Embedding learning in social work teams through a multi-agency approach

North East Lincolnshire Council is taking a proactive approach to ensuring social workers and partner agencies are working collaboratively to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people across its district.

Through the North East Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children Partnership (NELSCP), children’s services, the Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board and Humberside Police work alongside relevant agencies to help, support and protect children and young people and ensure that they and their families get the right support at the right time from the right people.

This multi-agency approach is not new but with the change in leadership in children’s services at the council more than a year ago, greater emphasis has been placed on learning and information sharing, says Hayley, a social worker in child protection.

“Since the new leadership team came in at North East Lincolnshire, we have seen a real focus on upskilling the workforce,” she says. “They are keen to make sure that we understand local need and that we can respond to it – and to do that, we need to have the most up-to-date training.”

“The messages that are being given to social workers are also being given to police and health – with the aim of ensuring that we’re all working together better to safeguard children, which ultimately is what we’re all striving for.”

The NELSCP is part of wider council commitments, laid out by the government in the Working Together To Safeguard Children 2023 statutory guidance, to promote multi-agency working.

“When we’ve got agencies around the table, discussing a child with the family, everybody is being promoted to understand that way of working,” says Wendy Fegan, an independent reviewing officer (IRO) at North East Lincolnshire Council.

“There’s a lot of focus on everybody’s greater understanding around work that is required to achieve good outcomes for children and their families, enhance partnership work in relational practice and increase professional knowledge and skills.”

Working in partnership

The NELSCP governance structure includes the Safeguarding Children Partnership (SCP) Board and various sub-groups, with oversight of data, performance analysis, learning from practice, training and education and in embedding the four SCP priorities: child exploitation, early help, neglect and child sexual abuse.

Having multiple agencies involved in a child’s journey within the social care system offers benefits to children and families but also for practitioners, Wendy says.

“It promotes their voice and their views [the children and families], it promotes relationships, shared thinking, and builds trust with children and families,” she says.

Underpinning the North East Lincolnshire practice approach, which is centred on being relational, strengths-based and solution-focused, is the Risk Analysis Framework (RAF), which was shared across the partnership at the end of 2024.

According to Wendy, the framework helps practitioners to assess, manage and analyse risk. “The feedback from parents is that it’s easier to understand the risks, the protective factors and what needs to change,” she says. “Parents are able to contribute to discussions at child protection conferences and collaborate on their own plans to move things forward. And you also have a third-person perspective [from the agency partners] – rather like a live audit.

“The Helping, Supporting and Protecting Children and Families in North East Lincolnshire [threshold document] was revised and relaunched in June 2024 to help practitioners understand the levels of need from early help right through to child protection and children in our care, and when to step up and down as needed.”

Putting learning into practice

Hayley has also seen, first hand, the value of being part of this approach.

She was part of an independent scrutiny panel within NELSCP that looks at specific thematic areas such as neglect, child sexual abuse, child exploitation and domestic abuse. Being part of the scrutiny panel gave her an opportunity to present one of her cases [with a child and their family] to the panel alongside her colleagues.

“The case I was presenting was very complex and was on the verge of entering court proceedings,” Hayley says. “There was a lot of chaos going on with that family that we were trying to solve to move them forward and stop them from entering into proceedings.

“I was a little bit nervous initially. I think anybody would be, but I remember coming back and speaking to my service lead and saying: ‘I just found that so insightful’.”

Hayley explained that prior to attending the independent scrutiny panel, various professionals had raised concerns about the child she was supporting, linked to negative influences from friends and antisocial behaviour.

But through the independent scrutiny panel, Hayley was able to sift through those concerns to prioritise what impact they had on the child, their health and education.

“Being involved in the event helped to give me a clear direction as to the areas that we needed to focus on,” she says. “So rather than having to deal with multiple issues, we could focus on the issues that were having the most detrimental impact on the child.

“It was just really good to explain the case to people who were independent – who were not necessarily living and breathing it – and for them to be able to unpick things and ask the right questions.

“They came in and they’ve given me ideas and a focus that means I could go back and look at any gaps that there might have been.”

Boosting confidence

The experience also helped to boost Hayley’s self-confidence.

“I came away from that thinking: ‘Did I do that?’” says Hayley. “I think one of North East Lincolnshire’s current tag lines is ‘permission to be proud’, and it really highlighted to me that I was capable of going into a panel of strangers and sharing my knowledge. It gave me a massive sense of pride and it made me want to go on and continue to fight for this family and make a change.”

Wendy agrees. “It helps you to know your strengths and weaknesses to take forward and I think it is always good to have peer learning.”

Social workers are trained to prepare for these types of panels through mentoring and peer support, and practitioners are kept up to date on developments by the NELSCP through a regular newsletter mailout and via a standalone website.

“Since the new leaders have come in it means more visibility,” Wendy adds. “There is more training, there is more opportunities to contribute to assurance work in terms of helping with continued improved practice.”

Choosing a career at North East Lincolnshire

If you want to know more about a career at North East Lincolnshire, visit the council’s jobs and careers page, which will show you the roles currently available, and read other articles from North East Lincolnshire here.

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