.jpg "Latest News")
Early and Effective Action Screening Groups
Tuesday 13 April 2010
Until 2006-07, there was a trend of increasing numbers of children being referred to the Reporter on both offence and care and protection grounds. Many of these children did not require compulsory measures of intervention. This resulted in a range of initiatives being introduced to aim to facilitate decision making across agencies to identify appropriate routes of action to take when there are concerns about a child, including whether to refer to the Children’s Reporter.
The Scottish Government commissioned an evaluation of some of the interagency screening processes which reported in 2009 - ‘ Early and Effective Intervention Evaluation Report’. This evaluation reviewed the processes to identify examples of good practice. SCRA's research follows on from the previous evaluation and looks at interventions and outcomes for children and the impact of the screening processes on referrals to the Reporter and children requiring compulsory measures of supervision.
The pre-referral screening processes, in this research, are having an impact in reducing referrals to the Reporter - consequently proportionately more of the children referred to the Reporter are those who require compulsory measures of supervision and are referred to Children’s Hearings.
The groups meet regularly and frequently and as a result children’s cases are discussed very shortly after concerns have been identified and actions are discussed and agreed. All the groups include representation from a range of services, demonstrate inter-agency working and consider the wider needs of the child. In these ways they are operating in line with the Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC) principles and those of the Children’s Hearings System. However, some of the groups noted that it was difficult to get representation and input from education sources in the school holidays.
The police have the primary role in co-ordinating and leading the pre-referral groups – both for offending and for care and protection. This has resource implications for the police.
The groups all operated in different ways to reflect local needs and resources. Some are new and/or are continuing to develop. However, a common theme between the groups was the lack of protocols/processes on how they operated and made decisions.
Information that is available on interventions and outcomes from the children discussed by the groups showed that the groups considered wider aspects of the children’s lives, including that of their families, and not just the incident that led to them coming to the attention of agencies. Interventions were identified and implemented, based on this wider assessment, to address the main concerns about the children’s welfare and behaviour.
A full copy of the research report is available in PDF version below.
The Scottish Government commissioned an evaluation of some of the interagency screening processes which reported in 2009 - ‘ Early and Effective Intervention Evaluation Report’. This evaluation reviewed the processes to identify examples of good practice. SCRA's research follows on from the previous evaluation and looks at interventions and outcomes for children and the impact of the screening processes on referrals to the Reporter and children requiring compulsory measures of supervision.
The pre-referral screening processes, in this research, are having an impact in reducing referrals to the Reporter - consequently proportionately more of the children referred to the Reporter are those who require compulsory measures of supervision and are referred to Children’s Hearings.
The groups meet regularly and frequently and as a result children’s cases are discussed very shortly after concerns have been identified and actions are discussed and agreed. All the groups include representation from a range of services, demonstrate inter-agency working and consider the wider needs of the child. In these ways they are operating in line with the Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC) principles and those of the Children’s Hearings System. However, some of the groups noted that it was difficult to get representation and input from education sources in the school holidays.
The police have the primary role in co-ordinating and leading the pre-referral groups – both for offending and for care and protection. This has resource implications for the police.
The groups all operated in different ways to reflect local needs and resources. Some are new and/or are continuing to develop. However, a common theme between the groups was the lack of protocols/processes on how they operated and made decisions.
Information that is available on interventions and outcomes from the children discussed by the groups showed that the groups considered wider aspects of the children’s lives, including that of their families, and not just the incident that led to them coming to the attention of agencies. Interventions were identified and implemented, based on this wider assessment, to address the main concerns about the children’s welfare and behaviour.
A full copy of the research report is available in PDF version below.
