Self-assessment toolkit for Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs): Monitoring the effectiveness of the child death review arrangements

Contact:

Katy Garrett
Tel. 020 7783 8032

Provider:

DCSF

Topics:

Social care, welfare, protection

Type:

Templates, protocols and forms

Date:

March 2009

From 1 April 2008, all Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) have had a statutory responsibility to review the deaths of all children from birth (excluding still-born babies) up to 18 years. The purpose of reviewing child deaths is to reduce the number of preventable child deaths in line with indicator 4 in PSA 13: Improve children and young people's safety. A serious case review (SCR), where abuse or neglect is known or suspected, may be triggered by a child death review.

Since the introduction of child death review processes, DCSF has provided LSCBs with support and additional guidance to enable them to fulfil their statutory duties.

We are now keen to strengthen our collective understanding of how the child death review processes have been embedded and are working in local areas, and of their effectiveness. To support LSCBs, Safeguarding Advisers in Government offices have developed a self-assessment toolkit for LSCBs to use to internally monitor their implementation of the child death review processes. It can also be used to provide information on what else needs to be done to ensure the processes are working effectively and the nature of any additional support that may be required.

We encourage LSCBs to use the toolkit, and to share relevant findings with their Government Office colleagues in order to discuss what more needs to be done at a local, regional and national level to support the child death reviewing processes.

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Last updated on 01/03/2009