RCPCH Child Protection Service Delivery Standards Audit National Report 2023

Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health

Abstract

Foreword by Professor Andrew Rowland

It is a pleasure to have been asked to write the foreword to this important new report from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. I want to start by saying a huge thank you. Thank you to all of you who have so diligently, and comprehensively,
submitted data to this audit.

It is abundantly clear from the submissions that were received, that teams throughout the UK who are working on delivering child protection health services deserve high praise for their work.

The importance of protecting our workforce by providing colleagues with adequate (and where possible much more than adequate) support cannot be underestimated.

I am struck by the fact that a complete and centralised list of all services which conduct child protection medical assessments across
the UK does not currently exist. It is strategically necessary for there to be proper identification and recording of which services around the UK are involved in this important work. The fact that such a list does not exist is clearly something that needs to be addressed centrally.

The audit results have shone a worrying light on the fact that fewer than half of services who contributed data to this project (48%, 58/122), provide all clinicians involved in safeguarding work with access to formal emotional and/or psychological support. Given the emotional toll of safeguarding work and the risk of burnout faced
by the safeguarding workforce, this is a worrying finding which must be addressed by services throughout the UK.

Providing support to children undergoing a child protection medical assessment and providing the best possible environment in which those assessments can to take place, with the appropriate protection of both the child and the clinician, requires there to be consistent access to chaperones who are trained, regulated healthcare professionals.

Despite this, only 47% (55/118) of responding services reported that they have enough qualified health professionals available to act as
a chaperone. This potentially compromises the quality of the assessment, and may expose a child, and of course the professional, to increased risk.

The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel (CSPRP): Child Protection in England: National review into the murders of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson, states that across the country,
we need leaders who "know what it takes to deliver an excellent child protection response and can create the organisational context in which this can flourish. This includes prioritising child protection, ensuring the resources necessary to deliver the work are in place, and working tirelessly to remove barriers – for example around IT systems – that get in the way”.

Ensuring the resources necessary to deliver this vital safeguarding work is absolutely what this audit hopes to support services with.
Looking forward, as units and regions throughout the UK consider their individual service’s ideas, suggestions, and plans for service development I consider there could be much to be gained for
children and young people with sub-regional, regional, or national approaches to the format and delivery of child protection services. In particular, the development of children’s advocacy centres with
co-located multidisciplinary teams, forming expert child protection units and responding to child protection concerns on-site in a seamless and coordinated way, could very well be one way that the findings of this audit could be taken forward. Such advocacy centres could have a role in primary prevention of abuse with upstream approaches; secondary prevention, to identify the earliest signs that health and wellbeing is being undermined and to ensure intervention is available to minimise progression into more serious problems; and tertiary prevention, working with people with established needs to ensure the earliest path to a sustainable recovery and to reduce the social, economic and health losses often resulting from the adversity
and harm.

I believe by engaging with other communities - be they in our own countries or around the world - and by fully involving children and young people in decisions that are made about them, to become decisions that are made with them, we will better protect children and young people now and in the future. To do that successfully, we have to engage with children in an environment and in a way that they consider to be suitable to talk to us.

A great injustice is done to children, young people and young adults when society fails to listen to their views; fails to facilitate their true participation, through co-design and coproduction models, in decision-making processes; and fails to value their contributions towards shaping a better society for everyone in the future.

For those reasons, I hope that this report is a springboard to units striving forward with renewed enthusiasm to make sure that wherever possible, local service developments implemented as a result of this national audit, are co-designed and co-produced with the children, families, and other professionals who will use those services
in the future. I also hope that the success of this project, in particular demonstrated by the enthusiastic engagement with it by colleagues
throughout the UK, and the quality of the data analysis, presentation, and recommendations, will result in further projects looking at auditing the delivery of services to children who are in the care of the State and to children who are seeking asylum and refugees in the UK.
Such a coordinated programme of work is an important contribution to building child safe communities in which children and young
people can grow up happily, healthily, and safe from harm.

I hope this report is useful to you and your services and once again sincere thanks to the team who have led on this work and, of course, to you for your participation in it.

Citation

Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. (2024). RCPCH Child Protection Service Delivery Standards Audit National Report 2023. London, UK: Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health

• Report Type: Technical Report
• Online Publication Date: Jan 30, 2024
• Publication Date: Jan 30, 2024
• Deposit Date: Feb 12, 2024
• Pages: 32
• Keywords: Child Protection; Audit; Safeguarding
• Publisher URL: www.rcpch.ac.uk/CPaudit