July 2024

Previous news items are available by month of publication from the news tab.

Salford Safeguarding Children Partnership circulate monthly E-Bulletins; if you would like to be included on the distribution list, please email sscp@salford.gov.uk.

GM Safeguarding Children policies – new website!

The multi-agency safeguarding children policies hosted by TriX have moved to a new URL. If you had the old link saved as a favourite on your desktop you will need to delete it and update to the new website. Here is the new link:

Welcome to the Greater Manchester Safeguarding Children...

The procedures are updated twice a year in June and December. Recent updates in June 2024 include:

• A new chapter on Adolescent to Parent Violence and Abuse
• Updates to relevant chapters to include revised guidance from Working Together 2023

You can sign up for updates to the procedures by clicking on the Register for Updates box on the Home page of the website.

Exploitation - Children and Adults Training Needs

We need your feedback to help plan our exploitation training offer in Salford. We want to hear from practitioners, volunteers, designated safeguarding leads, managers, and strategic leads in your organisation.

The purpose of this training needs survey is to support the implementation of the Salford's Joint Exploitation Strategy in line with our vision for all children, young people, and adults in Salford to feel safe and protected from the risk of exploitation. The information provided will allow the Joint Exploitation Subgroup to analyse what is currently available to the community and workforce (including volunteers) and identify any gaps so that everyone who comes into contact with children, young people and adults is able to recognise and know how to respond when they are at risk of or experiencing exploitation.

The training needs survey will take approximately 10 minutes to complete. We will need responses by 29th July 2024

Parents 4 Positive Change (P4PC) New Web Page

P4PC are a group of parents and carers from in and around Salford. They have all had involvement with Children's Services, for lots of different reasons and want to work together with the Safeguarding Partnership, to make positive changes across all services.

The group has been very active recently supporting training for social workers on building positive relationships and sharing their experiences at staff events, collaborating with the Salford Safeguarding Children Partnership including the the Local Authority, and all its partner agencies, to influence change in services and practice.

If you would like to find our more about the group or know a parent or carer who would like to join, visit the new P4PC webpage. You can also find a contact form on the SSCP Parents and Carers homepage.

Voice of the Child and Learning from Reviews

The NSPCC have published a summary of learning for improved practice around the voice of the child.

The learning from these reviews highlights that professionals should seek to hear and facilitate the voice of the child by:

• understanding the different ways children communicate
• including the child’s voice in assessments and arrangements
• gaining appropriate skills and knowledge to help understand and reflect on the voice of the child
• building trusted relationships with children.

The SSCP works with a wide range of partners and is committed to promoting engagement and participation from a wide range of professionals and those that live in Salford. We believe that children, young people, families, carers, and local communities in Salford need to be listened to so that we can understand what matters and can make a positive difference to people living in Salford. Visit the Listening Hub web page to find out more.

Alcohol Awareness Week

It’s Alcohol Awareness Week 2024, running from 1 to 7 July. Raise awareness of the harm caused by alcohol and to learn more about the role that alcohol plays in our society.

When we think of the harm caused by alcohol, we might think of things like town centre binge-drinking or violence, or some serious health conditions, like liver disease or alcohol dependency, which tend to impact the very heaviest drinkers among us. But, as important as these are, that’s only part of the story.

The truth is that alcohol harm affects every one of us living in the UK with the effects on individuals rippling out to our families, friends, communities and broader society.

To learn more visit: Alcohol Awareness Week and Understanding alcohol harm | Alcohol Change UK

Mental Health and Wellbeing

Competition for young people during summer holidays

Win prizes every day with Kooth's Summer campaign #GoSomewhereGood 🌞 for young people aged 10+. Click here to join in https://explore.kooth.com/go-somewhere-good/

The long summer holiday means thousands of young people will have time on their hands. Many will spend more time scrolling social media. For a lot of young people, this will be a welcome distraction and a way to stay in touch with friends. For some, however, more scrolling could lead to loneliness, anxiety or a loss of self esteem. Others will find themselves on sites or pages that are less helpful - even outright dangerous.

As a safe space dedicated to supporting young people’s mental health, Kooth.com is on a mission to help young people find their way to better mental health. “Go Somewhere Good” will inspire them with ideas of good places and things to do over the holiday that don’t cost anything, are likely to boost their mental wellbeing, while encouraging young people to spend less time on their phone. https://explore.kooth.com/go-somewhere-good/

Free KoothTalks webinar for Parents and Carers - Parenting pressures during the summer holidays : Monday 22nd July - 1pm or Thursday 25th July - 6pm

Click here to book https://share.hsforms.com/1_Zm3DxuLSAKTuUEwMFNUegc5dpg

Information hub for families and carers - Talking to your child about complex mental health and wellbeing issues is rarely easy. That’s why the www.kooth.com clinical team put together these resources for parents. We hope you find them useful. Click here to access https://explore.kooth.com/families/

 

Free mental health and counselling website for parents and carers Qwell.io is here for you every day of the week.

In Salford, the Think CHILD practice guidance toolkit and recorded briefing has been developed to support professionals to work collaboratively with parents via a conversational guide, to understand the impact of mental health on their children. This is increasingly important in the context of following the pandemic and current local and global matters which can amplify stress and mental health difficulties.

Child Sexual Abuse: Call to Action

Supporting parents and carers after child sexual abuse

Research shows that support from parents and carers can be one of the most significant factors. in limiting the longer-term impacts of child sexual abuse

So professionals must understand how concerns of child sexual abuse can also affect the wider family.

The supporting parents and carers guide by the CSA Centre is designed to help explain why parents need a supportive professional response, what this looks like in practice, and contains a helpful list of resources and sources of support you can share with the parents you are working with download the guide for free.

The SSCP in response to feedback from Salford professionals has created a CSA repository of training, resources and information. We are calling for your action to ensure all practitioners, managers and leaders access and share this resource Child Sexual Abuse | Salford Safeguarding Children Partnership across your workforce and with children, young people, parents/carers and community members. Visit the Child Sexual Abuse page for more training and information from basic to specialist levels including but not limited to Spotting the signs and indicators of child sexual abuse Identifying and responding to CSA for DSLs Supporting parents/carers when their child may have been sexually abused Responding to harmful sexual behaviour in education settings Speaking to children about sexual abuse Using the Child Sexual Abuse Response Pathway in practice Understanding medical examinations for child sexual abuse concerns For continued improvement and provision of resources please complete the short survey with your feedback and recommendations – this will support us to evidence impact and build a confident and skilled workforce.

Online Gaming and Gambling Harm

The SSCP will have a programme of learning available from including the YGAM Spotlight General Awareness Briefing Monday 23 September 2024 - 11am - 11.45am

However there are a number of sessions also available targeted at different agencies and groups. For further information and booking see flyer and visit Safeguarding Children Partnerships - Ygam

Prevention Around Social Media and Suicide

PASS Prevention Around Social Media and Suicide deliver a range of workshops and training including "60 minute webinars offer shorter training presentations where we share our knowledge and summarised key points of information on Safe and Responsible use of Social Media in the Aftermath of a Suicide. Those who attend will come away equipped with new knowledge and recommendations and guidance for practice on how to mitigate against harmful effects and promote positive effects of social media use following a suicide."

4th July 2024: 1.30-2.30pm

20th September 2024: 1.30-2.30pm

Think Family: Safeguarding Children and Adults

We have developed some new Safeguarding children and adults in Salford | Partners in Salfordhttps://www.partnersinsalford.org/safeguarding-children-and-adults-in-salford/ which we are using to host links and resources for both children’s and adults services on Think Family and Professional Curiosity. Please note, this is still being developed and further information will be added.

We have also developed reflective practice guidance to support professionals to deliver effective, strength-based partnerships in the context of safeguarding children, families, and communities in Salford.

Creating Strength-based partnerships with families in Salford ( SSCP June 2024)

Self Care

Aside support, supervision and services available to us in our organisations to support you and your colleagues, you should also prioritise taking better care of yourself and pay attention to what you need.

The following information and resources have been identified to support the wellbeing of our people and teams in the workplace including how we look after ourselves.

• Self care resources | Partners in Salford
• Stress - Every Mind Matters - NHS (www.nhs.uk)
• Managing stress and building resilience - tips - Mind
• Greater Manchester Resilience Hub - health and care staff wellbeing service
• Greater Manchester Wellbeing Toolkit | Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership
• Togetherall
• Six Degrees Social Enterprise – Supporting Your Mental Health (six-degrees.org.uk)
• Meditation and Sleep Made Simple - Headspace
• Trauma Responsive Greater Manchester (trgm.co.uk)

In case you missed it...

Information and learning on a variety of subject matters related to safeguarding children and adults, can also be accessed through  E-learning courses, 7 minute briefings, learning from Practice Reviews  the SSCP You Tube Channel.

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All enquiries concerning the welfare or safety of a child or requests for information MUST BE SENT DIRECTLY to the Bridge Partnership.

The Bridge Partnership can be contacted on 0161 603 4500. All referrals and requests for support must be completed on the online referral form. The Bridge Partnership is available Monday to Friday 8.30am - 4.30pm. If you need to speak to someone outside these times, please contact the Emergency Duty Team (EDT) on 0161 794 8888. If a child is in immediate danger of being harmed or is home alone, call the police on 999.

If you are worried about an adult - Report abuse or neglect by telephone on: 0161 206 0604. For further information visit https://www.salford.gov.uk/adult-safeguarding