Detective Chief Inspector 754 Deb Fenny from Cleveland Police will provide a presentation to the Board.
Minutes:
The
Chair welcomed Chief Inspector Deb Fenny from Cleveland Police to the meeting.
Although The Chief Inspector had been present at previous meetings of the Board,
the Chair had sent some questions prior to the meeting to gather further
insight to her role within the Force and with children looked after.
The
Chief Inspector answered the following questions:
Please could you provide an overview of your work and your
contact areas’.
The
Chief Inspector outlined that she was Lead in the Force for child abuse and
vulnerable adults across the 4 local authority areas. She also lead a special
detective team that dealt with child abuse and lead management of the MACH on
the south side.
The
Chief Inspectors role also engaged services within the centre of Middlesbrough
that support victims of domestic abuse, vulnerable adults and sex offender
management unit.
Further
to this, the Chief Inspector sits on the Quality and assurance group and Chairs
the development and working group for the South side whilst sitting on the
equivalent on the North.
The
Chief Inspector further added she was the lead in the force for the Encompass
project which worked with schools.
How can you support us in our role as corporate parents?
The
Chair Inspector had a place on Middlesbrough's Corporate Parenting Board and
also sits on other local authorities Boards, Stockton being the main. The
Inspector would act as the main conduit for the Police and outlined she would
be happy to share learning and initiatives from other local authorities with
the Board.
How
do you see your role fitting into the wider improvement plan within children’s
services? E.g. Partnership working generally, the multi-agency safeguarding
arrangements, police powers of protection, development of the MACH, strategy
discussion meetings.
In
terms of the wider improvement plan, the Chief Inspector outlined that she had
oversight of all of the MACH and overseeing the restructuring of the teams
resources. This was a large piece of work for the Chief Inspector and the
Improvement team, and they had employed an outside agency to look at their
capacity and demand on resources to ensure their work was succinct and ensure
that the Police work more coherently with partners.
How is your service supporting the Future for Families HUB and
wider children looked after work within Middlesbrough?
The
Board were made aware that the Police have a present within the HUB, however
this was not within the Chief Inspectors remit.
Are you aware of the wider Middlesbrough Children’s matters
work?
Lastly,
the Chief Inspector advised that she was aware of the work and had been part of
strategic and operational meetings. However if there were specific themes and
issues which needed to be discussed, she would need further details prior to
contributing from a police perspective.
The
Chair thanked the Chief Inspector for her contribution and outlined that having
a police presence on the Board was essential to ensuring everyone was on the
same page for our vulnerable children in Middlesbrough.
There
was a brief discussion in relation to language used e.g. child abuse/ child
protection, however this was an issue across the Council and work was ongoing
to ensure child- friend appropriate language was used.
In
terms of the work with neighbouring Local Authorities, the Chair asked whether
the Chief Inspector had any top tips on how other authorities Corporate
Parenting Board's work with the police. These would be brought back to
the future meeting of the Board.
AGREED
1. That the information be noted
2. That further information on working relationship between the
Police and Corporate Parenting Board's in neighbouring authorities be brought
back to a future meeting