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LSCB - About the Local Safeguarding Children Board

LSCB logoWhat is the Local Safeguarding Children Board? 

Background

Following changes in government legislation and the Children’s Act 2004, every local authority now has a statutory duty to have a Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB), co-ordinating integrated, multi-agency responses to children’s safety and welfare locally.   

Government guidance on Working Together to Safeguard Children describes LSCBs as “the key statutory mechanism for agreeing how the relevant organisations in each local area will co-operate to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in that locality, and for ensuring the effectiveness of what they do” and defines safeguarding children and promoting their welfare as:

  • Protecting children from maltreatment
  • Preventing impairment of children’s health or development
  • Ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care
  • Enabling those children to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully        

Working Together to Safeguard Children can be downloaded from: http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/_files/AE53C8F9D7AEB1B23E403514A6C1B17D.pdf

Roles and responsibilities of LSCBs

LSCBs have a much broader remit than the old Child Protection Committees, working within the wider context of the government’s Every Child Matters agenda, which states that children should have the support they need to

  • Be healthy
  • Stay safe
  • Enjoy and achieve
  • Make a positive contribution
  • Achieve economic well-being        

In practice, LSCBs’ work fall into three main areas of activity, namely:

1. Activities that aim to identify and prevent the maltreatment of children and the impairment of children’s health and development, and activities that ensure children receive safe and effective care as they are growing up.  This work might include:

  • Developing multi-agency mechanisms for identifying abuse and neglect
  • Publicising the message that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility
  • Ensuring that children and adults know who to contact is they have concerns about a child’s safety
  • Monitoring local organisations’ implementation of their duties under the Children’s Act        

2. Pro-active activities targeting particular groups.  LSCBs might undertake early intervention and preventative work, such as:

  • Agreeing thresholds, procedures and policies for working with children in need, but who are not at risk of suffering significant harm
  • Seek ways of promoting the welfare of children who may be more vulnerable than the general population, including children with disabilities, children in custody, runaways.         

3. Responsive activities to protect children who are suffering or are at risk of suffering significant harm.  This would include co-ordinating responses to children who are being abused or neglected in a range of contexts, including domestic violence, substance misuse, abuse by carers or professionals, sexual exploitation and abuse by other young people.  

Safeguarding Children in Hammersmith and Fulham

The Local Safeguarding Children Board in Hammersmith and Fulham met for the first time in March 2006.  The board is chaired by Andrew Christie, the director of Children’s Services in the borough.  A wide range of agencies are pro-actively involved as board members, including LBHF’s Children’s Services and Community Services Departments, the Primary Care Trust, Hammersmith, Charing Cross and Queen Charlotte Hospitals, West London Mental Health Trust, the Metropolitan Police’s Child Abuse Investigation Team, the Youth Offending Service, London Probation Services, H&F Domestic Violence Forum and Sir John Lillie School (representing local school heads).  

To view the contact details of the agencies involved in the LSCB Operational Board, please click on the following link: Membership list of the LSCB Operational Group (pdf)

The following subgroups regularly report to the board:

The Audit and Practice Improvement Subgroup, which examines child protection cases in detail, identifies learning points for all agencies concerned, makes recommendations to service managers, and raises concerns where poor safeguarding arrangements are identified.  

The Health Subgroup, which brings together health service providers to exchange information and co-ordinate responses to safeguarding children.  

The Training Subgroup, which oversees the planning, development, commissioning and delivery of multi-disciplinary training across all agencies working with children.  

Two new subgroups, looking at equalities issues and faith communities, and policies and procedures have recently been developed.  

In addition, other relevant multi-agency working groups in the borough, such as the Domestic Violence Forum and the Multi-Agency Public Protection group, also report to the board.  In addition, specific review groups are formed when required, for example, in the event of an unexpected child death or where a serious care review is needed.  

The LSCB has produced a business plan, which identifies a number of priorities for 2006-07, including promoting a preventative child protection strategy, developing a integrated training programme and reviewing its work in light of regional and national contexts.  

To find out more about the Hammersmith and Fulham LSCB, please contact:
Jill Downey, LSCB and Commissioning Officer, Review and Quality Assurance Team, London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, Children’s Services Department, ground floor, Barclay House, Effie Road SW6 1EN.  
Tel: 020 8753 3358
Email: hflscb@lbhf.gov.uk