Agenda item

11.1  The Director of Children’s Social Care introduced the report. On 14th

  March 2022 City and Hackney Safeguarding Children  Partnership

(CHSCP) published a Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review about

the intimate body search of a fifteen year old black girl in a school in Hackney. The report highlighted significant concern about both school and police response to this child’s presentation in school whereby a criminal rather than safeguarding lens was applied. The report concluded that racism was a likely factor in how Child Q was treated and made 14 recommendations for change.

11.2  Since May 2022, a Strategic Response Group has met on a fortnightly basis to continue to oversee the Council’s response. This is chaired by the Chief Executive and attended by the Mayor, Deputy Mayor Bramble, Cllr Fajana Thomas and key senior officers. A fortnightly group is also in place to coordinate community and stakeholder engagement activity, chaired by the Head of Policy and Strategic Delivery.

11.3  The Council is not named in any of the 14 recommendations and the oversight of the recommendations is undertaken by the ICSC. The Council’s role focuses on:

·  Ensuring that partners implement the recommendations with rigour and openness that leads to substantive change and that progress and outcomes are communicated widely.

·  Understanding and responding to the impact of the Review on staff and communities.

·  Engaging with the wider issues that are being raised in response to the Review and ensuring that these are recorded, analysed and can inform wider policy responses.

·  Identifying the national policy issues and engaging with central government departments on key asks directly and through wider campaigns

11.4  The Director of Children’s Social Care highlighted the following:

·  Working with partners to support the implementation of recommendations

·  Working with the Metropolitan Police

·  A shared strategic action plan to restore trust and confidence 

·  Revising protocols and guidance on the role of police in schools

·  Working with schools

·  Sustained work on anti-racism

·  Sustained work on the voice of the child across the borough

·  Sustained work on the voice of the parent/carer across the borough

·  Hackney inclusion charter

·  Schools and staffing

·  Promoting anti-discriminatory practices with school governors

·  Public affairs and campaigns work

·  Lesson learnt from this incident and actions which have been prioritised for change

·  Actions and plans to engage, involve and reassure the community and other key stakeholders (e.g. parents, children etc) in response to concerns arising from the review

·  Mitigating ongoing community impacts and tensions

11.5  The Senior Professional Adviser highlighted the following:

·  The challenge of embedding the lessons learned. A number of these were linked to policy guidance;

·  The challenge relating to the themes emerging from the report on how to build a culture of safeguarding first across the  systems;

·  Frontline staff were working with young people on safeguarding;

·  Active anti-rascist practice

·  Working collaboratively with partners and engaging the children in the community;

11.6  The Chair stressed that the health system played a crucial role in

identifying harm and making safeguarding referrals. He referred to the Public Health trauma response for the community around the issues involved. He welcomed that IOPC investigation and the uplift from misconduct to gross misconduct. He asked for an update report in January 2023.

  Action: Director of Children’s Social Care

11.7  Deputy Mayor Bramble thanked officers for their work in this area.  She stressed that this was a safeguarding issue that occurred in a school setting  with a missed opportunity in the system with a negative impact on a young person’s health and wellbeing. She stressed that all had the opportunity to challenge rascism.