A Northern Ireland school funded its own social worker as the local health trust was unable to provide support, a watchdog report says.
The school, which is within the Southern Health and Social Care Trust area, made the move after a number of complex safeguarding issues did not meet the Trust's threshold.
The news emerged following an inspection of child protection arrangements in the Southern Trust area that examined how justice, health and social care and education organisations work together to protect children where there are concerns about risk of harm.
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It looked at a number of areas surrounding the multi-agency approach taken to child protection services in the area and how police officers, health and social care professionals as well as teachers and education staff worked together.
The inspection highlighted a number of key ways in which the agencies were successful in providing protection for children, such as the timely identification of acute threats to children, strong cultures of recognising a child's right to be safe and the important role of community policing within schools.
However, a number of issues were also identified as needing improvement, including waiting lists for access to services and backlogs due to workforce issues, a lack of formalised information sharing between agencies, and professionals not attending meetings or the wrong people attending without the correct information for them.
It also found that the PSNI's "target for attendance at ICPCCs (Initial Child Protection Case Conferences), was not met in all instances across the small number of cases Inspectors considered".
Staffing issues within social work teams were also found to be a problem, resulting in waiting lists and backlogs and one school having to fund their own social worker.
The inspection report said: "When risk had been identified, limited capacity within the Trust social work teams was impacting on timely interventions being available to children and families to support those in need and children requiring protection and help in their recovery from harm. There was an example of a school that chose to fund the employment of a Social Worker to work directly with children and their families due to the number and complexity of safeguarding issues, which did not meet the Trust’s threshold."
Concerns were also raised over record keeping with regards to at-risk children and insufficient detail being provided to partner agencies about what posed a threat to them.
The inspection highlighted: "A flag on the police system to alert Police Officers if a child was on the Child Protection Register, while positive, was not accompanied by information about the nature of the risk or who posed a threat of harm to the child."
The heads of the three Inspection bodies, including Briege Donaghy, chief executive of the RQIA, and Faustina Graham, chief inspector with the ETI, said they encouraged other areas to make use of the inspection findings to improve how children are protected elsewhere in Northern Ireland.
In a joint statement, they said they have asked police, the Education Authority and the Southern Trust to develop a multi-agency action plan for implementation to enhance their partnership approach to protecting children.
“We also hope the findings and learning from this joint pilot inspection of child protection arrangements will help the Departments of Health, Justice and Education develop a framework for child protection inspection in Northern Ireland,” they said.
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