Camden Safeguarding Children Partnership

The Camden Safeguarding Children Partnership Vision

‘All children and young people in Camden are safe, thriving and heard.’

Understanding the lived experience of the child by making sure children have an active, continuous and meaningful voice is central to our partnership approach. The views and participation of children and young people, will continue to shape our multi-agency practice developments.

CSCP Mission Statement

‘Working in partnership to keep all children and young people safe, thriving and heard within a community where safeguarding is a shared responsibility.’

Learning from, and strengthening our frontline practice will continue to be at the forefront of our working arrangements. We aim to continually improve how we work together to safeguard children and young people, in order to enable them to develop to all their capabilities.

CSCP Shared Values

• Be compassionate, trauma informed and anti-racist when supporting children and families who have faced multiple disadvantages.
• Develop a relational approach by making meaningful connections to uphold safeguarding as a joint responsibility, fostering mutual challenge and support among partners
• Collaborate in partnership to engage in reflection, learning, and continuous improvement.
• Be curious and courageous to make a positive difference to the lives of children, through valuing and involving our diverse community

What are local safeguarding partnerships?

In December 2023, the Government published statutory guidance ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023’ (WT23), which sets out what is expected of organisations, individually and jointly, to safeguard and promote the welfare of children . This reflects legislative changes introduced through the Children and Social Work Act 2017 which calls for Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCB) to be replaced by Safeguarding Partnerships.

Lead and Delegated Safeguarding Partners

The Camden Safeguarding Children Partnership is led by four statutory safeguarding partners who hold equal responsibility for safeguarding children in the area. The statutory safeguarding partners are Camden Council, NHS North Central London Integrated Care Board (ICB), Central North Basic Command Unit of the London Metropolitan Police Service and Camden Learning (delegated safeguarding partner).

Safeguarding Practice Reviews have replaced Serious Case Reviews (SCRs). The National Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel holds the key responsibility for how the system learns from serious child safeguarding incidents. The local authority holds the responsibility to make the notification of a serious safeguarding incident. The Camden Safeguarding Partners will take a lead local in learning reviews and work closely with the National Panel.

Child death reviews 

The responsibility for ensuring child death reviews are carried out is held by ‘child death review partners’, who, are defined in WT23 as the local authority for that area and the ICB. In Camden, the North Central London Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP) is responsible for reviewing the deaths of all under 18 residents in the North Central London (NCL) boroughs.

Our transition from CSCB to Camden Safeguarding Children Partnership (CSCP)

Our transition journey from an LSCB to the new local safeguarding partnership model, takes into account that we are moving forward from a position of outstanding performance;

‘Camden’s Local Safeguarding Children’s Board is outstanding. It has well-established and highly effective arrangements in place to hold partner agencies to account for safeguarding children. An exceptional commitment to continuously improve frontline practice is both evident and demonstrable’.

(Ofsted Review of the effectiveness of the Camden LSCB, November 2017)

What do we do?

• Ensure agencies work effectively together to safeguard Camden children, by making certain that the statutory functions of the CSCP are quality checked through audits and effective performance management.
• Address the challenges and risks posed by the changing face of safeguarding.
• Ensure preventative and early help services are provided in a joined-up and effective manner.
• Continue to develop a culture of good professional judgement as reflected in our Learning and Improvement framework.
• Ensure effective training programmes across agencies are in place to keep children and young people safe in Camden.
• Drive and challenge effective information sharing systems across all agencies to ensure good communication to keep children and young people safe.

How will we safeguard and promote the welfare of all children?

• Through developing policies and procedures, by proactively identifying and responding to new and emerging safeguarding issues.
• Through communicating to persons and bodies, the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, raising their awareness of how this can best be done and encouraging them to do so.
• Through monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of what is done by the safeguarding partners and relevant agencies, individually and collectively, and advising them on ways to improve.
• Through coordinating response to unexpected child deaths and serious incidents and undertake local Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews, when required.
• Through collecting and analysing information about child deaths, undertaking safeguarding practice reviews of serious incidents and advising on lessons to be learned.
• Through reflecting, and making recommendations in the planning of services for children in Camden.

Camden’s Geography

The geographical footprint for the Camden Safeguarding Children Partnership will cover the London Borough of Camden local authority area. The CSCP is committed to enabling a culture where deprivation is recognised, discussed and reflected in decision-making. This is one of the core values of the partnership; involve, value and respond to our diverse local community.