Publication - Minutes

Child Protection Improvement Programme: external advisory group meeting, August 2016

Published: 30 August 2016
Directorate: Children and Families Directorate
Topic: Children and families
Date of meeting: 30 August 2016
Location: Victoria Quay, Edinburgh

Agenda, summary and associated documents from the first meeting of the Child Protection Improvement Programme external advisory group.

Attendees and apologies

Donald Henderson (Chair), Scottish Government
Colin Crawford, Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES)
Paul Carberry, Action for Children
Eddie Kane, Barnardos
Kevin Mitchell, Care Inspectorate
Jennifer Davidson, Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland (CELCIS)
Moira McKinnon, Chair of the National Working Group on Child Sexual Exploitation
Geraldine Queen, Child Health Commissioners
Alison Todd, Children 1st
Sandra Mitchell, Simon Massey, Children in Scotland
Jane O'Donnell, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)
Stephanie Primrose, COSLA
Sean Byrne, Child Protection Lead Officers Group
Scott McCallum, Midlothian council
Matt Forde, National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC)
Malcolm Graham, Police Scotland
Sarah McMillan, Scottish Association of Social Workers
Iris Quar, Scottish Child Law Centre
Malcolm Schaffer, Scottish Children's Reporter Administration (SCRA)
Michelle Miller, Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE)
Brigid Daniel, Stirling Centre for Child Wellbeing and Protection
Duncan Dunlop, Who Cares? Scotland
Louise MacDonald, Young Scot
Catherine Dyer, System Review Group Chair
Sharon McAlees, Inverclyde Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP)
Kay Steven, Scottish Women's Aid
Judith Ainsley, Scottish Government
Katherine Hudson, Scottish Government
Philippa Brosnan, Scottish Government
Sandra Aitken, Scottish Government
Deborah Gallagher, Scottish Government
Katrina McDonald, Scottish Government
Rachael Wilson, Scottish Government
Elaine Bell, Scottish Government
Jack Murray, Scottish Government

Items and actions

Agenda

9.30am Registration and networking opportunity
10am Welcome from the Chair Donald Henderson, Deputy Director, Care and Protection Division, Scottish Government
10.20am Child Protection System Review – Catherine Dyer, Independent Chair, Child Protection System Review
10.40am 'Neglect' – Jennifer Davidson, Director, CELCIS and Professor Brigid Daniel, Director, Centre for Child Wellbeing
11am 'Neglect' table discussion
11.20am Comfort break and coffee – back in 10 minutes
11.30am 'Inspections' – Sandra Aitken, Policy Manager, Child Protection Team, Scottish Government
11.40am 'Inspections' table discussion
Noon 'Data and Evidence' – Fiona McDiarmid, Principal Research Officer, Scottish Government
12.15pm Programme Update Paper and Engagement with Children, Young People and Families Q&A – all
12.45pm Summary of morning, next steps and close – Chair

Summary

The first meeting of the Child Protection Improvement Programme’s External Advisory Group (EAG) was held at the Scottish Government offices at Victoria Quay in Leith on Tuesday 30th August. A brief rundown of the presentations is included below – you can find and download the slides for each presentation on this page.

Catherine Dyer, independent Chair of the Child Protection System Review, outlined the remit of the Review Group and discussed some of the work that had been completed already as part of the review. This included scoping work looking at existing research and evidence, and discussions with key experts. The Review Group is using evidence papers to inform discussions and has established an expectation that between meetings members will share the summaries of discussions with others and bring back any comments or views to the group. Catherine set out the timescale for the review which is meeting between August and December and will provide recommendations to Ministers in December.

Sandra Aitken, from the Scottish Government Child Protection Team, led a session to discuss Joint Inspections and how they might be remodelled in the next inspection cycle to focus more on vulnerable children and how learning from inspections can flow more quickly into the child protection system.

Fiona McDiarmid, Principal Research Officer, presented an update on the outline of plans for the on the data and evidence programme – including the plans for data and evidence meetings.

Deborah Gallagher, from the Scottish Government Child Protection Team, talked about how we would like to ensure that children’s views and experiences are listened to and reflected within the programme. Several members of the EAG made useful suggestions about how this might be achieved and Deborah is now following these up.

Professor Brigid Daniel (Director of the Centre for Child Wellbeing) and Fiona Mitchell (CELCIS) gave a presentation titled Tackling Child Neglect in Scotland – first step, describing the collaborative work they are taking forward on the neglect improvement programme. The presentation firstly gave a background and context of the landscape in which this work will be taken forward, highlighting the positive foundation of a strong recognition of the harmful impact of neglect, the need for it to be addressed and the Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC) framework which will enable an effective response. The challenges associated with this work, including the issues around tackling such a broad spectrum of concerns, were also acknowledged. Details were given on the follow up to the 2012 neglect survey of Child Protection Committees (CPCs), the analysis of national policy and UK wide policy initiatives and literature review that are being progressed and the analysis and synthesis of existing toolkits.