New - Non – Engaging Pathway
The Non - Engaging Pathway has recently been added to the BSCB multi agency
child procedures and can be found at www.bradford-scb.org.uk
The pathway has been developed in response to Bradford’s recent Serious
Case Review. It is not intended to replace existing policies and procedures but
rather to enhance them. It builds on good practice guidance already existing, in
order to support multi- agency working and decision making for children and
young people for who risk is unable to be assessed by a single agency
approach.
It provides a sequential pathway to follow when working with families who are
failing to engage, leading to professional concern about unknown or emerging
risk which can lead to;
 Failure to assess a child or young person’s needs or to identify any risks
associated with the care of that child.
 Lack of clarity for practitioners as to whether those needs are being
provided for by parents/carers.
The pathway will enable front line practitioners to;
 Co- ordinate and maintain a focus on the child using a multi-disciplinary
process when single agency measures have failed to engage the family.
 Share any current or historical information regarding the child and family to
enable risk assessment.
 Convene a multi-agency meeting to share decision making and action
planning, avoiding drift and allowing for timeliness of interventions (EVEN IF
THE THRESHOLD FOR STATUTORY INTERVENTION HAS NOT BEEN MET).
The success of the pathway depends upon robust use of single/multi-agency
information gathering procedures and attempts to engage families. The
pathway can be exited at any stage should meaningful engagement with
parents/carers be evidenced or if information emerges enabling risk to be
assessed.
A letter has been included to be sent to parents that will require your agency
logo to be added.
The use of this pathway will be audited in May 2015 in order to evaluate its use
and effectiveness.
Agencies may wish to consider how to capture data on the use of the tool, for
example at implementation, stage at which the pathway ceased to be used and
more importantly, the impact of the pathway and the outcome for the child or
young person
Briefing sessions will held for practitioners to find out more about the
pathway. Information about these will be circulated to partner agencies.