The national child
safeguarding practice review into the murders of Arthur
Labinjo-Hughes, 6, and Star Hobson, 16-months, has recommended
that experts in police, health and social work should form
dedicated multi-agency teams to investigate allegations of
serious harm to children.
The independent review, carried out by the national Child
Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, looked at the lives of the
two children who were murdered by their parents’ partners. It
identified that failings in how agencies worked together meant
concerns raised by wider family members about physical abuse were
not properly investigated by police and social workers.
The report reveals that what happened to Arthur and Star are not
isolated incidents and their deaths reflect wider problems in
child safeguarding practice, including poor information sharing
between professionals and weak decision-making. Therefore, the
panel is calling for government to strengthen the child
protection system at a national and local level so there is a
more effective joined-up response.
Panel Chair, Annie Hudson said:
Arthur and Star suffered horrific and ultimately fatal abuse. But
sadly, whilst their individual stories are unique, many hundreds
of children are seriously harmed each year.
At the moment, each professional who comes into contact with a
child holds one piece of the jigsaw of what is happening in a
child’s life. Our proposed reforms would bring together experts
from social work, police and health into one team so that they
can have a better picture of what is happening to a child,
listening carefully to relatives’ concerns and taking necessary
actions to protect children.
Professionals working to protect children have to deal with the
most complex challenges and some perpetrators of abuse will evade
even the most robust safeguards. However, in too many instances,
there is inadequate join-up in how agencies respond to high-risk
situations where children are being abused.
The panel is making eight national recommendations and a number
of local recommendations for safeguarding partners in Solihull
and Bradford.
The national recommendations include:
- implementing new expert-led, multi-agency child protection
units to undertake investigation, planning and oversight of
children at risk
- establishing national multi-agency practice standards for
child protection - this would provide a standard of quality and
consistency in practice for working with children at risk and
their families across the country
- a sharper performance focus and better co-ordination of child
protection policy in central government - this involves the
establishment of a national Child Protection Board, bringing
together all relevant central government departments, local
government, the police, education and health representatives
The local recommendations for Safeguarding Partners in Solihull,
where Arthur lived, include:
- ensuring that all assessments undertaken by agencies draw on
information and analysis from all relevant professionals, wider
family members or other significant adults who try and speak on
behalf of the child
- reviewing the partnership Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub
arrangements to ensure a more “Think Family” approach
- reviewing and commissioning strategies to ensure
practitioners know how to respond to incidents of domestic abuse
and understand the risks to children of prisoners
The local recommendations for Safeguarding Partners in Bradford,
where Star lived, include:
- agreeing clear expectations regarding risk assessment and
decision making and ensuring these are understood by all agencies
- reviewing, developing and commissioning a comprehensive early
help offer which can be accessed before, during and after the
completion of any child and family assessment by children’s
social care
- reviewing and commissioning domestic abuse services to guide
the response of practitioners and ensure there is a robust
understanding of what the domestic abuse support offer is in
Bradford
Notes to editors
The independent national Child Safeguarding
Practice Review Panel is an independent body that was set up
in July 2018 to identify, commission and oversee reviews of
serious child safeguarding cases. It brings together experts from
social care, policing, health, education and the third sector to
provide a multi-agency view on cases which they believe raise
issues that are complex, or of national importance.
