Inspection questions
Joint inspections of services for children and young people at risk of harm aim to provide assurance about the extent to which services, working together, can demonstrate that:
- Children and young people are safer because risks have been identified early and responded to effectively
- Children and young people’s lives improve with high quality planning and support, ensuring they experience sustained loving and nurturing relationships to keep them safe from further harm
- Children and young people and families are meaningfully and appropriately involved in decisions about their lives. They influence service planning, delivery and improvement
- Collaborative strategic leadership, planning and operational management ensure high standards of service delivery.
Our findings in relation to the four statements, together with our evaluation of Indicator 2.1 (Impact on children and young people) and our assessment of the impact of Covid-19 on the continuation of practice to keep children and young people safe will, in turn, form the basis of the published report. This will include key messages, strengths and areas for development for the partnership.
We will be looking at how well systems are organised to ensure that children and young people can experience continuity in their care and develop lasting relationships. We will also look at how well staff are supported and equipped for their task.
We want to learn how well children and young people understand and have been involved in decision making and plans about their care and support, as well as how well they think professionals work together to promote their well-being.
We will be looking at the extent to which performance in assessment and planning, supported by robust quality assurance and high-quality reflective supervision, is in place to ensure the safety of, and improve outcomes for, children and young people.
The child protection systems review identified the need for a clearer collective understanding of when child protection concerns should give rise to consideration of compulsory measures of care. Our inspections will consider the appropriate use of legal measures to achieve security and stability in the lives of children and young people at risk of harm.
We will continue to assess how well leaders work together and how they can demonstrate the difference that they are making to the lives of children and young people at risk of harm.
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Inspection footprint
Joint inspections of services for children and young people at risk of harm encompass two main phases and take place over 22 weeks from notification to publication of the inspection report. However, the actual time may vary as we do not count school holiday weeks.
Phase One involves submission of a pre-inspection return by the CPP; the issue of a staff survey and a review of children’s and young people’s records. Following this, surveys for children and young people and parents and carers will be issued.
Phase Two involves the submission of a position statement and supporting evidence by the CPP; and a week of engagement activity, including contacts with children and families and focus groups with key staff. Inspectors are usually on site in the area for a total of five days during the second phase.
Over the course of the inspection, inspectors will hold three professional partnership discussions with leaders and managers from the CPP.
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Engagement with children and young people
The Care Inspectorate is committed to purposeful engagement with children and young people, strengthening how we listen to and act upon their views and experiences. We want to put their perspective at the heart of the inspection. Based on our work with our young inspection volunteers, we have developed a range of approaches which enable us to reach out to children and young people and hear about their experiences of services and the differences that these have made to their life chances. See our approach to engagement.
We want to gather information that tells us about impact and outcomes, and how services have improved the well-being of children and young people in need of support and extra help to keep safe.
We recognise that efforts are made across CPPs to listen to the views of children and young people. A meeting between the Care Inspectorate’s inspection lead and the CPP’s co-ordinator at an early stage in the inspection planning process is invaluable in helping to identify individuals and groups of children and young people as well as the key services that support them.
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Good practice
The Care Inspectorate has a duty to disseminate good practice to support improved outcomes for people who use social care and social work services across the country.
The over-arching criteria for good practice examples are that they show:
- show creativity and innovation; and
- are clearly resulting in improvements in the well-being of children and young people.
During the course of the inspection, the inspection team may identify areas of good practice which may be reflected in the final inspection report.
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Children and young people's survey
During the inspection it is important that we hear as much as possible from the children and young people using services and we have adapted our methodology to enable the views of children and young people to be prominent. We have developed a survey specifically to hear feedback from children and young people aged between 8 - 15 year olds. There is also a separate survey for parents and carers.
We want to hear the views of children and young people as well as their parents and carers about their personal wellbeing and outcomes.
We anticipate that surveys are completed electronically although where this is not possible other means of distribution can be agreed with the inspection lead.
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