Undertaken by the LSCP August 2020
Predicting future demand is difficult as COVID-19 has presented a societal context we have not seen before. Therefore although we are able to anticipate future demand based on current and past demands, planning can only be proactive to a certain degree due to the unpredictability of COVID-19, the impact of localised lockdowns or other changes in government guidance and the wider impact on society not only in the coming months but longer term as the economic impact of COVID-19 and the country’s recession begins to take hold.
The education sector traditionally have some of the highest levels of face to face contact with children and young people, however some children have not been in school for a period of 6 months and the impact of this is not yet fully known. It is possible that we will become aware of incidents of abuse and harm that occurred during the lockdown period as children are seen and spoken to. This might include not only parental abuse and harm that they have suffered or witnessed over this period but also the emotional impact of the pandemic and a change to routines and home life which may have induced or exacerbated mental health difficulties.
The LSCP will continue to monitor EHE and intends to pursue this as a priority moving forward, as outlined in this report.
We believe September will become a real test for the city with all pupils expecting to return to full time education and more ‘in view’ of professionals across the city. Schools and other education providers are a key sector that refer into the safeguarding system, and as expected these numbers dropped as schools closed.
Attendance in schools up to the 3rd July 2020 was on average 17,206 which represents 17% of the school population of Leeds.15% of those attendees have been identified as having some form of vulnerability.
Throughout the period of school closure teachers have continued to make contact with pupils through virtual lessons and in addition through phone calls to the more vulnerable pupils. There has been a reduction in referrals to the Local Authority Front Door from schools since COVID-19 started however these are expected to rise during September. To ensure that contacts are most appropriately directed, work has been ongoing to ensure professionals are aware of the ability to access early help support through the Early Help Hubs where appropriate, or the Front Door if required.
One of our partnership responses during the pandemic as a means to understand the size and scale of current and emerging demands, and plan appropriate support and responses was to initiate local weekly multi-agency Bronze meetings. These meetings consisting of front line practitioners and managers are the eyes and ears of demand on front line practice and emerging needs of children, families and communities. Identified demand, issues and innovative responses have been fed into cross council Silver and Gold meetings as well as the LSCP weekly safeguarding meetings chaired by myself as the LSCP Independent Chair. This has enabled a strategic citywide oversight of safeguarding during COVID-19 and will continue for the foreseeable future.
Those children already known to services continued to be seen through continued physical contact or through other forms of communication such as phone calls or video calls as appropriate. PPE equipment has been made available to staff along with guidance to support necessary welfare visits, and staff have implemented innovative ways to allow for face to face visits.
All NHS commissioners and providers have developed Business Continuity Plans which have been put into operation. There are teams of staff within the differing health organisations to manage and monitor the health response to the COVID-19 epidemic going forward.
Throughout the COVID-19 period there have not been any significant changes in the primary categories of CPPs although clearly issues of finances, access to food and difficulties with accessing wider family support were flagged as issues during the lockdown period and featured on plans. There have been co-ordinated local responses to some of these needs from the Early Help Hubs including provision of food and baby equipment. There is a clear recognition of the importance of partnership work with third-sector groups and community members in responding to increased need associated with financial insecurity, poverty and the provision of basic essentials such as food parcels. Poverty is an aspect of work that the city has already been focusing on for the past 18 months.
The volume of CP conferences is reported to be currently manageable, however this is an area that continues to be monitored closely. The system of meetings held on Skype is, in general working well with high levels of participation by parents and some new emerging patterns of positive participation by young people. The social care team continue to work with partners at Barnardo’s to ensure the maximum number of children have an advocate at the meeting and they have tried to continue ‘children’s meetings’ when appropriate.
Feedback received from parents indicates a generally positive view of the online meetings, however it is recognised that this is not the case for all and there is the acknowledgement that for some families there should be a return to face to face meetings whenever possible. Similarly there has been feedback from practitioners with regards to the ability to attend more multi-agency meetings online, and the ability to appropriately continue practitioner online involvement as restrictions ease is being considered.
The city’s’ Early Help systems continues to provide support for children, young people and families, but the expectation is for a significant increase in referrals to Early Help and Targeted services when schools return in September. Early Help and Targeted support referrals have increased month on month since an initial lull during the first two months of the pandemic lockdown. Significant elements of Early Help and Targeted support work is with adult parents/carers and there is growing evidence that COVID-19 and the imposed restrictions have had a detrimental impact on adult mental health and the incidence of both domestic violence and parental conflict.
We expect these trends to continue in the autumn. Active plans are currently being made within clusters and the Early Help Hubs moving forward to triage and prioritise referrals. The intention is to maintain some of the creative ways of service delivery developed during the pandemic (online parenting courses, therapy sessions delivered remotely, online support groups), but also looking carefully at how we can collectively, better utilise our resources moving forward to respond to increased demand by, for example, delivering more support in groups, utilising webinars and online forums, assisting people in schools, communities and families to confidently offer naturally and unobtrusively, emotional support to children and their parents and carers.
Around 170 children (key worker families and vulnerable children) continue to attend Children’s Centres for childcare services; around 30% of these have additional needs or vulnerabilities. Support for potentially vulnerable families is supplemented by weekly telephone contact with those at home and drop-in activity boxes. This has proved useful in engaging parents in focussed conversations around children’s activity and engagement. It is anticipated that this demand will remain going forward.
The Children’s Centres reviewed all vulnerable children, 5 weeks into the lockdown, to check with social workers and Leeds Community Health 0-19 service staff that home is still the most appropriate place for care, health and education provision for the child, or if some time in the nursery setting would now be appropriate.
Communities of interest work is being led by Forum Central and the council, providing support for young people and BME communities, following news that these communities may experience worse outcomes in relation to COVID-19. VAL worked with LCC designing and launching the community care programme. 7600 volunteers signed up to the programme which is no longer accepting new volunteers due to the positive response.
The volunteers are split into 3 levels of support:
- Encouraging people to look out for their neighbours who may need support using the ‘being a good neighbour’ guidance. The guidance includes practical advice and takes safeguarding into consideration
- 33 ward level hubs have been established with 27 third sector organisations across the city. The hubs receive daily referrals and will match them to a list of available volunteers in the area. Community care volunteers have completed an induction including safeguarding training
- Working closely with adults and health to identify DBS checked volunteers to provide a higher level of support to people in the community.
Both of these initiatives will continue for the foreseeable future to provide ongoing appropriate care and support, although they will be reviewed to ensure that this is responsive to both levels and types of need which can be impacted by changes such as the localised lockdowns seen within other parts of West Yorkshire.
As education establishments, early years settings, health, and other services begin to reset and stabilise we expect an increase in the identification and disclosure of safeguarding/child protection issues and the need for child protection medicals. Health have worked in partnership with Children Services to ensure that any children who require a child protection medical have access to this in timely and safe manner.
This has included the development of a Standard Operating Procedure for social workers so that they are clear how to request a CP medical during these difficult times, even if the child/family have be identified as suffering with COVID-19 or report that they are self-isolating. Leeds Community Health Care NHS Trust have invested in a mobile colposcopy to facilitate sexual child abuse medicals both in acute and community settings.
LTHT are now in the implementation of Phase 3 of the COVID-19 response and are also making preparations for the impact of winter pressures in the acute setting. The ease in COVID-19 lockdown regulations has seen an increase in children and young people attending the Emergency Department and Children’s Hospital, but the figures are similar to previous year’s trends. There has been an increase in safeguarding children advice calls to the LTHT safeguarding children and midwifery teams last month, however at present there is nothing being identified within hospitals planning or modelling to suggest any extraordinary issues regarding children and safeguarding.
At the start of the Pandemic regular meetings were established between the LSCP Communications Officer and NHS CCG Communication Manager, LCC Business Partner and West Yorkshire Police Corporate Communications, to ensure a co-ordinated approach to external messages.
The LSCP Communications Officer joined the LCC Social Media Forecast Group which co-ordinated the sharing of important messages during the coronavirus pandemic via social media. The group provided a helpful two-way resource to help share LSCP communications from the council’s corporate social media pages as well as share LCC’s key messages and posts via the LSCP accounts.
LSCP communication messages have focused on the following:
- promoting the COVID-19 information on the LSCP website to practitioners
- providing links to helpful information on online safety for parents and carers
- supporting the promotion of local services to children and young people eg; Chat Health, Kooth and the Market Place
- promoting the Mindmate website to young people, as mental health was raised as a potential safeguarding concern during this period.
A full range of different technological platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. to get messages out to children and families have been deployed. Campaigns targeting children and families on how to get access to emotional and mental health support as well as support structures for young people have been widely publicised using these platforms. Encouraging children and families to continue to seek support through website, skype, text or phone calls was important to prevent concerns from escalating which may cause a sudden surge of demand on the safeguarding system. The promotion of appropriate support avenues will continue as the ongoing impact of COVID-19 is felt by children, young people and families.
Exploring analytics gleaned from websites that support young people such as the city’s ‘Mind Mate’ website has allowed us to understand what some of the needs of young people are and strengthen those pages. For example, from March to May there were 5932 unique visits to the Mind Mate website with the most visited section being ‘Information on coronavirus: taking care of your mental wellbeing’. We know from the analysis of My Health My School survey that in Leeds 75% of children in year 6, 7, 9, 11, 12 and 13 said that they would know where to go to get help or advice for social, emotional and mental health. Alongside this is the work mentioned here to increase the opportunities and accessibility children have to address their emotional and mental health needs.
Children and young people have had to adapt to the pandemic and due to the lack of access to structured education and other structured and positive activities concerns have been raised that some young people may have formed potentially harmful relationships with peers. There has been a steady increase in CSE referrals during the pandemic although not out of sync with previous years. It is possible that this is due to an increase in online abuse/grooming. Anecdotally, there seems to have been an increase in young people who have been groomed on-line during lock-down. In addition it is anticipated that some parents are likely to struggle in getting their children to return to school and there may be challenges and repercussions associated with this. It is a potential and unsurprising trend which could extend into the autumn. This is being considered within the LSCP Risk and Vulnerably Meetings and the Bronze Multi-Agency Child Exploitation meetings have continued throughout COVID-19 to ensure a quick response to high risk or emerging risk cases of exploitation.
The LSCP recognised that young people will be spending more time online and as a response have used social media to inform parents on how they can keep their children safe. We acknowledged how the voice of children and young people has never been more important. The Student LSCP are a group of young people who have volunteered to provide a young person’s voice and opinion to the work of the LSCP. The group would normally meet on a weekly basis however, due to the COVID-19 lockdown they decided to move their weekly sessions to a virtual environment through group chat and online meetings, as the group members were still keen to continue their work with the LSCP and to assist in helping to safeguard the children and young people of Leeds during this challenging time. Discussions in the group chat sessions focused on understanding how young people are experiencing lockdown due to COVID19 and what, as a city we could do to support them.
These discussions were shared across the Partnership to help inform front line practice, provide context of children’s experiences of lockdown and the impact this has had on them. One particular area that came out was children’s emotional health and wellbeing and the city has responded through promoting websites and services that have operated through the pandemic.
The LSCP is working with Leeds City College to consider how to appropriately recruit a new Student LSCP within the current restrictions to ensure the voice of children and young people is continued to be heard within the autumn and going forward, and capture the impact as children and young people return to full time education.
The CCG have been working closely with NHS England and LCH to develop a 24/7 mental health crisis advice, triage and support line for children and young people. The timeframe for this had been 2023/24 but in light of COVID-19 this has been brought forward. The CCG are looking to develop a safe and sustainable model that will meet the needs of our children and young people both in the short and long term. The launch date for the service is anticipated to be September 2020.
The CCG are also working with our Education cluster colleagues and new commissioned providers of the Social, Emotional, Mental Health input into the cluster model. This newly commissioned service will be in place by September and will provide specialist mental health support into the clusters supporting our schools across Leeds.
The city’s Future in Mind Strategy, currently under review for relaunch in 2021, ensures that local and national priorities are inform our work to support children and young people’s mental health over the next 5 years. In addition to this, we’re working closely with colleagues in adult mental health to inform the priority areas within the ‘All Age Mental Health Strategy’ principally around the areas of trauma, crisis and transitions.
We know for that for some children with complex needs going to school is a significant protective factor in their lives and provides much needed respite for families. Health services have worked tirelessly with SILC (special) schools and social care to ensure that where this is possible, and parents have wanted this, children have been able to access school. Where going to school hasn’t been possible we have seen an unprecedented response from services both in terms of partnership working and flexibility, with the needs of children at the centre of all they do. The CCG have also been supporting providers across the city to ensure children and young people with complex needs, along with their families, continue to receive the support they need. The Coronavirus Act 2020 required the continuation of provision identified within Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) using a best endeavours approach. This has meant that all services, with the exception of community Audiology, continued throughout lockdown. Every child has been risk assessed and provision tailored accordingly.
The profile of domestic violence and abuse (DVA) has not altered hugely however, in recent months, levels of general calls to the police have begun to increase again. Arrests for DVA remain higher than previously and MARAC have seen an increase in cases passing through them, more significantly in the last two weeks.
DVA referrals compared to the same week of the previous year suggests that referral numbers are only just returning to normal, there hasn’t been a big swing up that surpasses normality like some authorities have reported. The amount of DVA referrals, largely reported by the police who were still referring in during lockdown, have remained fairly consistent. In some instances they have been less than the previous year, along with the occasional spike such as the week commencing 13th July, however the number of referrals was consistent with last year and only 10% over the average for referrals in a week for the 19/20 year.
The Safer Leeds COVID-19 DVA Campaign ran from April and saw a big spike in web traffic. The campaign was aimed at those experiencing domestic abuse while in lockdown and family/friends who know someone who is suffering domestic violence and abuse. It also raised awareness of the services still available to help those suffering from domestic violence and abuse during the lockdown and to encourage victims and wider networks to use the services if they are experiencing or suspect someone they know is experience abuse.
MARAC however, have seen a 33% increase in cases passing through them. The MARAC is currently operating at the highest levels seen since the arrangements were introduced reflecting an increase in police crime incidents and high levels of presenting need identified by other frontline practitioners. All partners moved to a virtual daily meeting and no meetings were missed as a result of the lockdown period. The proportion of cases where children are involved broadly remains at around a third of the cases each day. Children’s Services, health and police work as part of the Front Door Safeguarding Hub and work closely with the MARAC team both before and during the MARAC sessions.
The Front Door Safeguarding Hub are currently using the Safe Lives audit tool to analyse and quality assure the high number of cases, exploring issues to improve process, support partners management of frontline risk and ensure the safe management of high risk cases.
It is anticipated the test will be when schools return. The police and DVA figures have proven to be fairly consisten
A rise in parental conflict was identified through LSCP weekly safeguarding meetings as well as the Bronze safeguarding meetings within the 3 areas of Leeds. The pressures of families living together during lockdown, as expected increased the amount. We understand that conflict is an everyday part of life; our aim is to ensure that conflict is constructively resolved thereby modelling appropriate relationships where any differences are agreed amicably between adults. Under the initiative Relationships Matters a website for parents has been developed and information for practitioners in relation to parental conflict is available.
The ambition in Leeds is that families experiencing conflict are supported at the right time, by the right practitioner to prevent any impact of this conflict on children. We are aiming to increase awareness of parental conflict and the impact it can have on children and young people and their outcomes. In Leeds we are taking a practice approach through providing workforce development opportunities.
The Rethink Team have developed a formulation approach (The Top Concern Approach) to prioritise our work and support families as best we can to stay home, stay well and stay safe. This approach enables practitioners to limit their contact to the absolute minimum and ensure that they too – stay home, stay well and stay safe.
Consideration with regards to levels of demand for services during COVID-19
Leeds as a child friendly city is committed in ensuring that children, especially the most vulnerable will continue to be supported. We do not at present anticipate demand being unmeetable by planned resourcing and bringing together the wider partnership to share resources.
We are still seeing referrals into Duty and Advice being between 20%-30% lower this year than the same week last year, and although there is some slow increases where data is returning to normal levels, along with an anticipated increase following children and young people returning to school full time nothing suggests that it will be higher than last year.
Technology as mentioned above has played a significant role in ensuring vulnerable children families continue to be seen however, this meant professionals have needed to quickly get used to planning, implementing and reviewing in a different way which may cause some small delay in meeting statutory timescales within child protection processes. As professionals become more confident and efficient in the use of technology, timescales will be met.
Early Help is expecting and planning for increased demand for our more specialist and Targeted services. Resources are finite and it will require careful prioritisation and more creative ways of utilising these services. As mentioned above, there is a very proactive third sector as well as our statutory partners who, through the weekly Bronze meetings are monitoring ‘need’ very closely and identify appropriate responses.
Referrals for FGC services in Leeds are correlated with the broader Children’s Services referral patterns. FGC activity dropped off by as much as 50% during the first few months, referrals are however now increasing. FGC is by definition about networking, conversations, families meeting to finding solutions; the inability of people during the pandemic lockdown to physically meet has clearly presented a significant challenge to delivering a service. The FGC service in Leeds is quickly learning to utilise technology to facilitate family conferences, knowledge and skills delivering by remote means are evolving. The expectation is that the demand for FGC services in Leeds will grow into the autumn but assurance has been provided in meeting demand by creatively utilising technology while retaining face-to-face family decision making meetings where it is safe to do so.
One potential issue that may challenge the Children Looked After (CLA) Nursing team will be capacity. There are variables that could impact including COVID-19 and Flu effects on staffing sickness rates and potential staff redeployment. Additionally the specialist nursing team see all Leeds children and young people who are placed within a 20 mile radius of Leeds. Those placed further afield are seen by the local nursing teams. During the first COVID-19 surge many Out of Area teams were redeployed and the Leeds team have completed and continue to complete most of these health assessments as local teams have a backlog and cannot guarantee timely service to meet statutory requirements. This is only possible as all assessments are currently completed virtually, which is not ideal for a holistic health assessment, especially with the increased emotional and mental health needs of this vulnerable cohort.
Social work teams do not anticipate that volumes of demand will be unmeetable. Children Services have provided evidence for a number of years highlighting their work in establishing and maintaining manageable caseloads, and have the capacity to respond to peaks in demand.
Police have also confirmed that police resourcing is determined by threat, risk and harm and Force priorities. Protecting the Vulnerable, of which child protection and DVA form a major part, is a Force priority and so resources will always be provided to match any demand that arises.
The impact of pupils returning to school will inevitably put a strain on the safeguarding system. Partners are confident that through weekly monitoring and shared resources any pressure on the safeguarding system will be mitigated, however some areas whereby there is the potential for a significant impact on capacity have been identified as outlined below.
Demand on the Children’s Looked After service has remained constant throughout the year, and numbers coming into care in Leeds over the past few months have continued to follow previous years’ trends. CLA starters by month: Jan to July shows the same average number of children starting care, with no increase in pressure based on care entrant numbers. However it is widely thought that once children and young people return to school, disclosures may result in an increase number of children being taken into care.
The Specialist nursing team are currently working at maximum capacity and any change that affects capacity will impact service delivery. Should there be a significant increase in children taken into care from September and or significant sickness or redeployment due to COVID-19 and flu, the service would not be able to undertake the volumes of health assessments and follow up that individual staff would have to complete in order to meet service level agreements and caseload needs.
Weekly meetings continue across the city to ensure any emerging concerns can be quickly responded to. We continue to monitor the situation on a weekly basis as we have throughout the pandemic so that we can be as proactive as possible in planning for and responding to shifts or increases in demand. We continue to take a cross council and whole system approach to emerging needs and increased demand and we will continue with this as it has served us well.
COVID-19 has resulted in some changes to how services are delivered especially with staff across the partnership having to shield or those who need to look after their children while schools were closed or other vulnerable dependents. The response by professionals in Leeds has been outstanding and many staff across the partnership have taken on additional or new responsibilities to meet need. The support structures supporting front line staff have continued, and where possible staff have been supported to work from home.
Staff are encouraged to continue to meet ‘virtually’ to ensure that teams remain strong and in touch with each other as well as the continuation of multi-agency meetings to ensure a partnership approach and response to needs continues. Staff are supported to take annual leave or accrue hours back they have worked during the pandemic to allow them to recharge and rest and any impact of this is being managed through the relevant management structures.