People are protected and safeguarded from abuse and neglect, and any other types of harm
The Safe and Together Model
The Safe and Together Model has been introduced in Conwy, with Vulnerable People resources taking an active lead in its implementation. It is a practice model that aims to improve how child welfare systems and practitioners respond to domestic abuse. It is a perpetrator pattern-based approach to domestic abuse cases involving children, and focuses on addressing behaviours of the abusive person rather than the traditional narrative of the victim failing to protect their child.
In March 2022, the Safe and Together Institute delivered a two-day overview of the Safe and Together Model. Participants were provided with information about creating a domestic violence-informed child welfare system, the principles and components of the model. In addition, an introduction to the framework behind competency-building around domestic violence. Many partner agencies attended these sessions including Police, Education, Health and the Domestic Abuse Safety Unit (DASU). A total of 110 people attended. The feedback was very positive, with many partner agencies requesting to progress to the next level of training (Core Training). This element of training was prioritised for Social Workers and Intervention Workers and took place as online virtual training between April and June 2022.
The Strengthening Families Team has used the practice model and the tools to deliver positive changes for children. This involved engaging with perpetrators, understanding their patterns of abusive behaviours and the impact of those behaviours on children.
Multi Agency Child Sexual Abuse Forum
Conwy’s Multi Agency Child Sexual Abuse Forum (MACSAF) continues to grow. Throughout the year we have been able to bring more professionals on board to the Forum from more diverse teams such as the Youth Justice Service and the Youth Services.
What has been done?
Our main work is focused on the Welsh Government Child Sexual Abuse action plan and creating a Harmful Sexual Behaviour Pathway for all agencies to access in Conwy. We are working on ensuring that our web pages and internal intranet pages are an effective resource for both professionals and parents and carers. We also provide regular consultations to staff who require support with complex cases with elements of child sexual abuse.
What difference has it made?
We have been able to establish a group of professionals who are assisting with the national action plan. The ongoing work on our website means that professionals and parents have a free online resource. Staff have felt more confident and supported when involved in consultations on complex child sexual abuse cases.
What were the challenges?
MACSAF is something that all Forum members do on top of their day jobs meaning that it can be difficult to keep high attendance at meetings. The promotion of the Forum has been challenging. Although we have used various channels of communication such as newsletters and talks at larger conferences, this again is on top of our main responsibilities.
What’s next?
We will be working on more training and promoting our work through various channels. We will also be embedding the Harmful Sexual Behaviour Pathway.
Tackling exploitation in partnership
During the pandemic we noticed a significant increase in the number of children being exploited or at risk of being exploited, both criminally and sexually. Our Family Centres worked together with Education, North Wales Police, Youth Justice and the Local Health Board, setting up a small working group to try to tackle this increase.
- We completed a mapping exercise to see which areas of the county were ‘hot spots’, overlaying information from different agencies to create a full picture.
- We’ve held regular multi-agency contextualised child exploitation form meetings to share information and update services.
- We held online sessions in September 2022 for parents, young people and professionals about gang culture and county lines activity with Matthew from 1 Message. He told us about his experience of being groomed into gang culture and county lines, how he managed to leave that lifestyle behind, and going on to support young people to not become involved or turn their lives around.
- In October 2022 Matthew visited four secondary schools to speak to young people, tell them his story, and answer any questions they had. A number of young people opened up about things that had happened to them, and are now receiving support.
- In the same month we held an online safeguarding workshop for parents around online safety. This complimented sessions provided in schools, and we plan to continue the parent sessions in the future.
- North Wales Police facilitated exploitation sessions in Family Centres across Conwy for communities to understand what to look out for and how to report something unusual, or have a gut feeling that something isn’t right. We’ll continue to offer these sessions within our communities.
What were the challenges?
It has taken time to bring the right agencies together, although all are supportive and eager to work together to make a difference. It has helped to focus on a smaller core of attendees for regular working groups, inviting agencies that have specialisms into the discussion topic for that meeting. We’ve also found it challenging to dispel the myths, making sure the right information reaches communities, and to the most vulnerable children and young people.
What’s next?
We’ll continue to meet as a small multi-agency group to identify new topics to meet the needs of young people in our communities, and we’ll put a plan together to get the correct information out to them. We are asking people and their families what they would like to know more about to make sure we offer targeted and relevant advice.
We’ll be considering whether an ‘Ask for Angela’ type campaign would be suitable for children and young people to enable them to ask for help in a tricky situation.
We’ll consult with local communities, as a community approach to stopping exploitation is key.
The Early Concerns and Escalating Concerns Process
Our Quality Standards team have conducted over 100 monitoring visits to care homes, domiciliary care providers and supported living settings over the last twelve months. Some of these visits were conducted jointly with our partners at the Betsi Cadwaladr Local Health Board and others with our social work teams. The purpose of the visits is to review the quality of the service being provided, considering issues such as staffing, training, safeguarding, personal wellbeing and the quality of the environment. The outcomes of these monitoring visits are shared with the provider and together, if needed, we agree an appropriate action plan.
Each month we host a ‘circle of quality’ meeting where officers from our Quality Standards and Safeguarding Services, and Social Workers meet with partners at the BCUHB, Care Inspectorate Wales and neighbouring Local Authorities to share intelligence on the different providers we all commission and to coordinate our activity and interventions.
Over the last twelve months we’ve needed to support four different care homes though the Escalating Concerns process. This is a pan north Wales procedure that enables Local Authorities and Local Health Boards to work with commissioned care providers to address areas of significant and escalating concern. The Quality Standards team worked closely with these providers, along with our partners at the BCUHB and CIW to see the areas of concern addressed and standards improved.
Alongside this work, the Workforce Development and Learning Team has continued to support the care homes and domiciliary care sector to access essential training and, in particular over the last twelve months, has supported them with the registration of adult residential care home workers with Social Care Wales through a dedicated member of staff.
What were the challenges?
We continue to see the after-effects of the Covid pandemic, further exacerbated by the global economic situation and cost of living crisis. Care providers continue to struggle with staff recruitment and retention, with a small number of providers significantly relying on agency workers, which can be very costly and doesn’t provide the consistency of care that is needed. The cost of living crisis has resulted in significant increases in food, utility and fuel costs incurred by care providers. After receiving representation from the care home sector about the impact of rising inflation, we took the decision to conduct a mid-year review of our fee levels and incorporated a small increase in our care home fees to account for inflation at the higher level of 10.1%. We also reviewed our fees paid to domiciliary care providers and made use of Welsh Government money to give an extra £1 per hour to support the rising fuel and staffing costs affecting this sector.
What’s next?
We are very pleased with how these processes are working in Conwy and the partnership working with the BCUHB, CIW and independent care providers.
We are committed to continued meaningful consultation and engagement with care home residents and their families. We have recently started to plan a new reminiscence therapy project for 2023, with Denbighshire County Council and bookofyou.co.uk which will involve volunteers, residents and their families in creating life stories using words, pictures, music and film.
Youth Justice Service and Safeguarding
The Youth Justice Service has adopted a Scaled Approach on all cases to ensure that interventions are tailored to the individual, and based on an assessment of their risks and needs. The intended outcomes are to reduce likelihood of reoffending for each young person by tailoring the intensity of intervention to the assessment, and more effectively managing risk of serious harm to self and others.
New Chapter / Pennod Newydd
This year has seen a new intervention established in Conwy to support families experiencing abusive behaviours from their children. Child to parent/carer abuse is a growing issue, and although it remains very hidden and stigmatised, more families are seeking help.
We worked with Dr Ceryl Davies from Bangor University to adapt her evidence-based programme for Conwy. We now have a toolkit with a clear pathway for support, a screening tool, safety plan template and a nine-week programme of interventions which can be delivered in a group setting or one to one. By the end of March 2023, more than 80 staff in Conwy have been trained to deliver the interventions with parents and carers, and with young people. A range of multi-agency professionals are now available to deliver the interventions, including Family Workers, Social Workers, Therapeutic Workers, Youth Workers, the TRAC team, Youth Justice, Domestic Abuse Service, Pupil Referral Units, Education Officers and more.
We named the programme ‘New Chapter’ to reflect the positive new beginnings for these families. The first group intervention started in March for a group of parents and carers and a parallel group of young people. There is plenty of support for practitioners using the interventions, with regular reflective sessions with Dr Ceryl Davies.
Safeguarding Week 2022
National Safeguarding Week took place between 14 and 18 November and once again, we coordinated activities to raise awareness of safeguarding adults and children at risk. We particularly made use of the North Wales Safeguarding Board’s 7-minute briefings, which were distributed to staff across all Council services every day over the course of the week. Each day we explored new themes, such as safeguarding in sport, online bullying, professional curiosity, and coercive control.
We believe that safeguarding is everybody’s business, so if you have concerns about an individual, please tell us.