Jersey
Child
Protection
Committee
TERMS OF REFERENCE
Preamble
The Jersey Child Protection Committee (JCPC) was inaugurated in 1996 to encourage a more co-ordinated approach to the protection of children. The JCPC works to protect children from all kinds of maltreatment, whether by parents or carers, members of the public, or by those working with children across the Island’s service. It has an independent Chairperson and 20 members, each representing a statutory or voluntary agency working with children who may be at risk of maltreatment.
These Terms of Reference replace the list of responsibilities which were formally agreed by the then Heath and Social Services Committee in June 1997.
Terms of reference
The functions of the JCPC are:
- To develop, agree, update, and audit local policies and procedures for inter-agency work to protect children from any form of maltreatment including policies and procedures in relation to -
- the action to be taken where there are concerns that a child may have been or is likely to be maltreated, including thresholds for formal inter-agency protective intervention;
- training of persons who work with children or in services affecting the safety and welfare of children;
- recruitment and supervision of persons who work with children;
- investigation of allegations concerning persons who work with children.
- To agree inter-agency procedures for Article 42 enquiries, and associated police investigations, and develop protocols on particular forms of maltreatment, including in what circumstances joint enquiries are necessary and/or appropriate.
- To publish guidelines on best practice to protect children from maltreatment and seek to ensure that they are implemented.
- To monitor the arrangements (including recruitment and training policies) made by the States of Jersey, voluntary and private agencies to ensure that the children to whom they provide services are protected from all forms of maltreatment.
- To provide training on inter-agency child protection practice.
- To seek the views of people who are, or may become involved in child protection processes and their advisers and self-help groups or voluntary organisations so that families can be fully aware of the child protection procedures and receive informed support.
- To operate a complaints procedure so that parents and children who have been the subject of a child protection enquiry can make a formal complaint, or express dissatisfaction about any aspect of the service they have received which is within the remit of the JCPC and/or regulated by its guidelines. To ensure that parents and children are aware of the complaints system and of how they can get help in making use of it.
- To actively seek feedback from adults and children who have used child protection services or have experience of how the procedures and guidelines work in practice, so that their opinions can be taken into account when evaluating and further developing guidelines and procedures.
- To raise awareness within the community of the need to safeguard children and promote their welfare and work with members of the community to strengthen ways they can contribute to these objectives.
- To seek to ensure that children who are receiving an inter-agency child protection service or are in out-of-home care know who they can contact when they have concerns that they or others are experiencing or at risk of maltreatment
- To review all cases: where child maltreatment or neglect have contributed to the death of, or serious injury to, a child, and there is cause for concern as to the way in which the agencies represented on the JCPC or their partners have worked together to safeguard the child; where a child has been subjected to particularly serious sexual abuse; where a child has been subjected to organised abuse within or outside the family; or has died or been significantly harmed whilst in the care of the States. The purpose of such reviews is to ensure that lessons are learned and appropriate action taken.
- To receive reports on all unexpected child deaths and, in consultation with the medical authorities, to decide whether the cases should be the subject of an inter-agency report so that lessons can be learned to diminish the risks of death to children in similar circumstances.
- To publish an Annual Report of the work of the JCPC.
Revised December 2008
Child Deaths and Serious Case Reviews and Complaints Sub-Committee (short title Serious Cases Sub-Committee)
Terms of Reference
1. To receive and undertake an initial assessment of all cases referred to it (from any source) because
abuse or neglect of a child is known or suspected; and
- the child has died; or the child has been seriously harmed or the child has sustained serious and permanent impairment to health or development through abuse or neglect and
- there is cause for concern as to the way in which the States departments or voluntary agency partners or other relevant persons have worked together to safeguard the child from the abuse or neglect that led to the death or serious harm; or
- there is evidence that a child has been seriously harmed by organised and/or multiple abusers (within or outside the family) or abused within an institutional or custodial setting or
- a child who has died or been seriously injured was/is a looked after child.
2. To decide whether the case falls within the above criteria and there is sufficient reason to undertake a serious case review and to make a recommendation to the Chair of the JCPC on the action to be taken.
3. If the decision is taken that a Serious Case Review should take place the Sub-Committee will decide on the membership of the Serious Case Review Panel which will manage the review process.
- On the advice of the Review Panel, the sub-committee will decide on the scope
of the review – including the time period for reviewing the actions that were taken
in the case; the time frame for the review; which agencies will be asked to
provide Internal Management Reports; and the person to be commissioned to
write the Independent Overview Report.
5. The JCPC Information Sharing Protocol provides the basis to facilitate
information exchange relating to the role of the Child Death and Serious Case
Review Sub-Committee. All information shared for the purpose of undertaking a
Child Death Review or a Serious Case Review will fall within the standards and
safeguards stipulated within the Protocol. In particular all information shared
relating to the subject/s of the review must be treated as confidential and its
security ensured by adopting best practice principles and ensuring compliance
with Data Protection and Human Rights legislation.
6. The sub-committee may delegate any of these decisions to the Serious Case Review Panel and the Chair or the Vice Chair of the sub-committee.
7. The draft of the overview report and the recommendations will be discussed by the sub-committee and it will agree the draft action plan.
8. The Overview report and draft action plan will be discussed at the JCPC, at which the Overview Report Writer may attend.
9. In cases in which it is decided that a full Serious Case Review is not necessary (whether or not a Serious Case Review Panel was appointed), the sub-committee may ask one of its members to take the lead in seeking Internal Management Reports from the relevant agencies, and prepare a report for the sub-committee on lessons to be learned from the case, and actions to be taken.
10. The sub-committee, on receiving such a report, may conclude that a Serious Case Review is necessary and appoint a Review Panel and an Independent Overview report writer.
11. To collect and analyse information of unexpected child deaths and, in consultation with the designated paediatrician, police, and the Deputy Viscount to decide whether the death may need to be the subject of a Serious Case review.
12. To consider whether the case points to matters of concern affecting the safety of children living in Jersey, or in a specific area and to report these concerns to the Char of the JCPC in the first instance in order that consideration can be given on how to disseminate points of concern or leaning points identified by the sub committee.
13. To collect aggregated data on the circumstances surrounding unexplained deaths in order to inform strategic planning on how best to safeguard children from the circumstances which may lead to avoidable child deaths or serious injury.
14. To set up and operate a complaints procedure so that parents and children who have been the subject of a child protection enquiry can make a formal complaint, or express dissatisfaction about any aspect of the service they have received which is within the remit of the JCPC and/or regulated by its guidelines. To ensure that parents and children are aware of the complaints system and of how they can get help in making use of it.
December 2008
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