Congratulations to Knowsley Area Partnership

Congratulations to the Knowsley Area Partnership for attaining Youth Justice SEND Quality Lead Redesignation with a Child First Commendation

Knowsley Area Partnership approached redesignation from a position of strength. Three years ago, what now would be considered as “Child First Practice” was prevalent within the ethos, culture and system design. For example, a collaborative approach to whole system development and review was clearly evident, with shared leadership and accountability characterised by co-production, with service users (children with SEND and their parents/carers) fully involved in decision-making. The Teams around the child (including Early Help, Child Exploitation, Looked After Children, Multi-Agency Support Hub, etc.) had close working relationships.

Practice has developed further, driven by a pervading culture of inter-service co-operation, mutual accountability and well-embedded trauma-informed practice. This has been achieved through trauma-informed training and practice development across all teams, including schools.

There is clear evidence of a range of partnership work focusing on meeting the range of needs of children and families i.e. specialist consultations with a focus on trauma and SEND facilitated by education psychologists and multi-disciplinary team meetings facilitated by YJS health manager. Partnership developments also focus on preventative work.

For example, the Youth Justice Service has attends the SENCO Forum, raising awareness of the importance of their roles in identifying as early as possible children with additional needs and the potential trajectory for those children whose needs are not identified and met.

Education Training and Employment opportunities are well managed, including an awareness of, and a provision to support, children who are deemed “not ETE ready”.

The Child First commendation reflects the developments in relation to the partnership’s commitment to early intervention and the Local Authority’s significant investment in establishing a new prevention service, working alongside panels such as MACE (Multi Agency Child Exploitation Panel) and MARTHR (Multi Agency Risk Threat and Harm Reduction forum):

• STEP (Support – Together – Empower – Prevent) Supporting children beyond the statutory cohort that are at risk of offending, reoffending and exploitation, including children with significant Education and SEND profiles. This initiative is proving to be very effective: early successes include 97% of children successfully engaged with the service, 95% of children do not go on to reoffend; 87% of children have been prevented from escalating to more intensive and costly service interventions.

Education Training and Employment opportunities are well managed, including an awareness of, and a provision to support, young people who are deemed “not ETE ready”.

Well done Knowsley! It has been a privilege and a pleasure working with you, and to be able to acknowledge such significant and sustained partnership practice around the child.

We look forward in the coming months to bring your thinking and your ideas to a wider audience.