keeping them safe. To find this out we
read a sample of children’s files which were held by these
services. We talked to a number of children and their parents
and carers to listen to their views about the services they had
received. We also spoke to staff in these services who worked
with children, parents and carers and to senior managers who
were responsible for these staff and the services they provided.
What we found and tell you about in this report is based on a
sample of children and families. We cannot promise that this will
be the same for every child in the area who might need help.
A team of inspectors gathered all the information and helped to
write this report. These inspectors have experience of working
across the range of services involved in protecting children.
Inspection teams include professional staff who work in council
areas elsewhere in Scotland.
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When we refer to children in this report we mean children and young people
under the age of 18 years.
Contents
1. The area
2. Particular strengths that make a difference to children and families
3. Examples of good practice
4. How well are the needs of children and families met?
5. How good is the management and delivery of services?
6. How good is leadership and direction?
7. How are services improving?
8. What happens next?
1. The Area
Aberdeenshire is in the north-east of Scotland. It covers an area of
6,313 square kilometres and is the sixth largest council area in
Scotland. Aberdeenshire has a mix of urban and rural areas. Major
towns include Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Inverurie, Ellon and
Stonehaven. The Council area has a population of 241,460 with
21.8% under the age of 18 years, compared to the Scottish average of
20.2%.
The number of children referred to the Council for child protection
enquiries decreased between 2006 and 2009. The level of referrals is
less than Scotland as a whole. The proportion of children on the Child
Protection Register (CPR) in Aberdeenshire is 1.7 per 1,000, which is
less than the national average of 2.9 per 1,000.
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2. Particular strengths that make a difference to children and
families
•
Providing help to those who need it at an early stage.
•
Staff recognising signs that individual children may need help and
taking prompt and effective action.
•
Trusting relationships which help staff support families more
effectively.
3. Examples of good practice
•
Peer Listening which provides effective emotional support for
children and young people in five schools across the council area.
•
Time Out for Teens which helps parents understand and meet the
needs of their teenage children better and helps reduce conflict at
home.
4. How well are the needs of children and families met?
Services provide very effective support to help children keep
themselves safe. Schools help children learn about alcohol, drugs and
bullying. Staff from education, police and voluntary services work
together very well to help children understand risks when using the
Internet. Social workers and Women’s Aid help children who have
experienced domestic abuse to stay safe. Barnardo’s Gemini Project
provides effective help to young people who are affected by their own
or their parents’ drug or alcohol misuse. Most families get the help
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they need at an early stage to prevent difficulties getting worse or
happening again. Staff from different services work together very well
to make sure support is fully coordinated and meets the needs of
everyone in the family. Family centres provide high quality care for
young children. They also provide a range of services which help
parents increase their skills and confidence to support their children
better. The work carried out by family support workers with families in
their own homes is helping improve the lives of many vulnerable
children.
Staff are becoming more alert to concerns about children. Most now
recognise signs that children may be at risk and know what action to
take. Staff are responding earlier and more effectively to concerns
about vulnerable unborn babies.
Children are kept safe because staff take prompt and effective action
to help them, whenever concerns arise. Staff use legal measures
effectively to protect children and provide appropriate alternative
accommodation if children cannot stay at home. More social workers
need to be given training to increase their skills and confidence when
carrying out interviews with children to investigate concerns. In a few
cases, staff do not bring together all relevant information to help them
make decisions. Useful leaflets are available to help children and
families understand what is happening while concerns are being
investigated. These need to be used more widely.
Staff are skilled at identifying the needs of the most vulnerable
children. They recognise children’s short-term needs and usually
provide helpful services without delay. Staff work hard to meet
children’s longer-term needs. Family members now have more
practical and emotional support to help them care for children who
cannot grow up with their parents. Children who need long-term
fostering or adoption now have their needs met more quickly. Many
children are helped to overcome the effects of abuse or neglect by the
caring support they receive from a wide range of staff. There are very
effective specialist services for children who need particular help.
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However, some children have to wait too long for these and do not
always get effective help to cope in the meantime.
Managers are alert to the needs of children who may be at particular
risk. They have put systems in place to track children who go missing
from education, which staff use effectively. Staff in services are
working with a neighbouring authority to test out different ways of
ensuring children are kept safe if they run away from home. The Child
Protection Committee (CPC) gives clear guidance to staff about action
to take if they are concerned that children who have been brought into
or moved around the country illegally are at risk of harm.
Staff know vulnerable children and families well because they have
regular and consistent contact with them. Children benefit from the
efforts staff make to win their trust and confidence. Overall, effective
communication between staff and families ensures children get the
help they need to make their lives better. Parents report they are
supported to take part in meetings where decisions are made about
their children. Managers are encouraging staff to seek children’s
views more often. Some children praise the efforts staff make in
listening to them. Not all children are given enough support and
encouragement to take part in meetings where decisions are taken
about them or are helped to give their views in other ways. A few
children have been helped by independent supporters going to
meetings with them to speak on their behalf.
5. How good is the management and delivery of services?
Information-sharing has improved significantly since the last inspection
of services to protect children. Training has helped staff across
services understand when and how to share information. Children and
families are clear about what information is shared and why. More
staff can now get ready access to information they need to respond
helpfully to concerns. Systems to protect children from sex offenders
who may pose a risk to children have been strengthened. Staff now
record information more consistently but some important information,
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such as staff contacts with vulnerable children, is still not recorded
well. New records are beginning to help health visitors record their
work better.
Social work and police are working together more closely to ensure
children referred to the Children’s Reporter get help quickly. There are
early signs that a new report format is helping improve the quality of
assessment. Staff across services now attend case conferences more
regularly, to ensure everyone contributes to making and delivering
plans for children. The quality of child protection plans is improving.
More now have a clear focus on what needs to change to reduce risks
and improve children’s lives. However, some are still too vague.
Systems are in place to help staff work well together in small groups to
support vulnerable children but this needs to happen more
consistently.
Staff seek advice from paediatricians more often when investigating
concerns. However, decisions about assessing children’s health
needs are still made too often by police and social workers without
appropriate medical advice. Training and guidance has been very
effective in helping hospital staff recognise children who may be at
risk.
Services clearly recognise the importance of reviewing their work to
improve outcomes for children. Managers have begun to involve staff
in a range of these activities. Staff in social work teams have reviewed
their work to support children and families and have made a number of
improvements as a result. In some areas, this has been done jointly
by staff from different services who work closely together. NHS
Grampian has seconded a health visitor to help review case records.
Managers are developing ways of gathering children and families’
views about how they have been helped and what improvements could
be made. This work is in the early stages.
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6. How good is leadership and direction?
The North East of Scotland Child Protection Committee (NESCPC)
oversees work to protect children across the Grampian area. It has
now ensured staff are clear about responsibilities for keeping children
safe in their area. Senior managers in Aberdeenshire are now
providing stronger and more effective leadership to improve the lives
of children and families. The joint board of Chief Executive Officers
provides clear direction for services locally. The multi-agency child
protection strategy group promotes joint working and as a result, staff
work well together to ensure children and families get the help they
need. The strategy group has improved the way in which it gathers
information about services and staff performance, which is being used
to direct improvements. Voluntary sector partners are now working
more closely with the NESCPC and the strategy group to identify
needs and find ways of meeting them.
7. How are services improving?
The Integrated Children’s Services Plan Getting it Right for
Aberdeenshire’s Children identifies key priorities, including child
protection. Children and young people have been involved in
developing it. The plan is regularly monitored and reviewed and is
helping to improve outcomes for vulnerable children and families.
Services have set themselves clear improvement targets. Managers
should continue to show they are achieving better outcomes for
children and families as a result of delivering the plan.
Senior managers are increasingly encouraging staff to review their
work to ensure it improves children’s lives. These reviews identify
important strengths to build on and areas for development. A recent
multi-agency case file audit has given managers very helpful
information about how to plan continuing improvements. Plans to
repeat this exercise are well advanced. A process for involving staff in
Aberdeenshire in reviewing significant cases has been coordinated by
the NESCPC. The findings of these case reviews have been shared
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through seminars attended by staff. Important work is being done to
increase the involvement of children and young people in developing
services. As a result, children who are looked after away from home
are getting their views heard and are helping improve services for
other looked after children.
Following the last child protection inspection, a detailed multi-agency
action plan was developed to address key areas for improvement.
Staff and managers are working hard to ensure this plan leads to
positive changes for children and families. Progress has been
monitored well. Improved systems are helping staff work together
more effectively to meet children’s needs.
8. What happens next?
We are confident that the services will be able to make the
necessary improvements in light of the inspection findings. As a
result, we will make no more visits in connection with this
inspection. Our link inspector will maintain contact with services to
support improvements.
We have agreed the following areas for improvement with services in
the Aberdeenshire Council area.
•
Strengthen approaches to confirming the quality of services and
staff performance, to achieve more consistent outcomes for
children and families.
•
Involve children, families and frontline staff more fully in reviewing
the effectiveness of services.
•
Continue to strengthen ways of ensuring children’s health needs
are considered fully when investigating concerns.
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Quality indicators help services and inspectors to judge what is good
and what needs to be improved in the work to protect children and
meet their needs. You can find these quality indicators in the HMIE
publications How well do we protect children and meet their needs?
Following the inspection of each local authority area, the Scottish
Government gathers evaluations of four important quality indicators to
keep track of how well services across Scotland are doing to protect
children and meet their needs.
Here are the evaluations for the Aberdeenshire Council area.
Children are listened to and respected
Children are helped to keep safe
Response to immediate concerns
Meeting needs and reducing long term harm
good
very good
good
good
We also evaluated the following aspects of the work within the local
authority area.
Self-evaluation
Improvements in performance
good
good
Managing Inspector: Helen Happer
December 2009
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To find out more about inspections or get an electronic copy of this
report go to www.hmie.gov.uk. Please contact the Business
Management and Communications Team (BMCT) if you wish to
enquire about our arrangements for translated or other appropriate
versions.
If you wish to comment about any of our inspections, contact us
at HMIEenquiries@hmie.gsi.gov.uk or alternatively you should write in
the first instance to BMCT, HM Inspectorate of Education, Denholm
House, Almondvale Business Park, Almondvale Way,
Livingston EH54 6GA.
Our complaints procedure is available from our website
www.hmie.gov.uk or alternatively you can write to our Complaints
Manager, at the address above or by telephoning 01506 600259.
If you are not satisfied with the action we have taken at the end of our
complaints procedure, you can raise your complaint with the Scottish
Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO). The SPSO is fully independent
and has powers to investigate complaints about Government
departments and agencies. You should write to SPSO, Freepost
EH641, Edinburgh EH3 0BR. You can also telephone 0800 377 7330,
fax 0800 377 7331 or e-mail: ask@spso.org.uk. More information
about the Ombudsman’s office can be obtained from the website
at www.spso.org.uk.
This report uses the following word scale to make clear
judgements made by inspectors.
excellent
very good
good
satisfactory
weak
unsatisfactory
outstanding, sector leading
major strengths
important strengths with some areas for
improvement
strengths just outweigh weaknesses
important weaknesses
major weaknesses
Crown Copyright 2009
HM Inspectorate of Education