DSCPG

The purpose of the DSCPG is to establish and maintain effective multi-agency arrangements for children, young people and families as mandated under The Children and Social Work Act (2017) and further defined in the supplementary Statutory Guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018. This calls for effective systems being in place to protect children from abuse and to prevent impairment to their health and/or development.

In response, DSCPG will engage in any activity that facilitates or is conducive to, the achievement of its objectives.

In all its activities the DSCPG will advocate that the duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of all Dudley’s children and young people is ‘everybody’s responsibility’.

In order to fulfil its core duties the DSCP will develop a range of initiatives, plans, policies and procedures for safeguarding and promote the welfare of children and young people by: 

• Reviewing the role, responsibility and accountability of each professional (subgroup) member with regard to attendance, contributions and required actions to reduce delay in progressing activities that can impact on improving outcomes for children and young people. 
• Undertaking reviews of the effectiveness of each agencies safeguarding arrangements with regards to section 11 duties. 
• Focusing on the impact of all forms of child abuse and neglect 
• Learning, and disseminating learning, from local and national research and case reviews 
• Developing effective mechanisms and protocols that support the effective commissioning of local Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews 
• Consistently identifying indicators of the prevalence of all forms of child abuse and neglect in Dudley and measuring progress in tackling these 
• Maintaining an overview of the range of provision, services and interventions delivered to reduce the impact of abuse and neglect 
• Supporting and scrutinising steps taken to reduce risk of abuse and neglect 
• Monitoring, supporting and scrutinising the improvement of the quality of practice and impact across partner agencies 
• Improving and integrating performance monitoring 
• Supporting communication and information sharing 
• Liaising with frontline practitioners to identify the barriers to translating lessons learned into practice and strategies to overcome these 
• Developing the findings of all reviews activities into specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-related actions. 
• Establishing robust processes to hold individual members to account and gain assurance of the effectiveness of their organisations arrangements. 
• Developing meaningful relationships with children, young people, families and the wider communities, and consulting with them with regard to service developments 
• Understanding the profile and perspectives of Dudley’s children and young people by asking for their views, listening and responding to them. 
• Agreeing and overseeing the mechanisms for developing and maintaining safeguarding multi-agency policies and procedures 
• Evidencing how individual members of DSCP have challenged one another and held other local boards to account, for example the Health and Wellbeing Board. 
• Supporting the learning and developmental needs, including the provision of multi-agency training for the children’ workforce. 
• Making recommendations to the Dudley Safeguarding People Partnership (DSPP) in regard to supporting, commending and challenging safeguarding policy and practice across agencies and the workforce 
• Ensuring that the ‘business’ agreed by DSPP is carried out effectively 
• Overseeing all multi-agency inspection activity, preparation and outcomes and for monitoring actions in response to these 
• Developing mechanisms for ensuring the Annual Strategic Plan and Annual Report are conducted and published in a timely manner, so as to comply with statutory requirements and enhance the accountability of the DSCPG to the local community. 

The DSCPG will consist of members from:

• Dudley MBC
• West Midlands Police
• Black Country Integrated Care Board
• Probation Services
• Public Health
• West Midlands Ambulance and Fire Services
• Cabinet Members
• Education and Schools Representative
• Voluntary and Community Sector
• Sub group chairs (where not a representative of one of the above agencies)

Previous DSCPG Annual Reports can be downloaded below:

• DSCPG Annual Report 2021/22
• DSCPG Annual Report 2020/21
• DSCPG Annual Report 2019/20