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Cheshire East Safeguarding Children’s Partnership

Keeping Children Safe in Cheshire East

Signs of Safety in Cheshire East

Cheshire East is adopting Signs of Safety as our way of working with families because this will support us to achieve the type of service that children, young people, parents and carers have told us they want. Best practice is child-focused, solution-orientated, and respectful and inclusive of families, and this is what we want to achieve through adopting Signs of Safety.

Where Signs of Safety has been adopted by other local authorities it has been welcomed by families. Families have reported that (often for the first time) they are clear about what services expect from them. Families particularly like that their views and strengths are acknowledged as well as their weaknesses understood.

Signs of Safety is now widely recognised internationally as the leading approach to child protection casework. It provides a clear framework for how to do the work within children’s services; how to build relationships with families and work effectively with them to achieve strong outcomes for children and young people.

Signs of Safety will change the way we work so that we can involve families fully in decision making. It will affect:

  • how we carry out assessments and how we create plans
  • the types of questions we ask
  • how we conduct meetings
  • the language we use and how we explain what’s happening

You will be asked to talk about:

  • What's working well
  • What we're worried about
  • How worried you are on a scale of 0-10
  • What needs to happen

Our Signs of Safety Strategy (PDF, 1.99MB) sets out what using Signs of Safety involves, what we want to achieve through adopting Signs of Safety, and how we will do this in Cheshire East.  There is a short summary (PDF, 704KB) of our Strategy, what we want to achieve for children and young people, and what role everyone has in making this a success which you can print off and display.  If you would like this document in an accessible version then here is the short summary (PDF, 253KB) accessible version . Our journey to Signs of Safety Practice (PDF, 240KB) shows how we will change to become a Signs of Safety organisation. 

Multi Agency Supervision

Group Supervision sessions (PDF, 198KB) have been established across Cheshire East Children's Services and these sessions are open to all agencies to attend so that everyone can benefit from sharing multi-agency perspectives.

Guidance on Using Signs of Safety

Go to the dedicated page of resources and Guidance on how to use Signs of Safety within early help and prevention, child in need and child protection, and services for cared for children and young people and care leavers.

Signs of Safety Training

The three different options for Signs of Safety training, dates and how to book are included below.

2 Day Training

Who is it aimed at? Practitioners who work directly with families, and their line managers

What does it cover? What Signs of Safety is, how to use it in practice, and tools for working together with children, young people and families. The two day covers similar content to the half day but goes into more detail on using the practice and includes practising applying the approach to live cases. It includes the tools you will need to complete assessments and plans both within Early Help and Children's Social Care

Dates 2019-20:

This training runs from 9.30am - 4.30pm each day

  • Tuesday 14 and Wednesday 15 January 2020 – Wilmslow
  • Tuesday 4 and Wednesday 5 February 2020 – Wilmslow
  • Thursday 5 and Friday 6 March 2020 - Crewe

Half Day Training - New dates added for 2019

Who is it aimed at? This course is aimed at people who work in departments that support families but don't work with families directly, for example commissioning, business support and elected members.

What does it cover? What Signs of Safety is, how to use it in practice, and tools for working together with children, young people and families. The half day course is a concise version of the 2 day course.

Dates:

  • 18 February 2020, 9.30am - 1pm, Westfields

To book your place on the 2 day or half day training: please complete this booking form https://form.cheshireeast.gov.uk/service/LSCB_training_booking_2019_20

Any queries please contact LSCBTrainingAdministrator@cheshireeast.gov.uk 

E-learning

Who is it aimed at? Anyone who needs to know about Signs of Safety and what it involves.

What does it cover? An introduction to Signs of Safety; what it is, what the approach involves, and the key tools.

To access the e-learning please click the links below:

For partners including schools:

http://cheshireeast.learningpool.com/totara/dashboard/index.php?id=5

For Cheshire East Council staff:

http://cheshireeast.learningpool.com/course/view.php?id=388

 

What Children, Young People, Parents and Carers think about our support

Families are the experts on what helps and supports them, which is why we carried out our Family Survey in May and June.  We wanted to know how well we are supporting the families we work with so that we can improve how we work in the future.

Most families were pleased with the support and help they were getting; families felt listened to, understood why services were involved, and what they were trying to achieve.

What children, young people, parents and carers thought of our services, and what we will do to continue to improve, is summarised in our in one page summary (PDF, 235KB). If you would like more detail about the survey and the results, you can see the full Family Survey Report (PDF, 574KB).

Want to find out more?

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Keeping Children Safe in Cheshire East