COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
Monday, October 12, 2009
QUESTION NO.17
QUESTION: Councillor W. Lavelle
To ask the Manager for details of the membership and workings of the South Dublin Children's Services Committee and to ask for an update on the implementation to date of the committee's work-plan?
REPLY:
The membership of the South Dublin Children’s Services Committee is:
Hugh Kane (HSE) Chairperson, Joe Horan (SDCC) Aileen O’Donoghue (CPLN), Jean Rafter (NEWB), Colette McLoughlin (HSE), Enda Halpin (HSE), Liz O’Donoghue (Probation), Gerry Delmar (Gardai) , John Moloney (DES), Mairin O’Sullivan (DES), Doreen Mac Gowan (HSE), Ruth Shortall (SDCC), Marie Griffin (Co.Dub. VEC), Francis Chance (Barnardos), Billy Coman (SDCC), Marian Quinn(CDI), Michelle McConnon (NCSE), Dave Willow (AMNCH), Adrian Charles (HSE), Anna Lee (Dodder Valley P’ship), Pat Conroy (Lucena) Ann Marie Sheehan (NEPS), Margaret Maher (Archways)
Maria Donohoe is the South Dublin Children Services Co-Ordinator.
South Dublin Children’s Services Committee, established in May 2007, meets monthly. Its committee members are drawn from a number of statutory and non-statutory organisations working in the South Dublin area. It currently has 6 sub-groups, (Education and Development, Safe and Secure, Child Welfare, Child Protection and Family Support, Communications Data and Planning, Interagency Casework and Participation) which also meet monthly to progress various elements of the Committee’s workplan.
The Committee activity from 2008 – present:
Organisations involved: 17
Committee membership 23
Subgroup membership 65
No of organisations represented 25
No of Committee meetings 2008 to date 18
No of sub-group meetings 2008 to date 64
*No of NCSIG meetings attended at OMCYA 11
No of other meetings at OMCYA 9
Presentations to groups 11
Conferences/Seminars attended 6
* County Manager Joe Horan represents the SDCCC on the National Children’s Strategy Implementation Board
Much progress has been made particularly over the past few months as the group moves into implementation phase. Projects such as the Alternative Response Model (ARM), the Critical Incident Protocol, the Well Connected pilot study, the Quality of Life Mapping project, the Safe and Secure project with CDI in Tallaght West, the development of a protocol on sharing information on case work has led to increased consultation levels with Senior Managers, Frontline staff and the public.
Some Project Examples are:
1. The Alternative Response Mode and Critical Incident protocol
The Alternative Response Model (ARM) recognises that families in need may have a wide range of service requirements. ARM facilitates greater participation by a range of statutory and non-statutory agencies in supporting families who are considered low-risk. The approach allow families to step up to increased services and monitoring, or step down to less intervention, as their needs change (determined by ongoing assessment).
The implementation of the ARM Project is being led by the HSE and the CSC, and involves a management committee, whose membership is drawn from a number of agencies such as the Gardai, SDCC, National Educational Welfare Board, Barnardos, Daughters of Charity, PAKT, Department of Education and Science, National Educational Psychological Services, Lucena Clinic, Schools, Addiction Services and Youth Services. The pilot phase of the programme is being carried out with the Children and Families Social work and Child care Department, Dublin South West.
The Children’s Acts Advisory Board has indicated its support for this project by making funding available to support an evaluation of the project by the National University of Galway (NUIG) and a study visit to Derry on the 22nd October by the ARM Management team to meet with health care workers engaged in a similar project for the past 6 years. It will also fund the development and delivery of a training programme on the Information sharing protocol by a Coordinator.
The fund is lodged with Barnardos who will administer it on behalf of the CSC.
Critical Incident Protocol
A critical incident is defined as any incident that overwhelms a local community’s capacity to support children[1] and their carers affected by events such as murder, suicide, extremely violent assault, witnessing or experiencing an incident involving firearms, sudden death in a public/community setting, serious accidents e.g. fires, drowning, road traffic accidents.
The CSC has developed a protocol for dealing with such incidents with the implementation of a coordinated multi-agency approach.
There now are 2 Critical Incident Management Teams (CMIT) working in HSE areas 4 and 5 and they have dealt with 3 cases to date. The development of the Critical Incident protocol involved consultation with over 100 frontline staff in two sessions held in the Council Chamber, South Dublin County Council.
2. Data sharing and the Quality of life mapping projects
A Data sharing protocol has been devised and circulated for sign off to organisational members of the SDCSC and to the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, (OMCYA). The Communications, Data and Planning sub-group has also developed a paper on Data Harvesting for the OMCYA which could have very positive outcomes for the collection of data and the reduction of costs for all agencies.
CSO data, in mapped format, and specific to South Dublin, is now available to all members of the CSC and its subgroup members as the result of collaboration in the work of the Quality of Life mapping Team, a project team based at South Dublin County Council.
The Early Childhood Care and Education scheme with the processing of applications by the County Childcare Committee (a member of the CSC) has facilitated an extra dimension to the Quality of Life Mapping project. Working with the Quality ofLife Team the County Childcare Committee will provide data on providers of the free Pre-school year service. This data will be of use to parents seeking a place for their child.
Approximately 1/3 of the time of the Quality of Life mapping project team is spent on working on the collection of data for the CSC and meeting with staff from other organisations such as the Departments of Social and Family Affairs, Education and Science and the Health Atlas staff at the HSE.
3. Participation and the Well Connected Toolkit
Over the past number of years public sector organisations and other community organisations have been urged to engage to a far greater extent with their local communities, service users, families and children in the planning and decision making process of local policy and plans.
As part of its work the South Dublin Children’s Services Committee identified a self assessment tool which can enable organisations develop an approach to facilitating community involvement. This tool, know as the Well Connected Toolkit was piloted and evaluated in conjunction with the CPLN Partnership and the Children and Families Social work and Child care Department, Dublin South West, with the aid of funding from Combat Poverty. The research and pilot phase of the Well Connected Toolkit has been completed
A seminar has been organised for the 8th October for Senior Managers. The purpose of the seminar is to introduce the Well Connected toolkit as a method of assessing and improving participation of children, their families and relevant community organisations in the design, planning, delivery and monitoring of services and enable implementation of the process in member organisations. Facilitators to progress this roll out also will be drawn from member organisations.
4. Directory of Services for frontline staff and Sharing information on Children and Families
Directory
One of the actions of the Interagency sub-group is to produce a Directory of Services for frontline staff. It is intended that every frontline worker, who works with children and families in the South Dublin County Council area, will have access to accurate information on the services they may need to access for the clients they meet on a daily basis. Collection of information for Directory is nearing completion. The next step is collation, checking and publication.
Sharing information on Children and Families
A key element to interagency working is the sharing of information between agencies in a way that is lawful, appropriate and respects the rights of the individuals involved. It is recognised that sharing information is essential to effectively addressing the needs of children and families. While practitioners recognise the importance of information sharing in some situations they feel constrained from sharing information by uncertainty about when they can do so lawfully, especially in early intervention and preventive work where information sharing decisions may be less clear cut than in child protection.
The Interagency sub group has developed a document Sharing information about Children & Families; Guidelines for Practitioners and Managers. The document has been discussed by a number of frontline staff and after the final consultation will be sent to the Data Protection Officer for examination in October. This protocol will then be made available nationally.