The Preston Social held its first event at the new location of the Forum on Winckley Street on Tuesday, with the topic focused around debating the contentious idea of responsibilities and rights surrounding young people online.

Attendees heard from Duncan Hodgson, who develops applications for young people through his work with Plings and rubothered.co.uk, which he designed, developed and has maintained since its origin. The site was recently shortlisted for Best Website of the Radio Wave Culture & Lifestyle Awards.

Duncan summed up his mentality by saying “if your children saw a swimming pool, you wouldn’t build a wall around it, you’d teach them to swim”. He emphasised the importance of consulting with and educating children about the web from a young age – making them feel part of it rather than setting up filters that blocked lots of sites that could be beneficial to them (Twitter, YouTube etc).

The second speaker of the evening was Sarah Goodall, who founded the Athena Programme in 2007 and has 21 years’ experience as a volunteer, social worker, probation officer and youth offending team manager.

Sarah is an expert in safeguarding young people, and her talk encompassed various strategies and methods that she has found to be successful in her own work across charities and local authorities.

After the speaking sessions had finished the floor was open for debate, and some tweets have been collected from the evening below.

It’s crazy how the speed of the Internet makes it so much more dangerous to everyone who just gives their info out #prestonsocial – MissAJBurton

People are not anonymous online, even if you think you are you’re not! Perhaps we need better analysis when things go wrong? #prestonsocial – phpcodemonkey

#prestonsocial how do we encourage developers to think about providing safeguard for children? – goalchasers

There’s a mindset and culture (fear?) of social media in many parents. Agree? #prestonsocial – tomstables

#prestonsocial feedback. Venue:good location,odd layout,slightly pricey but v nice food & drinks. @she_sider ate thishttp://t.co/T8mK0JEK – microwavedrama

Taken from blogpreston.co.uk/preston-social/

Improvements in safeguarding have been rapid and widespread in recent years, and nearly all schools now give an appropriately high priority to getting their safeguarding procedures right. In her commentary on the findings set out in Ofsted’s 2009/10 Annual Report, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector wrote:

‘Safeguarding…is an issue addressed not only with increasing sureness by those responsible for keeping children and learners safe, but one felt keenly by those most vulnerable to harm and neglect.’

Safeguarding remains high on Ofsted’s agenda and will continue to do so. The purpose of this good practice report is to identify the features of exceptionally good safeguarding.

The report ‘Safeguarding in schools: best practice’ distils the features of exceptionally good practice in safeguarding in schools where safeguarding was judged to be outstanding between September 2009 and July 2010.

Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Miriam Rosen said:

“There can be no issue of greater importance to parents and carers, or to schools, than the safety of their children.

“The good practice described in this report is replicable, with a sensible awareness of the local context, in every school. I hope schools can use this report as a practical working document to help them understand the features of good practice and to make improvements where required.”

In outstanding schools, pupils’ safeguarding is central to all that the schools do. These schools often go above and beyond the requirements which they do not see as a burden. Every member of the school community is involved in some way.

Key Features

Most of the features of outstanding practice are found, to a greater or lesser extent, in all effective schools with outstanding safeguarding arrangements. It is a wide-ranging list and includes:

• high-quality leadership and management that makes safeguarding a priority across all aspects of a school’s work
• stringent vetting procedures in place for staff and other adults
  
• rigorous safeguarding policies and procedures in place, written in plain English, compliant with statutory requirements and updated regularly; in particular, clear and coherent child protection policies
  
• child protection arrangements that are accessible to everyone, so that pupils and families, as well as adults in the school, know who they can talk to if they are worried
  
• excellent communication systems with up-to-date information that can be accessed and shared by those who need it
  
• a high priority given to training in safeguarding, generally going beyond basic requirements, extending expertise widely and building internal capacity
  
• robust arrangements for site security, understood and applied by staff and pupils
  
• a curriculum that is flexible, relevant and engages pupils’ interest; that is used to promote safeguarding, not least through teaching pupils how to stay safe, how to protect themselves from harm and how to take responsibility for their own and others’ safety
  
• courteous and responsible behaviour by the pupils, enabling everyone to feel secure and well-protected
  
• well thought out and workable day-to-day arrangements to protect and promote pupils’ health and safety
  
• rigorous monitoring of absence, with timely and appropriate follow-up, to ensure that pupils attend regularly
• risk assessment taken seriously and used to good effect in promoting safety

Weaknesses in safeguarding are usually related to failings in leadership, management and governance. In the small number of schools judged inadequate for issues solely related to safeguarding, the breaches were serious. Inspectors look at safeguarding early on in an inspection so that simple errors can be corrected before the end of the inspection.

As well as promoting best practice, the report sets out clearly how Ofsted inspects a school’s safeguarding procedures. The key word for both inspectors and schools is ‘reasonable’. The report aims to reassure schools that Ofsted makes judgements about safeguarding that are both fair and reasonable.

The report ‘Safeguarding in schools: best practice’ can be found on the Ofsted website at www.ofsted.gov.uk

Organised by the Local Government Group (LG Group), Association of Directors of Social Services (ADASS) and Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), this event is entitled ‘Tough times, good decisions’ and is vital to councillors, directors, senior officers, policymakers and service managers with responsibilities for education, children’s services and adult care in the statutory, voluntary and private sectors.

It is also an important opportunity for partners working in health, schools and related fields as well as MPs with an interest in social care, children’s services and education.

The programme will give many opportunities to hear keynote ministerial addresses and take part in plenary sessions. There will be a variety of participatory breakouts and networking sessions.

Regularly attended by more than 1,000 delegates, this conference is widely recognised as the most important annual event of its kind. This is your opportunity to hear the very latest thinking on key policy and improvement agendas, put your questions and comments to those involved in shaping them at the highest level, and network with your peers on the issues that matter to you locally.

Come along – share, engage, network and participate with your peers and leave informed, stimulated and motivated to develop and improve your offer to your communities.

For more information please go to www.ncasc.local.gov.uk

This strong theme is seen across policy areas in Graham Allen MP’s review of early intervention, the Munro review of child protection: ‘A child-centred system’, the public health reforms, and the SEN green paper and the schools white paper, as  it makes good sense for families and communities -  and for public finance.  However, we know that not all early intervention and prevention works, and getting it right is one of the most significant challenges that local authorities and partner agencies face.

This conference will explore the latest evidence about effective intervention and prevention in the early years, and for adolescents.  It will draw together learning about proven programmes and innovation in practice, looking at effective targeting and outreach work and at building resilience in families and children.  It features keynote sessions by two of the leading experts in this field, with panel discussions and workshops making the link between evidence and practice.

It may not be as simple as ‘getting it right first time’, but the outcome of this conference will be to enable investment of time and public money in the right support at the right time to really improve outcomes for children and young people .

This conference is a must for practitioners, senior and middle managers and policy makers from local authorities and agencies in all sectors working with families and children … from parents pre-birth to adolescents.

Sarah Goodall Facilitating Workshop 2

‘Safeguarding: Early Intervention with Care & Creativity’

An interactive workshop session will explore the crucial issue of early intervention in safeguarding children and young people.  Sarah will be facilitating a process for participants to reflect and connect with the true meaning of early intervention as evidenced based practice to increased positive outcomes for children and young people. Through the use of creativity and innovative techniques she will bring the experience of the journeys for practitioners and children/families of early intervention and child protection as two sides of the same coin to safeguarding practice. Her workshop will focus on taking a new and fresh approach to safeguarding in the wake of Eileen Munro’s review of Child Protection.

Other key note speakers include:

• Professor Jane Barlow – Professor of Public Health in the Early Years at the University of Warwick
• Professor Stephen Scott – Consultant Child Psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital
• Minna Daum – over 20 years experience as a Systemic Psychotherapist
• Dez Holmes – Director of Research in Practice
• Tony Newman – was Principal Research Officer with Barnardos since 1990
• Professor David Shemmings – Professor of Social Work at the University of Kent

To find out more information about the conference please go to www.baspcan.org.uk/events-national.php

To book your place on the conference on the 9th September 2011 please go to www.baspcan.org.uk/booking.php?event=10

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

This year, despite the continued economic problems they received an impressive number of nominations for the awards. The independent panel of judges found the process challenging due to the standard and quality of business leaders and entrepreneurs in the region. The judges have assessed all of these nominations and following their considerations Sarah has been selected as a finalist for her category.

The North West is a vibrant, proactive region for the IoD, and has around 2500 members, with the Regional Office located in the very heart of Manchester City Centre, in City Tower, Piccadilly Plaza. The Region is made up of 5 branches, with each one represented by a dedicated and enthusiastic committee who are assisted and supported by the Regional IoD staff.

At the helm of IoD North West, is Regional Chairman Tony Attard OBE, and Regional Director Darrell Matthews. With the support of their IoD team and North West Committees, the North West region has grown from strength to strength over recent years and is an influential lobbying group, as well as a successful means to meet other Directors.

The North West led the way and has been the catalyst for many new initiatives. These include the Director of the Year Awards, which celebrate the achievements of the best and most dynamic directors in the region. The Regional Conference and Women’s events are also fantastic networking events, for peer-to-peer contact.

The Director and Young Director winners from across the North West will be announced at the Black Tie Gala Dinner on Thursday 6th October at the Hilton Hotel Manchester. The evening will be hosted by Radio 5 Live’s Nicky Campbell.

Lancashire Young Director

Richard Freye, Service Care Solutions

Sarah Goodall, Athena Programme

Majid Hussain, Accrol Papers Ltd

Lancashire Director

Mark Dale MACUK Neuroscience

Sky Jones, Out of the City

Ian Perry, Harvest Housing Group

For further details contact Andrea in the North West Regional Office on 0161 247 7634 or visit www.iod.com/home/local-network/north-west/

The Foundation is a unique blended mix of face-to-face and online coaching, networking and advice designed specifically to deliver growth, bespoke support which will meet the individual needs of businesses in every sector at every life stage.

Over 1,700 businesses in the Region over the past two year have benefitted from coaching support delivered by Winning Pitch plc. The North West High Growth Programme has been widely recognised as having had a profound impact on the performance of companies with a desire to achieve sustainable growth.

Tailored support to entrepreneurs, delivered by successful entrepreneurs, has helped companies to achieve breakthrough results and overcome many of the challenges growth companies face – assistance has spanned the spectrum of strategic planning and operational issues, covering strategy, sales and marketing effectiveness, financial engineering and funding, through to organisational effectiveness and personal development.

For more information and their website:

www.highgrowthfoundation.co.uk/Home.html

Please take a look at the video High Growth Foundation recently produced for us as an introductory tool for The Athena Programme:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGFgDdD9jBg

When you think of the abuse of vulnerable adults what comes to mind? For many people it’s the deliberate mistreatment of elderly or “at risk” individuals. Most of us think vulnerable adult abuse happens when a vulnerable adult or older person is hurt, bullied, mistreated, exploited or neglected. The abuse can come from anyone who has contact with the person, including practitioners, professionals, private carers or even family or friends.

“The government has ordered a review of the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) failure to investigate a whistleblower’s account of the systematic abuse that left vulnerable people to face months of physical and verbal abuse at a Bristol care home. Paul Burstow, the social care minister, has asked the regulator to investigate similar services to the Winterbourne View unit, in Hambrook, near Bristol, where a culture of abuse prevailed despite tip-offs from staff and repeated inspections – the role of the CQC, which is the sector regulator, and the local authority.”

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jun/01/panorama-care-home-abuse-investigation-government-review

With recent events including the Panorama programme on the Winterbourne View Unit, the report on the care of older people in NHS hospitals, Southern Cross and the CQC the abuse and neglect of vulnerable adults has, at last, become a topic of major concern.

These investigations have rightly shocked and appalled us, as they give a rare glimpse into what happens “behind closed doors” in some places where vulnerable adults are supposed to be safe and cared for. Many of us were horrified at the conduct of some of the staff who were responsible for caring for the most defenceless in our society.

But how does a care establishment become like Winterbourne View, where a culture has developed that acquiesces in poor standards of care, and where the pecking order of staff determines whether or not anyone feels able to speak out against the abuse that they see?

How does a staff team operate when there is only contempt for the people who are in effect their customers?

Institutional abuse needs certain conditions in which to become established practice.  It is sometimes easy to forget that not all cases of abuse are intentional. Abuse can happen because the people looking after a vulnerable adult don’t have the appropriate training or knowledge. For example, a friend or family member may, while trying to help a vulnerable adult, bruise them because they haven’t been shown how to help them up from a chair.  Or a member of staff may be unaware that Alzheimer’s disease can often lead to dehydration because sufferers simply forget to drink enough water each day, and should have their fluid intake monitored.

Vulnerable adults may need more time to walk from one room to another, or may have fixed ideas about when they want to eat and what food they would like. Anyone who has contact with a vulnerable adult may unintentionally cause distress by not allowing them enough time to complete a task or by not finding out about their likes and dislikes.

“A huge increase in drug prescriptions supports fears that thousands of people in nursing and residential homes are being sedated for no medical reason.  A report claims as many as 88,000 pensioners are being kept under a ‘chemical cosh’ ., . . .  and stripped of their dignity simply to make life easier for their carers.  Drawn up by MP Paul Burstow, the report cites research suggesting that 10 per cent of residents in care homes have psychotic symptoms, such as hallucinations and paranoia, yet around 30 per cent are regularly given medication for them.  It says: ‘Projecting from research in the UK and abroad, it can be shown that over 35,000 elderly people in nursing homes and up to 53,000 in residential homes are being given anti-psychotics inappropriately.”

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-88229/Elderly-care-homes-given-unnecessary-drugs.html#ixzz1R8kRstT0

Institutional Abuse

Institutional abuse is repeated instances of poor care of individuals or groups of individuals. It can be through neglect or poor professional practice as a result of structures, policies, processes and practices within an organisation.

It can occur in any setting where one or more service users receive a service, whether on a daily or residential basis, for example a care home, a day services centre, a hospital ward or a person’s own home. The service may not meet the necessary professional standards or there is a need for further training or the development of a more caring and person centred approach.

It is essential that individual staff within an organisation take responsibility for recognising and dealing with institutional abuse and do not accept poor standards as something that cannot be challenged or changed.

Possible personal indicators of institutional abuse

• Inappropriate approaches to continence issues such as toileting ‘by the clock’ as opposed to when a person wishes to go to the toilet
• Set times for refreshments with no opportunity to have a snack, or to make alternative arrangements outside these hours
• No evidence of care plans that focus on an individual’s needs
• Staff not following care plans when they are in place
• Lack of privacy, for example a failure to close doors when attending to a person’s personal care needs
• Failure to knock on a door before entering, for example a bedroom or bathroom
• No access to personal possessions or personal allowance
• Failure to promote or support a person’s spiritual or cultural beliefs
• A culture of treating ‘everyone the same’ which is different from treating everyone ‘equally’
• A couple being prevented from living together
• Abuse of medication
• Dehumanising language
• Infantilising older people – speaking to or treating them like a child
• Locking people in their rooms

Possible cultural and management indicators of institutional abuse

There are ways in which an organisation can be run that lead to practices which, if left unaddressed, can contribute to an environment where abuse is tolerated. These indicators may be contributory factors of institutional abuse in a care setting but do not always lead to abuse.

• The absence of a clear complaints process
• The absence of an Equal Opportunities policy
• Failure to promote advocacy when it is locally available
• Inadequate staff training and supervision
• Premises that are regularly understaffed
• Inflexible visiting procedures
• A culture of interaction between staff that habitually runs counter to recognised best practice
• High staff turnover
• Low staff morale

Institutional abuse can begin with simply “taking over” a resident’s personal space and choice by listening to a radio or TV programme that is more enjoyable for you, makes the shift go faster, and takes the focus away from the fact that you are in someone else’s home doing a job.

Institutional abuse can begin with giving a resident who needs assistance with feeding cold or lukewarm food because you can’t be bothered to warm it in the microwave to make it palatable.

Institutional abuse can begin with putting residents in their pyjamas after tea so that your jobs are done and you can focus on going home at the end of the shift.

Institutional abuse can begin by assuming that a vulnerable adult doesn’t need to have regular dental check ups.

Institutional abuse can begin with assuming that vulnerable adults cannot hear or understand when you chat with colleagues whilst carrying out care duties.

Institutional abuse can begin with low staff motivation and morale.

Institutional abuse can begin with simply switching the radio from Radio Two to Radio One. Or the TV from Coronation Street to Eastenders.

What will your staff be listening to tonight?

Have you ever been concerned that the learning will start to disappear as soon as your staff return to work, the very place where they need to apply what they’ve learned?

One of the common problems with some training programmes is that they fail to motivate the learner to take what they’ve learned on the course back to their day to day job and apply it to create positive changes in their working practice and approach.

At Athena we understand that change has to take place on a PERSONAL level to make a significant difference to a learner’s future working practices and attitudes. This is especially crucial in the area of safeguarding, where vulnerable groups are dependent on others – your staff – taking appropriate action to make them safe. It is also important that any safeguarding training triggers a heightened awareness of risk that is maintained in the workplace long after the training event has been delivered.

It is often commented that too many training courses focus on theoretical learning and not practical application, and that this type of training event doesn’t make a real difference to people’s performances when they get back to work. So how can you maximise the impact of your training and increase the chance that it will have the desired effect back in the workplace? How can you make sure learning is transferred?

Here are some tips that we use at The Athena Programme to make our training real, relevant and have a lasting impact on learners:

• Any learning needs to be closely related to practice, so your first port of call should be to find out exactly what your learners do and the operational issues that concern them.
• Design your training course content, style and exercises around what is “real life” for participants i.e. form links between the training and their work.
• Use real life examples from your learners’ typical working day to illustrate any points you make. This is particularly crucial if you’re trying to deliver complex information or theories that participants might see as irrelevant or divorced from their own lives.
• If the training is in-house, or if you have specific knowledge about the subject, you can use examples from your own experience to explain a particular point. This will make the material “real” and also give you added credibility as an expert.
• Ask learners to share their own stories or experiences in similar situations.  Your learners will feel valued and this process of reflective practice will get your group talking and discussing the issues from their own, very real, perspectives. And don’t forget – keep it positive; ask for examples of how they have overcome challenges or had successes (large or small).
• Use case studies – case studies are a fantastic resource you can use to make your training directly relevant to participants. If you do your research well you can pick some scenarios that have really happened in the organisation and base your case studies on actual events (anonymising them of course). Case studies are a safe way to “practice” a response to a real problem or situation in a controlled way. You can even get participants to write their own and then pick the most relevant one to work on – the options are endless.
• Ask participants how they are going to put what they have learned into practice.  You can do this either by asking them to do Individual Action Plans, what they are going to do differently as a result of the training and what they have learned that is new or particularly pertinent to them.
• Don’t leave Action Planning till the end of the day when participants are tired and focused on going home. Take 5 minutes at the end of each exercise to reflect on what participants have learned and how the learning will change their current practice.
• Allow time for individual reflection and for group and pair discussion as you go through the course so there is plenty of opportunity for people to think about what to do next.
• Evaluate – a good Evaluation Questionnaire at the end of the training event can really get participants thinking about exactly what has made an impact on them through the training, and can help consolidate and concretise their learning.
• Send out follow – up questionnaires asking participants how they have put ideas into practice or what difference the training has made to them. Ask what barriers may have prevented them from putting these things into practice or what further support they need to help them. This can help to show up any internal barriers in the organisation, such as lack of resources or management support, which have an impact on their performance. This is useful evidence if anyone suggests that your training hasn’t made any difference when the problem lies elsewhere.

The plan was revealed to Community Care by CQC chief executive Cynthia Bower, and follows a sharp drop in site visits in the past year, because inspectors were diverted into the regulator’s programme of re-registering all providers.

The change comes after concerns over the CQC’s ability to protect service users given its failure to follow up on a whistleblower in the Winterbourne View abuse case.

In the current process, vulnerable adult services are inspected at least once every two years.

Cynthia Bower said that the CQC preferred a “proportionate, risk-based, light-touch” approach to regulation – in which services were left uninspected for up to two years in the absence of issues coming to light – but service users, providers and staff preferred more inspections.

“What people want, particularly people who use services, is for us to put our boots on the ground,” she said. “Inspections are a really positive quality assurance for providers.“

Inspection of adult care services plummeted by 70% from October 2009-March 2010 to October 2010-March 2011 due to the impact of registering adult care and independent health providers. There were 518 inspections of adult care services in March 2011, and though this figure has increased in subsequent months, delivering annual inspections would require at least 2,000 monthly site visits.

“It took up a lot of staff time; we did see the number of inspections go down radically as we had to pull the inspectors in to do the work on registration,” said Cynthia Bower.

The regulator still has to register some 8,000 GP practices, but it has called on DH for this process to be delayed from April 2012 to April 2013 to allow its annual inspections approach to bed in.

On its bid for more funding, she said: “The [DH is] sympathetic but they will expect us to make a case.“

Commenting on the CQC’s failure to respond to Winterbourne View whistleblower Terry Bryan, she said, a staff member made the “wrong call” by not triggering an inspection of the learning disability hospital on the basis of Bryan’s testimony.

Learning disability hospitals in general were not inspected at all from October 2010 to January 2011 as a result of registration, but Cynthia Bower admitted they needed “extra vigilance” compared with other services.

“These are places that are inherently risky and they need to be treated with more vigilance.“

For more information on this story, visit:

www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2011/07/15/117185/cqc-to-double-inspections-of-adult-care-services.htm