INTRO: Welcome to the NSPCC Learning Podcast, where we
INTRO: share learning and expertise in child protection
INTRO: from inside and outside of the organisation.
INTRO: We aim to create debate, encourage reflection and
INTRO: share good practice on how we can all work together
INTRO: to keep babies, children and young people safe.
HOST: Welcome to the NSPCC Learning Podcast.
HOST: In this episode, recorded in February 2025,
HOST: we'll be speaking with Annie Hudson and Jenny Coles
HOST: from the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel.
HOST: At the end of 2024, the Panel published
HOST: two new reports: a national review
HOST: into child sexual abuse within the family environment
HOST: and their annual report for 2023-24.
HOST: In this podcast, we'll be talking about the key
HOST: themes and learning from the reports and what this
HOST: means for professionals working with children.
HOST: Welcome, Annie and Jenny.
HOST: Thank you for taking the time to talk to us today.
HOST: So to get us started, could you introduce yourselves
HOST: and tell us a bit about the Panel and its roles and
HOST: responsibilities?
JENNY COLES: Hello, I'm Jenny Coles.
JENNY COLES: I'm a member of the Child Practice Review
JENNY COLES: Panel, I've been on the Panel since 2022, and
JENNY COLES: my background is local authority children's
JENNY COLES: services.
ANNIE HUDSON: Hello, I'm Annie Hudson and I'm chair of the
ANNIE HUDSON: Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel.
ANNIE HUDSON: My background is also in children's services
ANNIE HUDSON: like Jenny. I started life as a social worker
ANNIE HUDSON: and then ultimately, like Jenny, was a
ANNIE HUDSON: director of Children's Services.
ANNIE HUDSON: The Panel was established through the
ANNIE HUDSON: Children and Social Work Act in 2017,
ANNIE HUDSON: and had its first meeting, I think, in 2018.
ANNIE HUDSON: Essentially, it was part of
ANNIE HUDSON: the new architecture around multi-agency
ANNIE HUDSON: working in England to protect and
ANNIE HUDSON: safeguard children and it has three core
ANNIE HUDSON: roles, really. Firstly, it provides oversight
ANNIE HUDSON: of the system of local reviews that
ANNIE HUDSON: take place at a local level by local
ANNIE HUDSON: safeguarding partners in response to serious
ANNIE HUDSON: incidents where children have been harmed or
ANNIE HUDSON: indeed died as a result of abuse and neglect.
ANNIE HUDSON: So that means we see all the rapid reviews
ANNIE HUDSON: and all the local safeguarding practice
ANNIE HUDSON: reviews that are undertaken by local
ANNIE HUDSON: safeguarding partners.
ANNIE HUDSON: Secondly, we provide a system
ANNIE HUDSON: learning role, which, by looking at
ANNIE HUDSON: all of those reviews — and through some of
ANNIE HUDSON: the thematic reviews, including the one that
ANNIE HUDSON: we're going to be talking about, about child
ANNIE HUDSON: sexual abuse in the family environment —
ANNIE HUDSON: looks at some of the patterns in practice
ANNIE HUDSON: that have emerged from those reviews, with a
ANNIE HUDSON: view of identifying where improvements may
ANNIE HUDSON: need to be made, either at a local, regional
ANNIE HUDSON: or national level, and also where there may
ANNIE HUDSON: need to be changes in policy to better
ANNIE HUDSON: support high quality child protection and
ANNIE HUDSON: safeguarding work.
ANNIE HUDSON: And then thirdly, the Panel has a system
ANNIE HUDSON: leadership role working with many others,
ANNIE HUDSON: including safeguarding partners and national
ANNIE HUDSON: organisations — including the NSPCC — to work
ANNIE HUDSON: together to identify what's working well
ANNIE HUDSON: in the system of safeguarding children and
ANNIE HUDSON: also where there needs to be improvement.
ANNIE HUDSON: So in a sense, we're a...
ANNIE HUDSON: I mean, we provide a bit of a weather vane
ANNIE HUDSON: through the lens — and it is a very specific
ANNIE HUDSON: lens — of where things have gone wrong for
ANNIE HUDSON: children about how well the system
ANNIE HUDSON: that we have in place is working for children
ANNIE HUDSON: and their families.
HOST: Thank you. And you mentioned there that you work with
HOST: the local safeguarding partnerships in England.
HOST: Could you expand a little bit more about how you do
HOST: that?
ANNIE HUDSON: We do that in a number of ways.
ANNIE HUDSON: So first and foremost,
ANNIE HUDSON: we receive and comment, provide them with
ANNIE HUDSON: feedback, on all of the rapid reviews and all
ANNIE HUDSON: of the LCSPRs that they undertake every year.
ANNIE HUDSON: So in the 2023-24 year, it was about
ANNIE HUDSON: 340 serious
ANNIE HUDSON: incidents which generated reviews.
ANNIE HUDSON: And we look at those reviews and then we
ANNIE HUDSON: provide feedback on those reviews to both
ANNIE HUDSON: assist their local learning, but also to
ANNIE HUDSON: assist in their improvements in practice.
ANNIE HUDSON: We use those reviews to undertake thematic
ANNIE HUDSON: reviews. We did the one on sexual
ANNIE HUDSON: abuse. We will be producing, very shortly,
ANNIE HUDSON: a thematic analysis about, firstly, race
ANNIE HUDSON: and racial bias and racism in child
ANNIE HUDSON: protection, and also one on neglect.
ANNIE HUDSON: So we pick topics or themes and use
ANNIE HUDSON: that local material from safeguarding
ANNIE HUDSON: partners. And in all stages we look
ANNIE HUDSON: to involve... not always all safeguarding
ANNIE HUDSON: partners, but, you know, selected
ANNIE HUDSON: safeguarding partners to really help build up
ANNIE HUDSON: national knowledge and intelligence about
ANNIE HUDSON: safeguarding practice.
HOST: So with all of this learning that you're gathering,
HOST: how does the Panel share that more widely with the
HOST: local and the national reviews? How do you share that
HOST: and what are some of those common themes?
ANNIE HUDSON: We do that through reports, but we also do
ANNIE HUDSON: that through newsletters, we do that through
ANNIE HUDSON: webinars.
ANNIE HUDSON: So for example, again with the sexual abuse
ANNIE HUDSON: national review, we had two really
ANNIE HUDSON: well-attended webinars — I think they both
ANNIE HUDSON: had more than 200 people coming along for
ANNIE HUDSON: each one — as a way of not just disseminating
ANNIE HUDSON: the evidence from those reviews, but also
ANNIE HUDSON: to engage people in discussion, active
ANNIE HUDSON: discussion about some of the issues which
ANNIE HUDSON: are often very complex in nature,
ANNIE HUDSON: and therefore there aren't simple solutions
ANNIE HUDSON: to resolving some of those problems.
ANNIE HUDSON: But Jenny, perhaps you want to add to that?
JENNY COLES: Yeah. And I think we're learning in terms of
JENNY COLES: how we're doing webinars and the latest ones
JENNY COLES: on our latest review of child sexual abuse in
JENNY COLES: the family, as Annie said, had a lot of
JENNY COLES: participants. It was only an hour, but we got
JENNY COLES: a lot of information over in discussion and we
JENNY COLES: welcomed the feedback because then that adds
JENNY COLES: to our learning. But we also are linked
JENNY COLES: into regions — each Panel member has a region
JENNY COLES: — and we do attend regional conferences, talk
JENNY COLES: about the Panel, but also listen to what
JENNY COLES: people are doing on the ground and what
JENNY COLES: they're learning, and what they think would be
JENNY COLES: a broader set of learning, whether it's at
JENNY COLES: their regional level or the national level as
JENNY COLES: well.
ANNIE HUDSON: And one other thing to add is that— one of
ANNIE HUDSON: the things we're doing at the moment is that
ANNIE HUDSON: we have commissioned from an independent
ANNIE HUDSON: organisation an evaluation of the impact of
ANNIE HUDSON: the Panel's work. We are also in a continuous
ANNIE HUDSON: learning cycle and we want to
ANNIE HUDSON: get that feedback in evidence about which of
ANNIE HUDSON: the things we do have most or least impact,
ANNIE HUDSON: because we need to go on changing our
ANNIE HUDSON: practice and the ways in which we engage with
ANNIE HUDSON: the 140-50 safeguarding partners around the
ANNIE HUDSON: country.
HOST: Yeah. And how are the local safeguarding
HOST: partnerships— what are they doing locally themselves?
HOST: What are they gathering and taking from the national
HOST: Panel and what are they getting and gathering from
HOST: elsewhere? And that will be a really interesting
HOST: piece of work to see what people are saying about
HOST: that.
ANNIE HUDSON: Yeah. And I think some of the themes
ANNIE HUDSON: that we've identified and we've majored
ANNIE HUDSON: on, either in annual reports or in national
ANNIE HUDSON: reviews, have come absolutely from the
ANNIE HUDSON: evidence and the conversations with
ANNIE HUDSON: safeguarding partners.
ANNIE HUDSON: For example, in the annual report this year,
ANNIE HUDSON: one of the three spotlighted themes was
ANNIE HUDSON: around mental health and mental health of
ANNIE HUDSON: children and young people.
ANNIE HUDSON: And that has been a very, very consistent
ANNIE HUDSON: theme, hasn't it Jenny, from many reviews,
ANNIE HUDSON: where children, for example, have taken their
ANNIE HUDSON: own lives or where they've been involved
ANNIE HUDSON: either in harm in their own home environment
ANNIE HUDSON: or externally. And a lot of the messaging
ANNIE HUDSON: back from safeguarding partners has been
ANNIE HUDSON: about the adequacy or otherwise of
ANNIE HUDSON: mental health services, the links between
ANNIE HUDSON: mental health services and children's
ANNIE HUDSON: services and so on. So, we try and pick
ANNIE HUDSON: up and then get some more indepth evidence
ANNIE HUDSON: around themes that also local areas are
ANNIE HUDSON: highlighting.
JENNY COLES: And I think to add to that, in the annual
JENNY COLES: review: looking at the mental health of
JENNY COLES: parents and how agencies who
JENNY COLES: predominantly might work with adults, how
JENNY COLES: it's really important they see that individual
JENNY COLES: as a parent as well and take a holistic and
JENNY COLES: family approach. This has been a fairly
JENNY COLES: constant theme in reviews where mental
JENNY COLES: health in parents has been present.
HOST: And I know we're going to talk about the annual
HOST: report a little bit later on, but the other
HOST: big report we published last year was your national
HOST: review into child sex abuse within the family
HOST: environment.
HOST: This report explores what is needed to enable
HOST: practitioners to identify and respond to concerns of
HOST: child sexual abuse, putting the needs of children
HOST: first. How did you decide within that review
HOST: what areas to focus on?
JENNY COLES: Well, first of all, we decided to do the
JENNY COLES: review because that had been a theme
JENNY COLES: which has grown in evidence over the last 18
JENNY COLES: months to two years.
JENNY COLES: And at the point where we did it, we had a
JENNY COLES: really rich evidence body.
JENNY COLES: In fact, we looked at the experience of 193
JENNY COLES: children with the Centre of expertise [on
JENNY COLES: child sexual abuse] doing that fieldwork and
JENNY COLES: writing that report.
JENNY COLES: We felt that perhaps what had happened
JENNY COLES: over the years, with absolutely the right
JENNY COLES: focus on child sexual exploitation outside
JENNY COLES: of the family and criminal exploitation, but
JENNY COLES: that had perhaps been done at the expense
JENNY COLES: of not progressing practice and supporting
JENNY COLES: and safeguarding children who'd been sexually
JENNY COLES: abused within their families.
JENNY COLES: And we tested that out with safeguarding
JENNY COLES: partners and they said, yeah, that's an area
JENNY COLES: that increasingly they were finding
JENNY COLES: challenging. So, for those reasons, we
JENNY COLES: decided to make this a national review.
HOST: And I know when you published the review, you called
HOST: it 'I wanted them to notice'.
HOST: Why did you call it that?
JENNY COLES: So we interviewed two young people for this
JENNY COLES: review, and "I wanted them to notice" was
JENNY COLES: a quote from one of those young people, and we
JENNY COLES: thought it really powerfully summed up what
JENNY COLES: the review was about. The key finding of the
JENNY COLES: review was that practitioners found
JENNY COLES: great difficulty in talking directly with
JENNY COLES: children around child sexual abuse.
JENNY COLES: And often the feedback was that when they
JENNY COLES: were in the child protection system and maybe
JENNY COLES: on a child protection plan, the whole focus
JENNY COLES: on evidence and verbal disclosure meant that
JENNY COLES: they were often put on a plan for a broader
JENNY COLES: category, like neglect.
JENNY COLES: So that was a key finding of the review and,
JENNY COLES: in fact, linked in to the national and local
JENNY COLES: recommendations for safeguarding partnerships
JENNY COLES: about training for practitioners across
JENNY COLES: the system, in terms of talking to children,
JENNY COLES: having the confidence and the skills to do
JENNY COLES: that.
HOST: Yeah, it is difficult.
HOST: Practitioners working with children feel that they're
HOST: not allowed to ask somehow, don't they?
HOST: And yet what we're hearing from the young people is
HOST: they do want to be asked.
JENNY COLES: Absolutely. And again, another key
JENNY COLES: and helpful finding of the review was looking
JENNY COLES: at the interface of the child protection
JENNY COLES: system and the criminal justice system.
JENNY COLES: And what appears to have happened over really
JENNY COLES: probably, Annie, we'd say the last 20 years or
JENNY COLES: more, that the criminal justice system and the
JENNY COLES: focus on evidence for that has actually
JENNY COLES: prevented practice developing.
JENNY COLES: That's a quite a strong phrase, but it was
JENNY COLES: very clear what came out of this review, and
JENNY COLES: that actually the child protection system, the
JENNY COLES: safeguarding system, operates on the balance
JENNY COLES: of probabilities and not the
JENNY COLES: threshold for criminal evidence.
JENNY COLES: What we're saying here is we need
JENNY COLES: a step change in how children
JENNY COLES: are supported and families are supported
JENNY COLES: where child sexual abuse has happened within
JENNY COLES: the family.
HOST: One of the things I noticed when I read the report is
HOST: that when cases were referred to the police and they
HOST: decided that they were going to take no further
HOST: action, then social workers
HOST: or other practitioners working with the families
HOST: believed that that meant that the sexual abuse hadn't
HOST: happened because the police hadn't taken action.
JENNY COLES: And the feedback we had that people felt they
JENNY COLES: couldn't take this any further; that they were
JENNY COLES: worried about talking directly to children in
JENNY COLES: case that prevented
JENNY COLES: further investigations, when in fact the
JENNY COLES: police, when they stop an investigation, if
JENNY COLES: they don't feel there's enough evidence, it's
JENNY COLES: for now. It doesn't mean to say that can't be
JENNY COLES: reopened, and it doesn't mean to say
JENNY COLES: that professionals shouldn't carry on working
JENNY COLES: and supporting families and talking about the
JENNY COLES: abuse to ensure that children's needs are met.
ANNIE HUDSON: One other facet of the review, which I
ANNIE HUDSON: think is really powerful and evidences that
ANNIE HUDSON: point that Jenny's just made, is that we
ANNIE HUDSON: still operate as a system
ANNIE HUDSON: in a very fragmented, siloed way.
ANNIE HUDSON: That was the finding, which I think many of
ANNIE HUDSON: us were quite shocked by, which was that of
ANNIE HUDSON: those 193 children that Jenny just described,
ANNIE HUDSON: in a third of the cases, the instances,
ANNIE HUDSON: family members were known to have sexually
ANNIE HUDSON: abused a child in the past, or to present a
ANNIE HUDSON: risk either because they've been convicted or
ANNIE HUDSON: they've been the subject of an allegation
ANNIE HUDSON: previously.
ANNIE HUDSON: When you unravel that, what it highlighted
ANNIE HUDSON: was how information about people who could
ANNIE HUDSON: pose a risk — and these were predominantly
ANNIE HUDSON: men — possibly historically,
ANNIE HUDSON: possibly in another part of the country with
ANNIE HUDSON: another family, that information was not
ANNIE HUDSON: made available to the children's services,
ANNIE HUDSON: people who are working with children in the
ANNIE HUDSON: contemporaneous context.
ANNIE HUDSON: So there's something about how we share
ANNIE HUDSON: information about people who can pose a
ANNIE HUDSON: severe risk to children, but also how we
ANNIE HUDSON: need to be thinking outside the box sometimes
ANNIE HUDSON: about the risks. So, for example, somebody
ANNIE HUDSON: who may have been the focus of
ANNIE HUDSON: a police inquiry about indecent images of
ANNIE HUDSON: children.
ANNIE HUDSON: There was sometimes an assumption that that
ANNIE HUDSON: meant that they would not pose a risk to
ANNIE HUDSON: their own children, which in many instances,
ANNIE HUDSON: some instances, absolutely not; was a very
ANNIE HUDSON: incorrect assumption.
ANNIE HUDSON: So we really do need to bring all the
ANNIE HUDSON: agencies together who have expertise in
ANNIE HUDSON: this area, including criminal justice
ANNIE HUDSON: agencies, including probation, working
ANNIE HUDSON: together so that they get that joined up
ANNIE HUDSON: picture of risk of harm to children, that's
ANNIE HUDSON: not just about the current situation, but
ANNIE HUDSON: maybe about the historical information about
ANNIE HUDSON: key family members.
JENNY COLES: And although we've made national
JENNY COLES: recommendations, we're really clear that
JENNY COLES: safeguarding partnerships can get on and
JENNY COLES: we hope that the recommendations we've made
JENNY COLES: are helpful and the report's helpful for them
JENNY COLES: to have an action plan — for a better word —
JENNY COLES: about what to do next and improve their
JENNY COLES: practice. And, you know, this is all based on
JENNY COLES: the evidence that safeguarding partners
JENNY COLES: have put into their local practice reviews.
JENNY COLES: So it is based on real practice that's
JENNY COLES: happening currently.
JENNY COLES: We hope this is helpful.
JENNY COLES: We've had a lot of people on the webinars.
JENNY COLES: It is an area that people have wanted us to
JENNY COLES: concentrate on.
JENNY COLES: So we look forward to seeing how
JENNY COLES: practice has developed and we're just thinking
JENNY COLES: about how we can support that, but also
JENNY COLES: monitor it to make sure that with all the hard
JENNY COLES: work and the responses of many practitioners
JENNY COLES: and children and young people, that they can
JENNY COLES: see an improvement in how children are
JENNY COLES: supported.
HOST: You talked a little bit— well, you mentioned the
HOST: recommendations for government and recommendations
HOST: for safeguarding partners as well.
HOST: Would you like to expand on that a little bit?
JENNY COLES: I mean, in terms of national recommendations,
JENNY COLES: we're asking that there should be a national
JENNY COLES: strategic plan around child sexual abuse —
JENNY COLES: there is a child sexual abuse strategy,
JENNY COLES: but that's quite dated now probably — and
JENNY COLES: that that plan takes in some of these key
JENNY COLES: findings we're talking about.
JENNY COLES: Nationally, working with professional bodies,
JENNY COLES: we see a change in how practitioners
JENNY COLES: are trained and get the necessary skills and
JENNY COLES: guidance and a multi-agency training, but from
JENNY COLES: the beginning of their professional careers,
JENNY COLES: and not seeing this as a specialism; because
JENNY COLES: the feedback from families, and from the
JENNY COLES: experts by experience that were consulted as
JENNY COLES: part of this review, is early intervention
JENNY COLES: here can make such a difference in terms of
JENNY COLES: lessening future vulnerability.
JENNY COLES: We also had some national recommendations for
JENNY COLES: the family court justice system and Cafcass to
JENNY COLES: consider what's in this report.
JENNY COLES: They were met as stakeholders, in terms of
JENNY COLES: formulating these recommendations, and we
JENNY COLES: really hope that that will be taken on board,
JENNY COLES: particularly within the court arena, and we
JENNY COLES: hope this will be helpful. And particularly
JENNY COLES: regarding the really important thing around
JENNY COLES: health support and meeting health needs of
JENNY COLES: children that have been sexually abused.
JENNY COLES: So there's very clear pathways and that
JENNY COLES: commissioners are clear that services they
JENNY COLES: commission within the NHS and providers
JENNY COLES: can meet, and people are skilled to meet, the
JENNY COLES: needs of children.
HOST: So that was a huge piece of work doing
HOST: that report into child sexual abuse within the family
HOST: environment and you've talked about all the different
HOST: ways that you've engaged there with stakeholders and
HOST: are feeding stuff back out.
HOST: I wonder if we can move on now to the annual report,
HOST: which was published in December 2024.
HOST: So that looks at safeguarding incidents across
HOST: and over the last year.
HOST: What are those key themes that were coming through
HOST: last year?
ANNIE HUDSON: Yes, this was looking at about 330
ANNIE HUDSON: serious incidents, which actually generated
ANNIE HUDSON: more than that number of reviews.
ANNIE HUDSON: One of the first things to note is that that
ANNIE HUDSON: represented and reflected a reduction of
ANNIE HUDSON: about 18% on the number of serious incidents
ANNIE HUDSON: notified to the previous year.
ANNIE HUDSON: We don't quite understand what that's about,
ANNIE HUDSON: and further work is being undertaken to
ANNIE HUDSON: interrogate that, because we need to
ANNIE HUDSON: understand whether that's because things
ANNIE HUDSON: are not being notified when they need to be,
ANNIE HUDSON: or whether it's actually that there has been
ANNIE HUDSON: a diminuation in certain types of abuse
ANNIE HUDSON: and harm for children.
ANNIE HUDSON: Just in terms of top lines, I suppose the
ANNIE HUDSON: first thing to be aware of is that
ANNIE HUDSON: babies under one remain the most vulnerable
ANNIE HUDSON: group for all sorts of understandable and
ANNIE HUDSON: to be expected reasons.
ANNIE HUDSON: The other age, which is, if you like, most
ANNIE HUDSON: dangerous in terms of prevalence and
ANNIE HUDSON: propensity is 16- to 17-year-olds.
ANNIE HUDSON: Those children, it is much more in terms
ANNIE HUDSON: of extrafamilial harm.
ANNIE HUDSON: With babies, obviously it's much more likely
ANNIE HUDSON: to be particular physical abuse or neglect
ANNIE HUDSON: within the family.
ANNIE HUDSON: There is a continuation of some of the
ANNIE HUDSON: patterns we've seen in the past in terms of
ANNIE HUDSON: children, for example, who are out of
ANNIE HUDSON: education. That is partly children who are in
ANNIE HUDSON: elective home education and also children who
ANNIE HUDSON: are not on a school roll or are not in
ANNIE HUDSON: mainstream education and missing a lot of
ANNIE HUDSON: education, and that's been a major issue of
ANNIE HUDSON: concern.
ANNIE HUDSON: Earlier last year, we published a thematic
ANNIE HUDSON: analysis of children who had been seriously
ANNIE HUDSON: harmed or died and who were electively home
ANNIE HUDSON: educated — not necessarily as a result,
ANNIE HUDSON: because most children in EHE, of course,
ANNIE HUDSON: thrive and are very happy and are safe.
ANNIE HUDSON: But there is a small group of children who
ANNIE HUDSON: don't have that oversight of agencies
ANNIE HUDSON: in terms of their wellbeing and safety.
ANNIE HUDSON: So that education dimension is really
ANNIE HUDSON: important and just reinforces the importance
ANNIE HUDSON: of children being in school because of all
ANNIE HUDSON: the benefits of school, but also because it
ANNIE HUDSON: does mean if they are vulnerable and at risk,
ANNIE HUDSON: schools will have a much more daily ability
ANNIE HUDSON: to take the temperature on how well those
ANNIE HUDSON: children are and how safe they are.
ANNIE HUDSON: We also look at things like whether children
ANNIE HUDSON: are known to services, whether they're on a
ANNIE HUDSON: child in need plan.
ANNIE HUDSON: Quite a number, something like just over 40%
ANNIE HUDSON: of children who are the focus of those
ANNIE HUDSON: serious incidents, were known to have been a
ANNIE HUDSON: child in need, either at the time of the
ANNIE HUDSON: incident or previously.
ANNIE HUDSON: And again, that's not that surprising because
ANNIE HUDSON: these are the most vulnerable children.
ANNIE HUDSON: So you would expect that they may well have
ANNIE HUDSON: had contact with children's services,
ANNIE HUDSON: children's social care.
ANNIE HUDSON: A relatively small number were children
ANNIE HUDSON: looked after and they had suffered harm or
ANNIE HUDSON: abuse either in placements — foster
ANNIE HUDSON: placements — or were in residential
ANNIE HUDSON: placements and then harmed outside the home.
ANNIE HUDSON: So what you get through the annual report, I
ANNIE HUDSON: suppose, is a picture of the complexity
ANNIE HUDSON: of needs, the complexity of age, and other
ANNIE HUDSON: demographics. Something like 75% of
ANNIE HUDSON: the children were from White backgrounds.
ANNIE HUDSON: There's an underrepresentation
ANNIE HUDSON: compared to the population of children from
ANNIE HUDSON: Asian backgrounds, and conversely, an
ANNIE HUDSON: overrepresentation of children from Black
ANNIE HUDSON: backgrounds, and it's partly that that has
ANNIE HUDSON: been the driver behind a piece of work we're
ANNIE HUDSON: doing at the moment, and which we will
ANNIE HUDSON: publish shortly, about race, racial
ANNIE HUDSON: bias, racism and ethnicity in rapid reviews
ANNIE HUDSON: and LCSPRs.
ANNIE HUDSON: Because we need to understand better what is
ANNIE HUDSON: going on there in terms of under- and
ANNIE HUDSON: overrepresentation. But most importantly, how
ANNIE HUDSON: does practice need to change and be
ANNIE HUDSON: more responsive to the needs of those
ANNIE HUDSON: children? So that's the picture of the
ANNIE HUDSON: children.
ANNIE HUDSON: Then what we've done this year is to build on
ANNIE HUDSON: previous analysis of some of the big practice
ANNIE HUDSON: themes that we've seen over the years around,
ANNIE HUDSON: you know, focusing on the voice and
ANNIE HUDSON: experience of children, about bringing
ANNIE HUDSON: critical analysis to assessment and so on,
ANNIE HUDSON: and looked at three particular themes:
ANNIE HUDSON: parental mental health, children's mental
ANNIE HUDSON: health, and children who have been harmed in
ANNIE HUDSON: the extrafamilial environment, and done a bit
ANNIE HUDSON: of a deep dive around that.
ANNIE HUDSON: And there are some common themes which
ANNIE HUDSON: perhaps we can talk through about what we saw
ANNIE HUDSON: in relation to those issues.
JENNY COLES: A key theme throughout, as you'd probably
JENNY COLES: expect, is multi-agency working.
JENNY COLES: We always say, there should be better
JENNY COLES: multi-agency working, people work in silos;
JENNY COLES: but it is really complex.
JENNY COLES: And we thought these three areas illustrated
JENNY COLES: that and we understand that.
JENNY COLES: But what our evidence shows from these reviews
JENNY COLES: that in fact agencies, even though they come
JENNY COLES: together in the child protection system
JENNY COLES: through core groups or various professional
JENNY COLES: planning groups, they're still going away and
JENNY COLES: doing their actions for their own agency in a
JENNY COLES: silo rather than working
JENNY COLES: together. So really, it's a completely
JENNY COLES: multi-agency approach.
JENNY COLES: And, you know, it's very clear that the
JENNY COLES: complexity of the challenges that families and
JENNY COLES: children and young people face require even
JENNY COLES: closer collaboration than probably they did
JENNY COLES: ten years ago, and a flexibility
JENNY COLES: to operate and consider that range
JENNY COLES: of information and how other
JENNY COLES: professionals or practitioners working with
JENNY COLES: the family or having contact with the family
JENNY COLES: are responding. And the system that assists
JENNY COLES: them — so the different panels, the various
JENNY COLES: risk panels, particularly for those young
JENNY COLES: people at risk of extra familial harm — even
JENNY COLES: though they're multi-agency, the range of
JENNY COLES: arenas that they're looked at and they're
JENNY COLES: considered in don't always work
JENNY COLES: together. So what you get at the end of the
JENNY COLES: day, rather than a real focus, perhaps,
JENNY COLES: on what is going to make the difference for
JENNY COLES: this child or family, is
JENNY COLES: watered down by the complexity of
JENNY COLES: the system that's trying to deliver the
JENNY COLES: support, if you get what I mean.
JENNY COLES: That was clear on the way through.
JENNY COLES: And I think, you know, in terms of the
JENNY COLES: learning — and we do get feedback from
JENNY COLES: safeguarding partners about what they've done
JENNY COLES: in between, because it takes some time to
JENNY COLES: publish a review, particularly if there might
JENNY COLES: be a criminal investigation or a court trial.
JENNY COLES: It shows that people are trying to streamline
JENNY COLES: what they do and they are — particularly
JENNY COLES: around the extrafamilial harms — setting up
JENNY COLES: multi-agency hubs, bringing professionals
JENNY COLES: together. And that is learning from what's
JENNY COLES: happened out of some of these serious
JENNY COLES: incidents and reviews.
HOST: That must be really rewarding for the Panel: having
HOST: a review taking place and then seeing what is being
HOST: put into place following that.
HOST: Do you get a lot of that kind of feedback?
JENNY COLES: Well we're encouraging partnerships to do it.
JENNY COLES: And in our feedback letters we say it would
JENNY COLES: have been really helpful— you know, you've
JENNY COLES: made a comment that the actions we can put in
JENNY COLES: place, but it would be really helpful just to
JENNY COLES: know how they're going, because that all adds
JENNY COLES: to our database.
HOST: Okay. Shall we pause there for now, and then we can
HOST: come back in the second half for the podcast and we
HOST: can look in more detail at how to translate
HOST: the learning from the reports into improvements
HOST: for safeguarding practice.
OUTRO: Thanks for listening to this NSPCC Learning Podcast.
OUTRO: At the time of recording, this episode's content was
OUTRO: up-to-date, but the world of safeguarding and child
OUTRO: protection is ever-changing.
OUTRO: So if you're looking for the most current
OUTRO: safeguarding and child protection training,
OUTRO: information or resources, please visit
OUTRO: our website for professionals at
OUTRO: nspcc.org.uk/learning.