Message from Yvette Stanley, Director of the Merton Council Children, Schools and Families Department

Submitted by Stephen on 29 March, 2009 - 01:08

Yvette Stanley has asked us to pass on the following message, concerning the publication of Lord Laming’s report following the Baby P case.

Dear Colleague,

Lord Laming's 'The Protection of Children in England – a Progress Report', was published yesterday. While the media has focussed on a very few aspects, it is a wide-ranging report which recognises the importance of integrated services in the continuing delivery of the Every Child Matters agenda. The report reinforces that this is especially so in our work to protect children.

Over the coming weeks we will all be reflecting on and discussing the report within the CSF Directorate, the council and within our Children's Trust and Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) Partnerships. We all have something to contribute to these discussions, as Lord Laming has clearly reinforced the point that safeguarding children is everyone's business. Colleagues in child protection services and across the wider children's workforce need to continue to work together to ensure our partnership working to safeguard children is the best it possibly can be.

Lord Laming calls on Government to set explicit priorities for the protection of children and young people and reflect these in the targets for each of the key frontline services, and ensure sufficient resources are in place to deliver these priorities. He goes on to recommend that Government establishes a powerful National Safeguarding Delivery Unit to inject greater energy and drive into the implementation of change and to support local improvement.

He also recommends:

  • A major change in the training and professional development of children's social workers, including a greater focus on induction, practical skills and specialist training.
  • Department of Health prioritise recruiting and training more health visitors to support very young children.
  • The staffing, training and status of police child protection teams should be addressed by the Home Office.
  • Ministry of Justice take action to reduce the length of time taken to complete court processes in care cases and review the increases in court fees made last year.

There is, I believe, much to be welcomed in the report, but clearly we need time together to reflect on the detail. As ever we will need to ensure that we build on the very strong local partnerships and the good progress we have made locally in our Every Child Matters journey. I would commend you all to read the full report and am sure you will want to engage actively in helping shape our local response.

Thank you all for your contributions towards protecting and safeguarding Merton's children and young people, and for your energy and commitment to delivering improved ECM outcomes to ensure that together we make Merton a great place to grow up.

Please download the full report from the ECM website:

http://publications.everychildmatters.gov.uk/eOrderingDownload/HC-330.pdf