Area Coordination Management Meeting

Denton, Droylsden and Audenshaw

Time: 10.00
Date: Friday 25th January 2008
Venue: Guide Lane Clinic, Audenshaw

Present:

• Bob Shaw - Area Co-ordinator, TMBC
• John Rogers Primary School Rep – Greenside Primary
• Malcolm Knight - Inclusive Services
• Margaret Morrison - Education Welfare
• Debbie Duddridge - Assessment & Family Support, Children’s Social Care
• Lyn Jenkinson - Secondary School Rep – Droylsden Girls
• Lynn Barber - Children’s Centres and Extended Schools
• Phil Massey Primary School Rep – St Stephen’s Audenshaw
• Shannon Parker - Children’s Centre Co-ordinator – Fairfield Children’s Centre
• Sarah Kew - Neighbourhood Renewal Project Manager, TMBC
• John Smith - Locality Lead of Health Improvement, PCT
• Lorna Grennan - PCT

Note taker: Jo Cole

Item 1: Welcome

Bob welcomed everyone to the meeting and introductions were made around the table.

He explained that two presentations were on the agenda today; Fairfield Childen’s Centre Pilot by Shannon Parker and Denton South Neighbourhood Renewal Programme by Sarah Kew and John Smith.

Shannon Parker introduced herself as the Children’s Centre Co-ordinator for the new Fairfield Children’s Centre which officially opened on Friday 18th January 2008.
Sarah Kew and John Smith will arrive at approx 10.30am for their presentation.

Item 2: Apologies

• Diane King - Youth Service
• Tracey Rowe - Children’s Social Care
• Paul Dodd - Youth Offending Team
• Chris Harris - Connexions
• Sue Lennie - Secondary School rep – St Thomas More.

Item 3: Notes of last meeting and matters arising from 9th November

The minutes from 9th November were accepted as a true and accurate record, with the following matters arising: -

Item 3 – Notes of the last meeting and matters arising

• Action Plan 9.1 – Area Profile of Need and Services
  Bob reported that the Area Profile of Need and Services will be published in February. Following this, the area co-ordinators will begin work on a 2nd edition.

Item 5 – Area Action Plan Update

• Action Plan 5.3 – Models of Integrated Working
  Bob revisited the discussion which took place at the last meeting regarding the BSF funding and staff accommodation. He reported that the DCSF Children’s Plan does suggest that funding will be made available through the BSF programme for staff accommodation to aid integrated working.
  Bob requested agreement from everyone in relation to the conclusion noted in the minutes. Confirmation was received that this statement reflected the decision taken at the last meeting that the BEST model for integration was the preferred option.
  
• Action Plan 2.1 & 2.2 – Integrated Processes
  Bob responded to the suggestion made by Malcolm Knight at the last meeting regarding a prompt for password renewal. He confirmed that although this was not yet available, passwords can be reissued within 60 seconds of a request.
  
• Action Plan 4.4 – Change for Children Events
  Bob gave an update on the progress with the Denton, Droylsden and Audenshaw Change for Children Events – which we are now calling neighbourhood network events. A meeting has been scheduled between himself, Lynn Barber, Shannon Parker and Helen Molloy to plan the events, which are scheduled to take place in April and June.

Item 4: Fairfield Children’s Centre Pilot

 Presentation from Shannon Parker

Shannon explained that she has been invited to give this presentation to talk specifically about the BOAT project.

Introduction

• The BOAT (Better Outcomes Achieved Together) Project is a joint initiative between the health service and children’s centres. It is being led by CSIP (Care Service Improvement Partnership) and Together for Children.
• Fairfield Children’s Centre has been selected to run the pilot and, in accordance with the criteria, a project must be chosen that will improve services for children and families.

Background

• The process began Geraldine Smith and Pat McKelvey being invited to attend the launch of the BOAT project. Following this, a proposal was developed to outline the focus of the project. The decision was taken to focus on teenage pregnancy.
• There are 8 BOAT Project Planning sessions, spanning 10 months. These sessions offer the opportunity to discuss how services can be improved, identify the key partners, and reflect on what is being achieved.
• The final session will consist of a presentation, focusing on evidence of impact and outcomes.

Purpose

• Improving services for teenage mothers and their partners – thus reducing the rate of teenage pregnancies.
• Identifying who may work with pregnant teenagers / teenage parents and co-ordinating service delivery to improve packages of support.
• Bringing together key partners and co-ordinating services to use the resources already available and promote common processes.
• Providing and developing local services to engage with pregnant teenagers and other vulnerable groups.

Progress

• Shannon has attended the initial session and has reported back to steering group, which is led by Geraldine Smith.
• Shannon will report back to the steering group each time she has attended a project planning session, giving an update on progress made.
• The Baby Clinic will move from Albion Drive to Fairfield Children’s Centre within the next few months. Issues regarding data storage and risk assessment will soon be resolved.
• From 5th March, the baby clinic will operate every Wednesday afternoon and the Antenatal group will operate every Thursday.
• There will a Baby Club running alongside the Baby Clinic, which will offer general support and advice.
• Other groups are currently being considered including breastfeeding groups, post-natal groups and parenting groups.
• It is hoped that there will soon be a Connexions worker identified to link in to the centre.
• The times of the Baby Clinic will move forward from 1.30pm to 1.00pm. This extra half hour will be used at the end of the day as a debriefing / development session. Anyone working with teenagers in the Droylsden area are welcome to attend to discuss issues, concerns, support needed for particular families, etc.
• The project will be delivered jointly with Greenside Children’s Centre. Services will be offered between Greenside and Fairfield – this will ensure services are accessible to the whole Droylsden.

Shannon concluded her presentation by inviting questions and comments.

• Lynn asked how many mums are envisaged will attend the Baby Clinic. Shannon confirmed that currently there are over 20.
• John reported that he is very concerned about the rate of teenage pregnancies in the area because a high number are ex-pupils of Greenside. Greenside are currently involved in a project with Littlemoss High School for Boys and Droylsden School for Girls to identify a health worker to focus on that geographical area.
• Margaret queried whether this will link in with the tots and teens groups currently in operation. Shannon confirmed that they will certainly learn from the good practice of the tots and teens groups.
• John queried whether there was a budget for this project and, if so, how sustainable it will be. Shannon confirmed that there is no budget allocated for this project. It is a matter of realigning services and using resources already in place.
• It was suggested that school nurses could play a key role in the delivery of services at the centre. Lorna reported that progression is being made with that although, at the moment, each school does not have an allocated school nurse. As a member of the SRE group, Malcolm confirmed that two appointments have just been made.

Shannon can be contacted on 0161 371 9289 with any further questions or comments.

Bob invited Shannon to return in 12 months time to give an update on the BOAT project.

Item 5: Denton South Neighbourhood Renewal Programme

Presentation from Sarah Kew, TMBC Neighbourhood Renewal Project Manager and John Smith, PCT Locality Lead for Health Improvement.

Sarah began the presentation with information regarding neighbourhood renewal in the Haughton Green area. She highlighted the following points: -

• Renewal work has been slow and steady since Haughton Green began receiving funding in 1997. Since October 2005, more significant funding has been received in the form of the SSCF (Safer Stronger Communities).
• The introduction of the SSCF provided an opportunity to form a partnership with residents and key partners including education, crime, housing, the PCT all working together.
• The Renewal Programme consists of 6 Thematic Task Groups. The C&YP Task Group is chaired by Bob Shaw. As chair, he has assisted in the development of an action plan which focuses on developing the way key agencies work together.
• Capital spend has supported sports courts at Manor Green Primary School and St John Fisher C of E Primary School , community venues on the Yew Tree estate and Haughton Green playing fields and a new one is being built this year, and a teen shelter on Haughton Green playing fields.
• Haughton Green falls into the lowest 3% nationally on the Indices of Deprivation. The aim is to involve local people and shape services to improve this.
• There has been very effective consultation surrounding the new community venue, with local residents setting the design brief.
• A Code of Conduct has been introduced following incidents of challenging behaviour.
• The Partnership Model has been amended following feedback from local residents.

John then gave a presentation on the Parent and Toddler Award Scheme and the Action Plan that has recently been established.

• To gauge interest and support in the scheme, a conference / workshop day was organised which took place on 19th July 2007.
• The conference / workshop day was attended by representatives of the 6 parent and toddlers groups operating in the Denton South area.
• To workshops were split into two sessions. The 1st session focused on celebrating success and the 2nd one involved the groups setting imaginary goals and targets and then considering the work involved to reach them.
• By the end of the conference perceptions had changed and it was felt that everyone had a clearer understanding of the role of the children’s centres and the early years workers and what was expected of one another.
• A draft proposal for the award scheme was shown at the conference and the representatives gave feedback and made amendments.
• In order to ensure the Every Child Matters agenda can be related to by the parent and toddler groups, an action plan has been written which reflects the 5 outcomes.
• Local people are now being trained and employed to promote and raise awareness of the award scheme and action plan.
• John is currently putting together a small steering group which will consist of representatives from each of the parent and toddler groups to look at taking the action plan to the next stage.

Sarah and John also gave a brief verbal presentation on a few of the activities currently on offer to engage young people.

• There is currently a rock climbing project being explored which will be led by the police. This project will hope to engage young people who have an ABC (Acceptable Behaviour Contract) to encourage self-esteem, community involvement, respect, trust and engagement.
• Stemming from the Surviving Teenagers Course, a theatre group is being developed. The group will have the opportunity to act out real life confrontational situations which may happen in their household, and consider how best to deal with them.

Sarah and John concluded their presentation by inviting questions and comments.

Lorna

• How will we know what programmes are on offer and will these programmes be delivered to the hard to reach group?
  
  John explained that once a model has been piloted, the next stage will be to roll this out and develop a process for targeting the hard to reach group.

John

• How do we make it sustainable? Past groups in Tameside that have had to cease because of funding issues.
  
  John replied by explaining that this is a huge journey and will take a long time to regenerate communities. The key is partnership and using resources and budgets already in place. John is meeting with his MP to address the issue of funding.

Bob thanked Sarah and John for attending the meeting. Anyone wishing to contact them further can do so as follows:

• John Smith – 07974 768860
• Sarah Kew – 0161 342 2310

Item 6: Area Action Plan

Item 6.1 - Updates

Action Plan No 2: Integrated Processes

Aligning Common Assessments and Referrals: Proposal

Bob explained that this proposal suggests that if a common assessment has been undertaken correctly, requests of service of other agencies should be able to be done without the need for additional paperwork and referral forms. He acknowledged that this won’t happen ‘over night’ and it will not replace referral systems entirely.

A recommendation will be made to the CYPSP and the CLT in March based on the results of a consultation.

Bob drew attention to the consultation proforma on the back of the proposal and requested that everyone take this back to their management / staff meetings to gauge support from all levels of staff.

General support was received by all members of the meeting, and views were expressed.

Lynn B
Common assessments are taking place verbally a lot of the time. The people that you would make a referral to are involved by that stage anyway. There is no need for additional paperwork.

Lorna
The PCT have recently rolled out their new information system – Lorenzo. The PCT has to monitor capacity and demand and this is based on referrals. It would need a lot of training and co-ordination to have a streamlined system where all partners used the same information system. At the moment within the PCT, a referral is just the beginning of the process. After that internal transfers are used.

Margaret
This aligned referral system will probably develop in time as people get more familiar with common processes and assessment.

Lynn J
The Common Assessment is daunting for practitioners and families and there is always the chance that consent will not be given.

John
The purpose of the Common Assessment is as an assessment tool and not a referral. It took 4 years of consultation to get to this point. The issue of capacity was never considered; the capacity of somebody completing the Common Assessment and the capacity of the person engaging with the family.

Service Information Directory: Prototype

Following consultation, the Service Information Directory (SID) has gone through considerable revision. The new draft version will be available online in the next 10 days for further consultation.

When it is available online, Bob will email out the link to members of the ACMT. He advised that there will be a consultation proforma on the webpage for completion.
For anyone not familiar with SID, Bob explained that it is a key information tool when undertaking the common processes particularly at Level 1 and 2 but also at post-common process stage. Bob acknowledged that hard copy local information sharing is also important.

Common Processes: Management Information Update

The JASPER statistics up to 31st December 2007 were circulated at the meeting.
This will be a standing item at future meetings, with the latest statistics being produced. These statistics will also appear on the agenda at CLT meetings.

This report provides information on the use of "Common Processes" as recorded on JASPER at a given point in time and since the system went live during December 2006. It provides an overall count of specific activity during the period, e.g. total number of Common Assessments completed. The report does not give a summary of the total activity associated with "Common Processes" as not all practitioners have access to the system to use this information at this time.

Note: It is important to note that reporting on activity in each of the 4 areas requires each child's record to have an LLPG (land and property gazetteer) validated address. Not all child records have a validated address which means there is potential for a discrepancy in the overall activity to that in the area statistics.

In total there were 1692 instances of information to share with action being taken on 134 of them. 37 Common Assessments have been undertaken and 3 Child and Family meetings have been convened. 609 Lead Professionals have been assigned.

Concerns were expressed from managers that there are a high number of Child & Family meetings taking place that are obviously not being recorded on JASPER (when comparing the number of meetings convened with the number of instances where action has been taken).

It was agreed that there needs to be clarity as to who is supposed to record that a Child & Family meeting has been convened.

Bob asked that people look again at the flowchart, which states that an official Child & Family meeting should only be convened / recorded at the time of or after a common assessment. Other meetings may take place before this but this should be recorded as action taken.

There was also concern expressed about the low number of people accessing and recording information on JASPER as many early issues re: training and CRB checks have been resolved. Bob reported that the JASPER system has the ability to ‘name and shame’ officers who are not logging on / not had training etc. At the moment, the data is just split in to service area.

Margaret
Time-focused work has been developed within the Education Welfare Service. The paperwork that has been designed prompts officers to use JASPER at every stage.

Debbie
This has got to become a common language that must be embedded in teams so people are aware of JASPER and its purpose and functions.

John
The JAR inspectors are going to question the statistics as they are clearly not a true reflection. A survey of the primary school network in Droylsden has shown that no primary schools are logging on JASPER due to issues with CRB checks and forgotten passwords.

Information can be pulled from JASPER detailing when people logged on and what information they inputted. The JAR inspectors will want to look at this information. If we conducted a survey of each key agency/partner, the results would be interesting.
John suggested that he would speak to Jim Taylor about mentioning JASPER at the next Headteachers Business Meeting on 30th January.

Phil
Suspects it’s the same with Audenshaw primary schools as John as just described. He has been on the training but hasn’t received a password. Bob advised Phil of the name of the key contact person (andrea.reed@tameside.gov.uk) to speak to within the Council regarding a password and technical issues relating to JASPER.

Lorna
School nurses are not accessing JASPER as they have not had enhanced CRB checks.

Conclusion: Managers to ensure all staff are logging on and accessing JASPER. This message must be conveyed across all services and partners to all members of staff. 

Action items:	Person responsible:	Deadline:
John to speak to Jim Taylor re: JASPER at the Headteachers Business Meeting	John Rogers	29 Jan 2008

Action Plan No 8: Monitoring Progress to Integration

Audit Commission Interim Headlines
The Audit Commission designed an online questionnaire for frontline practitioners. The link to this was distributed by email in November & December 2007.
Bob reported that 25% of frontline staff took part in the survey and he gave results for some of the key headlines.

Bob explained that focus groups are currently taking place. The results and a full analysis of the survey will be published next month.

John queried whether there was a breakdown of the groups who took part in the survey. Bob confirmed that this information will be included in the published results.

Action Plan No 3.5: Staff Directory

Bob explained that the staff directory is in its final version and will be published on JASPER at the end of this month.

Malcolm commended the staff directory as a very useful tool for officers who can not always access a computer or the internet.

Item 7: Area Action Plan Monitoring Update

This was included with the papers for information purposes.

Item 8: Calendar of meetings for the year and venue for the next meeting

Bob reminded everyone that the future meetings for 2008 are as follows: -

• 7th March 2008
• 9th May 2008
• 18th July 2008
• 19th September 2008
• 21st November 2008

Bob suggested that the meeting should take place at the same venue each time to alleviate confusion and location issues.

This proposal was agreed and it was decided that all future meetings should be held at Greenside Children’s Centre.

Action items:	Person responsible:	Deadline:
Jo to book future dates at Greenside.	Jo Cole	ASAP

 

Item 9: Any Other Business

None

THE MEETING CLOSED AT 12.00

Bob expressed his thanks to Lorna for accommodating the meeting.

GLOSSARY

• ABC Acceptable Behaviour Contract
• ACMT Area Co-ordination Management Team
• APIR (profile) Assessment, Planning, Implement and Review
• BOAT Better Outcomes Achieved Together
• BSF Building Schools for the Future
• CAF Common Assessment Framework
• CAMHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
• CMM Capability Maturity Model
• CLT Children’s Leadership Team
• CRB Criminal Record Bureau
• CSIP Care Service Improvement Partnership
• CWDC Children’s Workforce Development Council
• CYP Children and Young People
• CYPSP Children and Young People Strategic Partnership
• DDA Denton, Droylsden and Audenshaw
• DCSF Department Children, Schools and Families
• ECM Every Child Matters
• EIG Early Intervention Group
• ISA Information Sharing and Assessment
• ISSP Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme
• JAR Joint Area Review
• JASPER Joint Assessment System for Prevention and Early Referral
• LA Local Authority
• OBA Outcome based accountability
• PCT Primary Care Trust
• SENCO Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator
• SID Service Information Directory
• SSCF Safer Stronger Communities Fund
• T3SC Tameside Third Sector Coalition
• TMBC Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council
• TOR Terms of Reference
• YOF Youth Opportunity Fund
• YOT Youth Offending Team