Evaluating the Impact of Training
Effective training underpins safeguarding and child protection work at all levels and across all agencies. Effective training is a fundamental part of the frameworks which manage risk and support multi-agency working across sectors and agencies.
The key question we ask ourselves as a provider of training is: how can we demonstrate the impact of training on practice? Specifically, how does training improve our practice with children and young people and their outcomes overall?
Responding to Serious Incidents of child health/serious harm
There is a two-tier system - local and national - for safeguarding practice review (SPR) (currently known as serious case reviews (SCR). The responsibility for how the system learns lessons from SPR at a national level lies with the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel (the Panel) and at a local level with the safeguarding partners.
The safeguarding partners are required to make arrangements to identify and review serious child safeguarding cases which, in their view, raise issues of importance in relation to their area. They must commission and oversee the review of those cases, where they consider it appropriate for a review to be undertaken.
Where a case meets the criteria for a SPR - where, (a) the child dies or is seriously harmed in the local authority’s area, or (b) while normally resident in the LA’s area, the child dies or is seriously harmed outside England and the local authority knows or suspects that the child has been abused or neglected) - the local authority must notify the Panel within 5 working days of becoming aware of the incident. The authority should also notify its safeguarding partners. The Assistant Director of Children’s Social Care will undertake this responsibility on behalf of the local authority.
The safeguarding partners are required to undertake a rapid review of serious safeguarding cases. The aim is to: a) gather the facts about the case; b) determine whether there is any immediate action needed to ensure children’s safety and share any learning; c) consider the improvements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children; and d) decide the steps that should be taken next, including whether or not to undertake a child safeguarding practice review.
On being informed of a notifiable incident, the HSCP will undertake a Rapid Review in line with published guidance in Working Together 2018. The ‘Rapid Review’ will be undertaken within 15 days when a child dies or is seriously harmed and abuse or neglect is suspected. Any immediate action needed to ensure children’s safety or share learning will be identified and the safeguarding partners will decide, in conjunction with other organisations that have been involved, if a more in-depth review is needed. The report on the rapid review will be shared with the national Panel including the decision on whether a local or national SPR is appropriate.
The responsibility for undertaking these tasks rests with the Learning Review/Rapid Review Group which will make a recommendation to the Executive Group. The Executive Group with support from the HSCP business unit will be responsible for commissioning a Safeguarding Practice review using regional and national information on known reviewers and their expertise. Reviews will be published as outlined in Chapter 4 of WT (2018) on the HSCP website.
The Learning Review/Rapid Review Group will work with the Practice, Learning & Workforce Development Subgroup to ensure that the lessons learned from the Learning Reviews/Rapid Reviews are well understood by the partnership workforce and embedded in practice. Actions may include:
- Revision of existing single or multi-agency training
- Creation of a learning summary and arrange accompanying events to disseminate the learning from the review
- Adding any completed / amended policies / protocols to the practitioner’s toolkit and promoting their use
- Commissioning / developing specialist training or e-learning
- Focused evaluation of practitioner knowledge on a particular are of practice
The HSCP Practice, Learning & Workforce Development Subgroup will take responsibility for the provision of training events and resources to support the dissemination of the lessons and changes to practice and the Leadership group will focus on assurance that the lessons have been embedded across the partnership and that these changes to practice are having an impact on outcomes for children and families in Haringey.