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What is the ERSCP?

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    What is the ERSCP?

    The East Riding Safeguarding Children Partnership (ERSCP) oversees and co-ordinates all of the work undertaken within the East Riding to keep children safe. It is a partnership between the East Riding of Yorkshire Council, Humberside Police and the NHS Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board working alongside other relevant agencies.

    Watch Ruby, Alex and Patrick explain more about the ERSCP

    What is safeguarding?

    Safeguarding is:

    • the process of protecting children from abuse or neglect
    • preventing impairment of their health and development
    • ensuring children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care
    • enabling children to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully.

    Business priorities and annual report

    The ERSCP business priorities has been informed by our assessment of local safeguarding services, as highlighted in the Annual Report 2023-2024. The document sets out the partnership's priorities which meet our statutory duty.

    Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023

    Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023 outlines the shared responsibility for agencies working with children to provide a child-centred system of help, support and protection and effective work from all agencies with parents, carers and families.

    Working together to safeguard children - GOV.UK

    This shared expectation applies to all agencies and practitioners involved in safeguarding and protecting children and supporting their families.

    Independent scrutiny

    The ERSCP has an independent scrutineer who is responsible for holding partners to account and to provide scrutiny of the arrangements developed by the three statutory partners. Their independent scrutiny drives continuous improvement and provides assurance that arrangements are working effectively for children, families, and practitioners.

    Governance arrangements

    ERSCP executive board membership includes DSPs and representatives from the relevant agencies, including education, the chair of the strategic delivery group, and the Partnership's business unit manager.

    The executive board oversees the activity of the partnership and is accountable to the local strategic partnerships (LSPs). All sub-groups will be chaired by a member of the strategic delivery group (SDG) which ensures there is connectivity across all of the partnership's activities, and the work of other sub-groups.

    The Partnership's vision

    Our vision is to work together effectively to ensure all children in the East Riding are safe and grow up in a loving home and be equipped with the skills, values, and resilience to meet their potential and thrive.

    ERSCP partners have a shared commitment to the principles that all children and young people living in the East Riding:

    • enjoy good physical, mental and social health, and wellbeing
    • are safe in different environments
    • develop the skills and knowledge to achieve their full potential
    • receive the right support, at the right time, in the right place.
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    Four key principles

    Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023 outlines four key principles for all professionals to follow when engaging with parents and caregivers:

    1. Establishing effective partnerships.
      Emphasising the creation of strong, positive, trusting and cooperative relationships.
    2. Respectful communication.
      Maintaining respectful, non-blaming and inclusive verbal and non-verbal communication, tailored to meet the needs of parents and caregivers.
    3. Empowerment in decision-making.
      Actively empowering parents and caregivers by providing them with necessary information, regular updates and guiding them towards additional resources
    4. Involvement in design and planning.
      Ensuring that parents and caregivers are actively involved in shaping the processes and services that impact them.

    Defined roles and responsibilities

    The statutory guidance introduces and clarifies new roles and responsibilities for the three primary safeguarding partners:

    • East Riding Local Authority
    • NHS Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board
    • Humberside Police.

    The ERSCP has ensured that representatives from all relevant agencies, including education and the VCSE sector, are represented across the Child Safeguarding Partnership. It has also agreed the lead and delegated safeguarding partners to lead and oversee the work of the ERSCP.

    Lead Safeguarding Partners (LSPs)

    LSPs are jointly responsible for ensuring the proper involvement of and oversight of all relevant agencies in the child safeguarding arrangements within the East Riding. As LSPs they will:

    1. Set the strategic direction, vision, and culture of the local safeguarding arrangements, including agreeing and reviewing shared priorities and the resources required to deliver services effectively.
    2. Lead their organisation’s individual contribution to the shared priorities, ensuring strong governance, accountability, and reporting mechanisms to hold their delegates to account for the delivery of agency commitments.
    3. Review and sign off key partnership documents: published multi-agency safeguarding arrangements, including plans for independent scrutiny, shared annual budget, yearly report, and local threshold document.
    4. Provide shared oversight of learning from independent scrutiny, serious incidents, local child safeguarding practice reviews, and national reviews, ensuring recommendations are implemented and have a demonstrable impact on practice (as set out in the ERSCP annual report).
    5. Ensure multi-agency arrangements have the necessary level of business support, including intelligence and analytical functions, such as an agreed data set providing oversight and a robust understanding of practice.
    6. Ensure all relevant agencies, including education settings, are clear on their role and contribution to multi-agency safeguarding arrangements.

    The ERSCP lead safeguarding partners are:

    • Chief Executive East Riding Council - Alan Menzies
    • Chief Executive NHS Humber & North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) - Stephen Eames
    • Chief Constable Humberside Police - Judi Heaton (temporary appointment).

    Delegated Safeguarding Partner (DSP)

    Each LSP appoints a Delegated Safeguarding Partner (DSP) who is charged with the operational delivery of the multi-agency safeguarding duties.

    The delegated safeguarding partners will ensure:

    1. Delivery and monitoring of multi-agency priorities and procedures to protect and safeguard children in the local area, in compliance with published arrangements and thresholds.
    2. Close partnership working and engagement with education (at strategic and operational level) and other relevant agencies, allowing better identification of and response to harm.
    3. The implementation of effective information sharing arrangements between agencies, including data sharing that facilitates joint analysis between partner agencies.
    4. Delivery of high-quality and timely rapid reviews and local child safeguarding practice reviews, with the impact of learning from local and national reviews and independent scrutiny clearly evidenced in yearly reports.
    5. The provision of appropriate multi-agency safeguarding professional

    Relevant agencies

    Relevant agencies are those organisations that ERSCP consider to be safeguarding and promoting the welfare of local children. These include health organisations, education, early years, criminal justice, voluntary sector, local government, public services, and wider youth engagement groups.

    Strong effective multi-agency arrangements are ones that are responsive to local circumstances and provide the right support at the right time to children and their families. They will also undertake work within the ERSCP groups to assist in the creation and delivery of focused activity to meet agreed priorities.

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