This free resource provides a collection of some of the latest information in relation to consultations, research, statutory guidance, government policy, tools and resources for practitioners and families, with links to related sources.

We are looking for Consultants! 

tri.x are seeking Social Workers who have knowledge of the Scottish and Welsh legislation to assist us to deliver our successful social care products/services into Scotland and Wales.
We’d be happy to work with you on an employed or self-employed basis and keen to get the work started as quickly as possible.

If you are interested in having an informal chat on our requirements please contact ellen.west@trixonline.co.uk

Statutory Guidance 

Dept of Education - Keeping Children Safe In Education Statutory Guidance - Updated 6th June 2023

The DfE has updated statutory guidance on keeping children safe in education, for 2023. This is for information only, it does not come in to force until 1 September 2023, and will replace the 2022 version of the guidance. View here . For a school's perspective also see a blog from Andrew Hall view here.

Home Office - Controlling or Coercive Behaviour:

Statutory Guidance Framework

 Information on controlling or coercive behaviour, to assist in identifying, evidencing, charging, prosecuting and convicting the offence. This statutory guidance is issued under section 77 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 (the 2015 Act). Any persons or agency investigating offences in relation to controlling or coercive behaviour under section 76 of the 2015 Act must have regard to it. First published 5 April 2023. View here

Home Office - Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme

Last updated April 5th 2023 to remove the disclaimer saying the guidance has no legal effect, following the commencement of Section 77 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. Section 77 of the Domestic Abuse Act places the guidance for the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme on a statutory footing by imposing a duty on the Home Secretary to issue guidance on the DVDS to chief officers of police. The DA Act does not change the legal basis under which the police can make a disclosure of information, but it does impose a duty on the police to have regard to the guidance when using the DVDS. This in effect means that any police force seeking to deviate from the guidance would need to justify that course of action with good reason. Read more here

Government Press Release - 11 May 2023

Home Office - Intervention Schemes across England and Wales to protect victims of domestic abuse and stalking

Police forces across England and Wales will weed out domestic abuse and stalking behaviour with a raft of new intervention measures supported by government. 50 projects will be rolled out over the next 2 years, supporting initiatives to stop abusers from repeatedly targeting victims and terrorising vulnerable people. View here

UK Parliament - Government Statement

The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care was published a year ago (23 May 2022) setting out plans to reset children’s social care in England so it delivers for all the children and families it supports. This statement updates the House on progress made in implementing the recommendations set out in that Review. Consultations closed on our proposals for reform, our draft Children’s Social Care National Framework and Data Dashboard, and our plan for addressing the high use of agency social workers in the workforce. A Government Response will be published in September. View here

Guidance  

Home Office - Forced Marriage Resource Pack

The resource pack has been designed to highlight examples of best practice and to help ensure that effective support is available to victims of forced marriage. Find out more here

Practice Guidance

Papyrus - Building Suicide-Safer Schools and Colleges: A guide for teachers and staff

PAPYRUS has developed a guide to suicide prevention, intervention and postvention in schools and colleges, aimed specifically at teachers as well as wider school or college staff. It aims to equip teachers with the skills and knowledge necessary to support students who may be having suicidal thoughts. Download the Guide from the PAPYRUS website, view here

Open Consultation

Department for Education - 21st June 2023 - Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023 - Changes to Statutory Guidance 

Closes 6th September 2023 / Opened 21 June 2023

The Government have launched the consultation that sets out expectations for the system that provides help, support and protection for children and their families. It applies at every level from senior leaders to those in direct practice with families, and across all agencies and organisations that come into contact with children.

There are changes throughout the document. The finalised guidance should be published by the end of the year.

There are also two open consultation events as webinars on the 29th June 2023 from 10:00 to 11:00am and the 4^th September from 3 to 4pm to hear about and give your views on the update

For further information and to take part in the online survey, click here  

Department for Education - 21st June 2023 - Information sharing advice for safeguarding practitioners

A revision to non-statutory advice to support practitioners in the duties and decisions they take to share information. The government are gathering a range of views to help ensure that the information sharing advice provides more clarity, is easily understood, and instils confidence to share information appropriately amongst practitioners.

The consultation closes at 11:59pm on 6th September 2023. To give your views, please click here

Home Office - Mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse

Seeking views on how a legal duty to report child sexual abuse would affect children, organisations, workplaces and volunteers. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse recommended that the government make it a legal requirement for certain people to report child sexual abuse when: they’re told about it by a child or perpetrator; they witness it happening; they observe recognised indicators of child sexual abuse. This call for evidence is particularly aimed at people who: work with children; work in law enforcement; support people affected by child sexual abuse. Give your views online or in writing. Consultation opened 22 May 2023; Consultation closes 14 August 2023. More information can be found here.

Home Office - Exchange of Sexual Relations for Accommodation ('sex for rent'): call for evidence 

‘Sex for rent’ is an arrangement where someone offers or provides accommodation for free or at a discount in exchange for sexual relations with the person using the accommodation. This public consultation invites views on the issue of sex for rent, the effectiveness of existing legislation and whether there is a case for a bespoke criminal offence. The call for evidence, which will last for 10 weeks, seeks to gain the views of those who have been directly engaged in a ‘sex for rent’ arrangement, whether they were deceived, coerced, or compelled into it. The consultation opened 21st April and closes on 30th June 2023. More information can be found here.

Reports 

Crest - Who Commits Domestic Abuse? The lessons of our research for preventing serious violence

The Serious Violence Duty came into effect at the end of January. Each local area can develop its own definition of ‘serious violence’, as long as it’s based on evidence. Crest’s work, helping local agencies prepare for and implement the duty, suggests domestic abuse should be considered in local area strategic needs assessments, as it is sometimes an indicator of further serious violence. For more information click here.

Unseen - Modern Slavery Exploitation Helpline Annual Assessment

Unseen’s Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline had its busiest year ever in 2022, new figures show, find more information here. The findings are from the Helpline Annual Assessment, one of the most detailed reports on the nature of modern slavery in the UK. 

Research

Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel -Safeguarding children with disabilities in residential settings

Blog

Gov.uk - Children with Complex Needs in Children's Homes

'Blog by Yvette Stanley and Alex Jones. 'In the autumn, we will publish a research project on children with complex needs who live in children’s homes. This is a 2-stage project. The first stage, which we completed earlier this year, involved running a survey of all local authorities and children’s homes providers. We asked them what they associate with the term ‘complex needs’ and how often they have issues in finding homes for, or accepting referrals for, children with these needs. We were pleased that we had responses from 807 children’s homes and 78 local authorities.' Read here.

News

Law Commission - Law Commission invited to review legislation on social care for disabled children 

Government Guidance 

Gov/UK: Assessment Framework for Local Authorities Assurance 

This is the draft guidance of the Assessment Framework on how CQC intend to assess how well local authorities are performing against their duties under Part one of the Care Act. View here

Articles

Guardian - Care Homes in England using Revenge Evictions to stifle complaints from Residents 

Care home residents are given notice to quit when complaints are made. The figures show that one in 70 care home residents receive notice to quit last year and research from Kings College London show that many eviction came from complaints. However there are few legal safeguards to protect residents and it is felt recording of these figures is underreported. View here

Maternal Mental Health Alliance - Mums in UK missing out on specialist mental health support due to insecure funding 

This article looks at specialist perinatal mental health community services in the UK and how suicide remains the leading cause of direct maternal death. Specialists services are still uneven across the UK. View here

Research in Practice - The Government have announced that implementation of the Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS) is to be delayed until 'beyond the life of this parliament.'

The Government’s phrasing, ‘beyond the life of this Parliament’, means that no decision about whether or not to implement the LPS will now take place until after the next election, which is likely to occur in the second half of 2024. There will inevitably be some time between the formation of a new government so implementation before 2026, if it occurs at all, now seems unlikely. View here

Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) -  Press Release: Time to act to save social care in England

The roadmap proposes how care and support could be transformed in England, focusing on 10 key areas for change: from improving housing options for those of us who are older or disabled, tackling the chronic social care staffing issues including pay and conditions, to supporting carers and making care more affordable. View here

Research

Equality and Human Rights Commission: Inquiry challenging Adult Social Care Decisions in England and Wales 

This Inquiry report looks at social care decisions in 2021 and what practical steps can be taken to address these issues. View here

Publication

Local Government Association: Making the Case for Investing in Homelessness Prevention 

The LGA and Local Partnerships worked with Leeds and Cornwall Councils during 2022 to build a case for investment in homelessness prevention. The work included starting to develop a clearer understanding of what approaches have worked in homelessness prevention, how much they cost, what costs may have been avoided, and some of the benefits accrued by their implementation. View here

Guidance

National Framework and Operational Guidance for Autism Assessment Services

This Guidance is intended for Integrated Care Boards to deliver improved outcomes in all age autism assessments pathways. This includes the ten principles for autism assessment services and guidance about applying these principles throughout the commissioning process. To view, click here

Resource 

SCIE and Shared Lives Plus - Resources for Social Workers - Referring to Shared Lives

This is a resource developed with SCIE and Shared Lives Plus for social workers referring to Shared Lives to help build knowledge and skills in this area and to increase the use of Shared Lives referrals in Adult Social Care. Click here to read.

Webinar Recording 

SCIE - Executive Dysfunction

This webinar and slides looks at executive dysfunction from a clinical, practitioner, personal and legal perspective looking at how to support with MCA assessments when the person seems to understand the decision but is not able to carry out that decision making process. 

Click here to view

Article/Blogs

Gov.uk Carers Week and our role in building support

This blog is written by Lyn Romeo, Chief Social Worker for Adults, following a visit to the Carers Centre in Sefton which is the largest in England. In her view the work there is "fantastic and dovetails well with our roles as social workers....Just like the wonderful colleagues working there, we recognise the role relatives, friends and neighbours have in helping people to remain with their families and communities. View here

Summary and Analysis

NHS Confederation - Hewitt Review - What you need to know

The Hewitt review proposes greater autonomy to enable ICSs to better prevent ill health and improve NHS productivity and care. If implemented it could offer a step change in enabling ICSs to deliver their four main statutory purposes. Read more here

Did you know tri.x is a part of the OneTouch Health Group? For more information, visit onetouchhealth.net or contact hello@onetouchhealth.net