Barnardos Child Protection Conference Advocacy Service In the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Involved by Right Quarterly

Report September December 2011

Amanda Rodgers 20-01-12

Overview
CPC Advocacy in RBKC started on 13th September 2011, and we have taken our first quarter from this date. There were 43 referrals in the first quarter, of which 24 received an advocacy service.

Take up of advocacy services

Child / young person attends with support of advocate Child / young person represented by advocate 47% Child / young person attends without the support of advocate Child / young person does not attend and is not represented by advocate

9% 42%

2%

Of 19 referrals who did not take up the service, 3 children and young people told the advocate they were not interested in the service, 2 parents said the child or young person did not want a service, and it is not possible to tell whether or not children and young people were informed of the service in the remaining 14 cases. The advocacy service was taken up by children and young people ranging in ages from 7 to 16, although the majority of these were in the 7 12 year old age group. Out of those taking up the advocacy service, 3 children and young people attended their CPC, one of whom attended twice an initial and a review. In 2 cases, parents did not communicate permission before the CPC, and allowed the advocate to join the CPC and feedback to the child or young person after. In all cases except 2, the advocate visited the child or young person before the CPC to ascertain their views for the conference. The advocate communicated the views of children and young people using a number of different methods including, letters, powerpoint presentations, pictures and statements, as well as advocating for them throughout the meetings.

Feedback visits were offered to all those children and young people who took up advocacy. In two cases, visits were not carried out as the advocate received no response to efforts to arrange these. Both these arrangements were being made through the parents. New safeguarding issues were raised by a child with the advocate in one case, and the IbR safeguarding protocol was followed.

Statistics
The following tables show the breakdown of age, gender, ethnicity and disability in the take up of the CP advocacy service against the number of total referrals.

Age of children and young people

12 10 8 No. of children / young people 6 4 2 0 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Age in years Total children / young people referred Children / young people taking up service

Gender of children and young people

30 25 20 No. of children / 15 young people 10 5 0 Male Female Gender Total children / young people referred Children / young people taking up service

Ethnicity of children and young people

16 14 12 10 No. of children / 8 young people 6 4 2 0 Total children /young people referred Children / young people taking up service

Ethnicity

Disability in children and young people

45 40 35 30 No. of 25 children 20 / young people 15 10 5 0 None Behaviour Physical Learning based disability disability disability Nature of disability Total

Total children / young people referred Children / young people taking up service

It is shown clearly below that utilising advocacy has resulted in young peoples input into their Child Protection Plans. The advocate has recorded this and has fed back to children and young people how their wishes have been incorporated.

Input into CP Plan of those taking up advocacy

Input into plan No input into plan

CP Advocacy Issues
There are some complexities in recording statistics for this work. For example, we are often unable to ascertain reasons for refusals in recording them. The child or young persons input through advocacy into the CP Plan is an important outcome to assess, but we should be aware that it is not easy to do so simply. There may be some things raised by the young person which are taken up in the plan, and others not. A young person may request something, such as coming off plan, which does not take place, and yet this is acknowledged and addressed in the CP Plan in some other way. We have decided to assess that the young person has had an input into the plan, if CP planning has taken into account any of the wishes and views they have expressed. Perhaps detailed research, now or in the future, will tease out the complexities of this outcome in a way we cannot here. In terms of those children taking up the service agreeing to be involved with the NCB research, there is a low take up 8 out of 24 children. Again it is not possible to reflect the reasons for refusal. This may be due to the fact that this is a new service anyway, and the children are asked to take in a lot of information at the first visit. The additional information about research may be too overwhelming. It may also be because of the already high number of new people that are involved in that childs life, or a reluctance to share their experiences with an unknown person. Attendance of children at conferences has been low. This has been for a number of reasons. Anecdotally, it seems that many parents do not want their child to attend. Reasons given are split between wanting to prioritise their education (not missing school) and it being too distressing for the child to attend. In terms of the children, reasons have ranged from not wanting to miss school, feeling that it is adult business, thinking it will be boring or uncomfortable, and knowing that the advocate can represent them and feedback. It also appears that as the service is new, childrens attendance is not culturally embedded in Kensington and Chelsea. A number of social workers, in conversations with the advocate, have said that they do not think it would be appropriate for the child to attend as it would cause them emotional harm.

It is interesting to note from the table below that there has been a comparatively high take up of advocacy services with those going to Initial CPCs, as opposed to those who are having Review CPCs:

Comparative take up of advocacy service between Initial and Review CPCs

30 25 20 No. of children and young 15 people 10 5 0 Initial Review Type of CPC

Total children / young people Children / young people taking up service

In addition, those children and young people who took up advocacy services for the Initial CPCs, continued with the service for their reviews.