Who's Who - Designated Contacts
Designated Nurse (Child Protection)
The Designated Nurse (Child Protection) takes the strategic lead with the Named Nurses for child protection from each Primary Care Trust. The Designated Nurse oversees all aspects of the North Yorkshire health Trusts, and Tees East & North Yorkshire Ambulance Service's (TENYAS) contribution to the safeguarding of children & the promotion of their welfare. She promotes high quality, evidence based child protection services and is a source of expertise for health service providers and other agencies within North Yorkshire.
The Designated Nurse is a vital source of professional expert advice on child protection matters to other professionals and to social service departments. She plays an important role in strategic planning, promoting and influencing relevant training, skilled professional involvement in child protection processes in line with health & safeguarding children protocols, and participation in case reviews. She is a member of Safeguarding Children Board representing health services across North Yorkshire.
The Designated Nurse is based within Selby & York PCT but has responsibilities across all the Health Trusts in North Yorkshire. In this capacity she maintains regular contact with the Named Child Protection professionals across the County, offering advice, support & clinical supervision.
The scope of the post includes the development of effective inter-disciplinary and inter-agency relationships to improve the outcomes for children in need and children in need of protection.
CAFCASS
The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) was established in 2001 joining the Children's Guardian's Panels and the Court Welfare Service of Probation.
It has a statutory duty to 'safeguard and promote the welfare of children during family court proceedings.' (Criminal Justice & Court Service Act 2000 section 12 (1) (a))
It does this by providing a Children's Guardian for a child who is the subject of care proceedings by a local authority social services department. In these cases the child is legally represented. Guardians are also involved in contested adoption cases.
In private law situations (not care proceedings) when parents who are separated, or others concerned about a child or young person under 16, cannot agree about arrangements, usually for residence or contact, they will apply for a court order. The family court will appoint a Children & Family Reporter from CAFCASS to prepare a report and make a recommendation.
CAFCASS has its own web site
www.cafcass.gov.uk . In addition to providing reports for the family courts it supports contact centres and alternative dispute resolution schemes. All its practitioners are social work trained and accredited to the General Social Care Council. It can be best understood as a national organisation providing a social work assessment service to the family courts.
The Education Social Work Service
The Education Social Work Service offers Child Protection advice and support to all staff working in the LEA, Education settings and the Passenger Transport section.
The Principal Education Social Worker (PESW) is the named person for Child Protection in North Yorkshire and has responsibility for policy, training, allegations and those children missing from education.
The PESW also represents the Local Education Authority on the Safeguarding Children Board.
The Special Senior Education Social Workers for Child Protection are a vital source of professional expert advice on child protection matters to all education staff. They play an important role in strategic planning, promoting and presenting relevant training, including where possible, whole school training for all education staff every three years and Designated Person training every 2 years.
They are also responsible for investigating allegations of abuse by education staff including education transport staff.
Senior Education Social Workers and Education Social Workers are trained to at least Designated Person level, and are based in each area of North Yorkshire. They are also available to give advice and support on child protection matters to education staff.
Probation Service
North Yorkshire Probation Area is part of the National Probation Service and works with people (men and women aged 18 and over) who have been convicted of criminal offences, to help ensure that they do not offend again.
Probation involvement starts at court when staff prepare reports on individual offenders to help judges and magistrates decide which sentence to impose. Most offenders are given sentences which allow them to remain in the community, often on orders which require them to be supervised by a probation officer. Offenders who are given prison sentences may be released on licences, which require them to be supervised, too.
Supervision is carefully planned and usually requires the offender to attend one or more programmes designed to treat reasons behind offending. Programmes include those for drunk drivers, people who abuse drugs and alcohol, sex offenders, men who abuse their partners, violent offenders and one to check general offending behaviour.
If offenders do not co-operate or abide by the conditions in their orders or licences, they are taken back to court or recalled to prison.
At any one time, more than 2000 people will be being supervised by the Probation Service in North Yorkshire . Many of these will be parents of children who have needs while some will be offenders convicted of sexual or other crimes against children.
Probation staff and managers work closely with other agencies and within North Yorkshire’s children’s safeguarding arrangements to promote and protect the welfare of all children. It does, however, particularly focus on those for whom it has a responsibility because of its work with offenders.
District Councils
District Councils are represented on the Board by The Chief Excutive of Hambleton District Council and the Chief Executive of the Richmondshire District Council.
The two District representatives are there to offer strategic help to the Board as well as specific insights on how District Council responsibilities relate to safeguarding children in areas such as housing, leisure and the general contact that District Councils have with the public from which concerns may be identified.
The District Council representatives are supported by a lead officers network convened from officers each of the District Councils. They relate to the District Council Network which holds meetings and liases between all District Leads and Chief Executives within the county of North Yorkshire.
North Yorkshire Police
The structure of North Yorkshire Police in relation to supporting safeguarding is:
The Assistant Chief Constable (Specialist Support) for North Yorkshire Police is a member of the Children's Strategic Board and has overall responsibility for crime in North Yorkshire Police.
The Detective Chief Inspector attends the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children Board meetings and is a member of various sub-groups for the Board.
The Detective Inspector has responsibility for directly managing the Child Abuse Investigation Teams (CAIT) within North Yorkshire and is also a member of the Training sub-group for the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children Board.
There are four Child Abuse Investigation Teams located around North Yorkshire and are each managed by a Detective Sergeant. The 4 Detective Sergeants are members of the Locality Forums in their areas. The structure of the Units are:
Detective Sergeant and 3 Detective Constables based at Northallerton are responsible for Hambleton and Richmondshire districts.
Detective Sergeant and 3 Detective Constables based at Harrogate are responsible for Harrogate and Craven.
Detective Sergeant and 3 Detective Constables in Scarborough are responsible for Scarborough and Ryedale.
Detective Sergeant and 4 Detective Constables are responsible for City of York and Selby.
The Unit’s primary function is to deal with familial investigations of child abuse in accordance with Working Together and in partnership with other statutory and non-statutory organisations.
Army Welfare Service
The Army Welfare Service provides confidential, comprehensive and professional support to servicemen and women and their families. This includes support to the Territorial Army, Reservists and Veterans.
The service incorporates a Personal Support element, which supports individuals and families who approach the service for assistance. We provide support on all subjects including relationships, accommodation, health, debt, education, childcare, mental health, domestic violence, substance abuse, etc.
AWS also incorporates a Community Support element, the aim of which is to secure or directly provide Community Support and learning opportunities wherever military personnel and their families are living. This is provided through Community Centres; Early Years settings; Youth/ Playwork Centres; activities for children, young people and families during school holidays: just about everything the Service Community requires.
AWS representation on Safeguarding Children Boards is primarily to ensure effective collaborative working between itself and its partners on the Boards. A secondary function is to share information with the Ministry of Defence where required.
Youth Offending Team
The YOT Manager represents the North Yorkshire YOT which was established in January 2000 with the key aim of protecting the public by preventing crime and reducing offending in respect of young people aged 10 to 17 years.
This objective is pursued in a manner which safeguards young people and promotes their social inclusion.
In addition to being a members of the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children Board, the YOT Manager is a member of the Multi-agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) Board which is similarly concerned with effective management of risk and protection.
