Partnerships for children and young people

Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service is committed to the safety, education and wellbeing of children and young people and with reducing the impact of fire and fire crime. We work with a wide range of local and regional organisations including The Children's Trust, Children and Young People's Services and local authorities' Commmunity Safety Strategies.

Children and Young People's Plan 2006-2009 Local Safe Guarding Children within our County What is Safeguarding? What does a Safeguarding Children Board (SCB) do? Who is on the SCB? What have we done so far? Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council Community Strategy The Children's Trust

The Children and Young People's Plan sets out how we aim to improve the lives of children and young people. We will work in all five of the key outcome areas of the Every Child Matters agenda to enable children and young people to:

	Be Healthy
		Stay Safe (PDF 2.79Mb | 2790 Kb) (This document links to the PDF on the Shropshire County Council website. View page 23 Safe from accidental injury and death)
	Enjoy and Achieve
	Make a Positive Contribution
	Achieve Economic Well-Being

The key principle of the Children Act is that protecting children should be part of a continuum to improve children’s lives and well-being, measured by five outcomes, which are:

1. Be Safe
2. Be Healthy
3. Enjoy and Achieve
4. Make a positive contribution
5. Achieve economic well being

Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service personnel frequently work with families and their children in their homes, schools, in the community and at our fire stations. By being vigilant, and acting when concerns are raised, we can contribute to safeguarding and protecting the children of Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin. The Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service’s Child Protection Policy demonstrates clear guidelines, good practice and procedures for those personnel working with children. SFRS are committed to ensuring their personnel receive the correct training from the Local Safe Guarding department.

To date % of whole time personnel and % retained personnel have received the training Waiting for the figures from training department

As a brigade, we recognise the benefits of multi-agency and partnership working and wish to ensure that our employees receive appropriate training and gain basic knowledge of the key indicators of child abuse and the correct reporting procedures.

"Making sure that children grow up in safety and in a way that they are cared for; protecting them from harm or ill-treatment; making sure that their health or development is not damaged in any way and doing this in a way that means that children have the best possible chances in life."
(adapted from Government Guidance¹)

The purpose of the SCB is to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in the county by co-ordinating what is done by each person or organisation represented on the Board and making sure that what is done is effective

By law the Board must consist of representatives of:

The Local Authority, the Police; the Probation Service; Youth Offending Service; Strategic Health Authority; Primary Care Trust; NHS Acute Trust; Connexions; and CAFCASS.

		There are many other people involved in safeguarding and our Board also has representatives from the Voluntary Sector including Faith Communities and the Race Equality and Diversity Partnership; Schools (Primary and Secondary); FE Colleges; Fire and Rescue Service, Armed Forces and the Safer Communities Partnership including the Domestic Violence Forum and Victim Support. Pictured left: Lynn Hosking, Youth Officer represents Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service on Shropshire's Safeguarding Children Board

Safeguarding Boards are new (each local authority had to have one by April 2006) therefore it has been necessary to ensure that the right people are invited to join; providing information and training to these people; and setting up working groups to work on specific issues.

The safeguarding boards have people working on each of the following areas:

Other groups have been set up to arrange and deliver training to anyone working with children; to make sure that people are aware of dangers and how to report concerns; and to keep all the policies and procedures up to date.

Aim: Creating safe, healthy and vibrant neighbourhoods with access for all to economic, social, democratic and educational activities through the development of empowered and inclusive communities.

The Community Wellbeing chapter looks at people and the main themes that influence everybody's quality of life - health, safety and feeling cared about and valued.

Objective 5 - To reduce the number of fires and malicious calls to the emergency services

(::PDF:docs/promoting-safety/junior-fire-education/sabc-community-strategy-objective-5.pdf::)

Shropshire's Children's Trust (SCT) are meeting with the requirements of the 2004 Children Act and to share the priorities for action to meet the needs of children and young people in Shropshire.

For further information please contact:

Mike Ablitt
Head of Prevention
01743 260 279

Lynn Hosking
Youth Officer
01743 260 257