The Board

Caerphilly Safeguarding Children Board (CSCB) brings together representatives of each of the main agencies responsible for promoting children’s welfare and helping to protect them from abuse and neglect. Representatives are of a senior level and from a range of organisations including Children’s Services, Adult Services, Education, Health, Police, Probation, NSPCC and other statutory and voluntary organisations involved in safeguarding.

Structure of CSCB and links with Regional groups (PDF, 12Kb)

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children are defined in Safeguarding Children Working Together under the Children Act 2004 (Welsh Assembly Government 2006) as:

  • Protecting children from maltreatment.
  • Preventing impairment of children’s health or development
  • Ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care, and creating opportunities to enable children to have optimum life chances such that they can enter adulthood successfully.

The key objectives of CSCB are:

  • To co-ordinate what is done by each person or body represented on the Board for the purposes of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in Caerphilly County Borough; and
  • To ensure the effectiveness of what is done by each such person or body for those purposes

All services represented on the Board have made a commitment that:

  • There will be effective accountability across and between all agencies to raise the priority of safeguarding children.
  • Clear practice standards, policies and procedures will be implemented to ensure the early intervention and effective safeguarding and promotion of welfare of children.
  • CSCB and services to safeguard children will have adequate resources.
  • All agencies are committed to the integration and continuous improvement of services to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
  • The skills, effectiveness and competency of the Children’s Workforce will be enhanced by interagency training.

‘Working Together’ defines the following key functions for the CSCB:

  • Developing policies and procedures for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in the area of the authority.
  • Communicating to persons and bodies in the area of the authority the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, raising their awareness of how this can best be done and encouraging them to do so.
  • Monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of what is done by the Local Authority and Board partners individually and collectively to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and advise them on ways to improve.
  • Participating in the local planning and commissioning of children’s services to ensure that they take safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children into account.
  • Undertaking reviews of cases where a child has died or has been seriously harmed in circumstances where abuse or neglect is known or suspected and advising on lessons that can be learned.

In Caerphilly the following key roles will be undertaken by the CSCB:

  • Provide the strategic lead in the continued development of safeguarding services.
  • Co-ordinate and scrutinise local agencies’ arrangements and practice for safeguarding children.
  • Ensure the effectiveness of the Children and Young People’s Framework Partnership, the Health Social Care and Wellbeing Partnership, the Community Safety Partnership and other partnership arrangements for safeguarding children.
  • Ensure safeguarding is planned within all service development.
  • Ensure that lessons are learnt from every Serious Case Review and serious incident resulting in the death of a child. CSCB to ensure that processes are in place so that families are provided with appropriate support after a child dies.
  • Promote safeguarding strategies to minimise the requirement for protection.
  • Contribute to the wider goals of improving the wellbeing of all children, but with particular focus on aspects of the “staying safe” outcome.

In undertaking these roles and working with other strategic groups and planning forums we aim to maximise the safety of children and young people in relation to:

  • Maltreatment, neglect, violence and sexual exploitation
  • Bullying and discrimination
  • Accidental injury and death
  • Crime and anti-social behaviour.
  • Ensure children have security, stability and are appropriately cared for.