Child Safeguarding review and audits
Line of Sight Learning Process
The Line of Sight process is a key element of the NEL Safeguarding Children Partnership (SCP) Scrutiny and Assurance Framework mechanisms (SAF) which provide challenge and scrutiny in enabling continual practice improvement and improvement of outcomes for children. The purpose of the Line of Sight process is to:
- Identify specific safeguarding themes and potential practice issues and good practice.
- Undertake single agency audit and partnership analysis of what worked well and areas that need further development
- Agree key themes, identify required activity, and implement actions to improve practice across the safeguarding system
Following Line of Sight Events a 7 Minute briefing of the key learning will be developed and disseminated to partner agencies and will also be published on the Safer NEL website.
Line of Sight Guidance and Referral Form:
Line of Sight Guidance (PDF, 207KB)
Line of Sight Referral Form (Word, 67KB)
Safeguarding Children Practice reviews
The purpose of reviews of serious child safeguarding cases at both local and national level is to identify improvements to be made to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
Understanding whether there are systemic issues and whether policy and how policy and practice need to change is critical to the system being dynamic and self-improving.
Reviews should:
- seek to prevent or reduce the risk of recurrence of similar incidents
- establish what lessons are to be learned from the case about the way in which local professionals and organisations work individually and together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children
- identify clearly what those lessons are both within and between agencies, what actions are required and in what timescales and what is expected to change as a result
- improve intra and inter agency working and better safeguard the welfare of children
Child Safeguarding Practice Review (PDF, 516KB)
SCSI 1 – Notification to Safeguarding Partners (Word, 66KB)
Safeguarding practice review report and publishing policy
This policy advises on periods of publication, preparing to publish Serious Case Reviews, decisions not to publish Serious Case Reviews and removal of SCR reports from the website.
For more information please view the Practice review report and publication policy (PDF, 427KB) .
Published Practice Reviews
Local Safeguarding Practice Review – W Siblings (PDF, 516KB)
NSPCC National Case Review Repository
Learning from practice
These 7 Minute briefings outline the learning from the NEL SCP Learning Line of Sight Events.
Quality Assurance and Performance
The NEL Safeguarding Children Partnership Scrutiny and Assurance framework will enable safeguarding partners to:
- have a direct line of sight to practice
- take account of independent scrutiny which helps determine the effectiveness of local safeguarding arrangements
- inform practice through audit
- have assurance whether inter agency practice is joined up and effectively safeguards and promotes the welfare of children
Audit is a quality assurance process. It provides a means of finding out whether the service is following guidelines and/or applying best practice in a particular area. It is a systematic process that involves defining standards, collecting data and implementing change.
Audit is undertaken to ensure that policy or procedure is being followed. It provides evidence of best practice and can demonstrate the quality of our work to external bodies and inspectors. It also allows areas of weakness to be identified and acted upon.
The actual process of carrying out an audit can sometimes be as beneficial as the outcomes. It provides staff with the time and space to reflect critically on practice. Where different agencies are involved, there is an opportunity to learn about different roles and responsibilities.