A Brief History of safeguarding children services:
Safeguarding children services was formed in May 2005 by
the two Chief Executive Officers (Jaci Quennell and Elaine
Allison) who established the project and delivered the service
at this early stage. By virtue of first-hand experience –
both founders of scs worked for a service provider in this
area – scs was established with a clear idea of the service
provision landscape and its shortcomings. This meant that
the organisation from the outset sought to fill the gaps they
had come to identify through practice in the area of service
provision aiming to safeguarding children against particular
forms of violence and abuse.
Scs works with children and young people aged 5-19yrs who
have been abused or are at risk. The organisation also works
with parents whose own history of abuse leads to them have
problems parenting their own children.
Much of the work in the first year of the service focussed
on helping young people to change their lives (through the
provision of counselling and group work); supporting families
and providing specialist assessments in relation to Family
and Criminal Court proceedings; and an inaugural conference
on 'Internet Abuse and Child Trafficking' at the Adelphi hotel
in Liverpool.
Jaci and Elaine gathered together a Management Board of individuals
who have expertise in Social Work, Law, Finance and Business
management. Two of the Board members (Tink Palmer and Andy
McCullough) are national policy advisors for other children's
charities. A further two (Beverley Burke and Estelle Neuman)
are Black women with strong backgrounds in promoting equal
opportunities (more details of the Board/Trustees are provided
later in this report)
Also crucial to the development of the service was the participation
and influence of young people. All services that have been
developed have been identified as part of a needs analysis
undertaken with local young people and current service users.
We use a graphic facilitator to help focus groups of young
people in identifying their needs, evaluating the service
and making future plans(please see examples of the art work
produced through this process on the following pages).
The agency is currently funded from a number of sources but
has experienced some difficulties in gaining funding from
national sources when competing with larger, well-established
charities which have fundraising, branding and marketing departments.
A turning point in the second year (the period covered by
this report) was a Level 2 award from UnLtd, recognising Jaci
and Elaine's work as social entrepreneurs.
The organisation's innovative work with exploited and 'at
risk' young people was recognised internationally when Jaci
and Elaine were invited to lecture to medical and social work
professionals in Warsaw (at the invitation of the Council
of the Baltic States) The participatory risk assessment tools
that they have developed are, as a consequence of their work
in Warsaw, being used in Sweden, Denmark and Russia.
Further endorsement of the agency's work was received when
Arlene McCarthy MEP agreed to become the charity's Patron
and when local MP Frank Field pledged his support. With support
from UnLtd, Jaci and Elaine have worked with the Management
Board and Trustees to consolidate, develop and expand scs
and to identify the future 'shape of the organisation (please
see 'Future Plans and sustainability' at the end of this report).
The aims of the organisation have changed from a focus
Funding for the service is now provided from a variety of
sources including Service Level Agreements from Connexions,
Neighbourhood Regeneration Funding, Wirral Youth Service and
Social Services. The agency has generated its own income through
the training and counselling that it carries out and through
legal work. An opportunity arose early in 2007 to take over
a contract with Wirral Council, formally held by another charity,
to provide advocacy for Wirral's Looked After children and
young people. Scs successfully tendered for the contract and
took over two workers under TUPE arrangements, thus preventing
them from being made redundant. The success of NRF-funded
self-harm work in 2006 enabled scs to secure further funding
to employ a social worker to work with self-harming parents.
Some of the UnLtd award mentioned earlier was used to fund
Jaci and Elaine's time to run a BTEC in Peer education for
former service users. Jaci obtained a license to teach the
nine month accredited course from 'UK Youth'. The first cohort
of young people were recruited in March 07 and a second cohort
will commence their training in October 07. Once qualified,
the young people will be employed as sessional workers by
the organisation.
Scs forged strong partnerships with a number of other organisations
in 2006, including Merseyside Fire and Rescue service, who
helped to deliver the SOS risk programme and offered the scs
the opportunity to rent safe premises at Birkenhead Fire Station.
In return, scs provided Child Protection training for firefighters
and advised MFRS on their Child Protection policies.
Another strong link was developed with Wirral Youth Theatre,
who co-deliver services for lesbian, gay and bisexual young
people with scs. The Youth Theatre staff are also working
with scs on the production of two DVDs – one on 'Coming Out'
for the LGB group and one on Self-harm with the Triangle programme
service users.
At the start of April 07, the team consisted of two CEOs
(Jaci Quennell and Elaine Allison), one social worker, two
Looked After children's/ young people's advocates, a part-time
administrator, four sessional group workers, two social work
students and five young volunteers.
e-mail: services@safeguardchildrennw.org.uk
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