Social care hubs found to speed up interventions

Partnerships between social workers, police and health workers could speed up interventions for children, an evaluation of a multi-agency safeguarding hubs has found.

A report into the launch of a hub in Devon found that under the new system barriers to information sharing were cut, referrals were more likely to lead to an intervention and cases were dealt with more swiftly.

National Foundation for Educational Research (NfER), which evaluated the hub, concludes in its report that “there was a widespread consensus among those interviewed that the Mash model was transferable to other local authority areas”.

Devon’s Mash was set up following the Laming review in 2008, which criticised poor communication and information sharing across police, social care and health professions in tackling child protection.

An audit in Devon shortly after this review found this was a particular problem in the county. Agencies were reluctant to share information. Another barrier was police and probation services covering a far wider area, including Cornwall.

Over the past year, the hub has been introduced across Devon. Features include co-locating police officers and researchers with social workers, education services staff and NHS professionals to examine cases and ensure information is shared.

This has coincided with an overhaul across Devon County Council’s children’s services to focus on early intervention and targeting support at families where there is a risk child protection concerns could escalate.

The report found that co-location was particularly important. “This creates a common goal and breaks down barriers. It was widely agreed that a virtual team would not be as effective,” the report found.

Among the results was an increase in the number of cases being referred to social workers where a child was at risk. Under the previous system, 44 per cent of cases met the council’s threshold for a referral. This increased to 48 per cent through the Mash system.

One example given was of a child who was absent from school. Through Mash, social workers had immediate access to police and school concerns about the child’s mother. It emerged that the mother had been fabricating illnesses for the child, who was being given medication unnecessarily.

Among concerns raised in the NfER report was a lack of a central IT system for all those involved to share confidential information. This is something the Devon Mash is looking into.

Devon County Council is also considering adopting the same model across adult social care.

In an interview with CYP Now last month, the Association of Chief Police Officers’ lead on children and young people Ian McPherson revealed that similar hubs are set to appear across London.

The latest Youth Justice Board business plan said one of the organisation’s priorities for the coming year will be to support the expansion of the hubs in the capital.