Practice reviews

The SSCP is committed to improving outcomes for children and ensuring that multi-agency safeguarding practice is robust and effective.

Our ethos of ‘how can we do it better, together’ will help us to develop our workforce into a learning, not a blame culture, and we will use the evidence available to us from practice reviews to ensure that we recognise and act when things are not going well, but also celebrate good practice.

When a child dies or suffers serious harm, and abuse or neglect is suspected, the SSCP will undertake a practice review. The purpose of a review is to identify learning and improve multi-agency safeguarding practice in Salford.

The purpose of the Practice Review Sub Group is to have oversight of all practice reviews undertaken on behalf of the safeguarding partnership. This includes coordinating outcomes of reviews, understanding the areas of practice that need to be strengthened and ensuring any learning identified directly impacts frontline practice and improves outcomes for children.  The role of the group is influenced by statutory guidance as outlined in Working Together 2018.

For more information on the work of the practice review subgroup please see the national case review process information (September 2022).

Published Reviews are available to download below and will remain on the SSCP website for 12 months. Where a 7 minute briefing has been developed this will remain on the website to support Partnership learning and improvement.

Referral to the practice review sub group

A referral must be made to the SSCP in the event of a child death or a child suffering serious harm where abuse and/ or neglect are suspected (as per Working Together 2018).

A referral may also be made to the SSCP for consideration of a practice review to establish whether there are lessons to be learned about the way in which local professionals and organisations work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of the children.

Referrals can also be made to the SSCP to highlight a seriously good outcome for a child or their family, where multi-agency safeguarding practice has been particularly effective.

Please seek guidance from your Practice Review Sub Group representative before making a referral.

You can make a referral to the SSCP using the relevant referral form from the toolkit below.  The Salford review activities and timescales flowchart shows the process followed for each referral into the SSCP.

During the process of reviewing a case, agencies will be asked to provide a summary of their involvement and a chronology of significant events.  Templates of these documents are also available for download from the toolkit below.