UPDATE NO 448 09 April 2021

Clinical Review and Practice Guide for Children in Care’s Emotional/Mental Health Needs

Andrea King (contact details below) writes:

“Dear All

“I’m delighted to send you the Clinical Review and Practice Guide for all multi-professional staff working with Children in Care (EMH Guide), in advance of the Community of Practice event on 16^th April with IRO colleagues across the South East. This Guide has been co-designed with IRO Managers and CAMHS Clinicians; thanks to Kent, Hampshire & IoW, Surrey, Wokingham and Brighton & Hove IRO Managers for their particular support and leadership.

“A huge thanks to Dr Gavin Lockhart for his work on developing this guide in dialogue with national advisors and to colleagues at the Children’s Outcome Research Consortium (CORC) for their input.

“The Clinical Review and Practice Guide for all staff working with Children in Care, provides a practical overview of best evidenced practice in recognising, understanding, supporting and monitoring change in the emotional wellbeing and mental health needs of our Children in Care. Please do disseminate this freely in your local networks and feel free to share with colleagues in other regions where you border/work closely with other areas – the guide will be shared nationally.

“All of the resources can be found here

“Andrea”

Future dates for network meetings

Lead Members Group: Friday 23 April joint meeting with DCSs. More information from Alison Michalska (contact details below)

Data Benchmarking: Tuesday 13 July 2021. More information from Alastair Lee (contact details below)

Adoption and Special Guardianship Leadership Board: Tuesday 20 April 2021. More information from Rebecca Eligon (contact details below)

AD Education: Friday 7 May 2021 – 10.30am. More information from Chris Owen (contact details below)

AD Safeguarding: Friday 11 June 2021. More information from Mark Evans (contact details below)

QA Network: More information from Amanda Meadows (contact details below)

Fostering Network: 10.30am Monday 12 April 2021. More information from Rebecca Eligon (contact details below)

SEND SE19: More information from Tracey Maytas (contact details below)

Ofsted inspection of schools in summer term 2021

In a press release published on 29 March, Ofsted announced it will inspect schools and further education & skills (FES) providers in the summer term to provide reassurance about how well children and learners are catching up, but it will not resume a full programme of graded inspections until September. 

“we will undertake on-site, lighter-touch inspections in the summer term. Unlike ‘full’ inspections, these visits will allow inspectors to assess how well schools and FES providers are educating their learners and keeping them safe, but they will not result in a grade.

“Revised handbooks will be published after Easter.” 

Monitoring inspections of Schools will begin from 4 May, under the EIF. These will not result in a change of grade.

Where inspectors find evidence that an inadequate school has improved, they can convert the monitoring visit to a full inspection, which would be graded. If schools judged ‘requires improvement’ on 2 or more consecutive occasions are found to have improved, inspectors will recommend that a full inspection is carried out before the end of the summer term.

Ofsted will also inspect ‘good’ schools that, due to the pandemic, have not had an inspection within the statutory 5-year window, and will also inspect some ‘outstanding’ schools that request an inspection, prioritising those that have gone the longest without an inspection.

Other than where significant concerns are raised, Ofsted will not inspect secondary schools during the first half of the summer term, to allow them to focus on teacher-assessed grades.

UNSAFE CHILDREN Driving up our country’s response to child sexual abuse and exploitation

The Centre for Social Justice has published “UNSAFE CHILDREN Driving up our country’s response to child sexual abuse and exploitation”

This report reminds all in the children’s sector about the importance of addressing child sexual abuse. Recommendations for education include needing to commit to good relationships and sex education, whole school approaches to child sexual abuse and increasing the capacity for school nurses to play more of a role.

The full report is here.