Between 2015 and 2016 the Safer Somerset Partnership and Getset (Somerset Troubled Families and early help) jointly commissioned Barnardo's to support them in developing a strategic and practical response to supporting children affected by parental offending (CAPO) in their Local Authority. Barnardo's provided match funding to extend this provision across the other 4 Local Authorities (LAs) in Avon and Somerset and a Barnardo's CAPI Engagement Manager co-ordinates the work across the area. The work aimed to achieve the following outcomes over a 12 month period:
Increased consistency and shared CAPO practice/policy across LAs.
Increased awareness about CAPO and the resources available to support them across all agencies in Avon and Somerset.
Greater understanding about CAPO across Avon and Somerset (how many, where they are and what their needs are in different LAs).
Increased support available to CAPO within LAs (for example via locality/agency-based Champions).
Improved identification of CAPO and information sharing across agencies.
Increased policy recognition of CAPO as vulnerable group in all LAs.
Improved multi-agency working between Criminal Justice System (CJS) and community-based services to support the needs of children of offenders. Multi-agency steering groups attended by professionals from the police, probation, prison service, education, health, Troubled Families, youth offending, housing and social care exist in 4 of the 5 Local Authorities. Each group has their own terms of reference and action plan relevant to their particular locality. Key outputs achieved by the initiative so far include:
The development of Local Authority-specific information leaflets for families affected by parental offending (see Somerset example).
The amendments of key policy, assessment and strategy documents to reflect the needs of children affected by parental offending including: Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (Somerset), Safeguarding Threshold documents (Somerset), Local Safeguarding Children's Board Business Plans (Somerset, Bristol and Bath and NE Somerset)
Awareness raising workshops for key frontline staff (in all 5 Local Authorities).
Development of Champions schemes in schools and early help services (Somerset and Bristol).
Development of service-based resource packs for frontline practitioners (to enable practitioners to easily access resources and information to support children and families affected).
Mapping of current identification and information-sharing protocols across all agencies working with offenders, children and families to identify how data is gathered and shared relating to CAPO.
Gathering of information and data to develop more informed picture of the needs of CAPO, how many children are affected and where (for example, by amending current information gathering systems at police custody suites and in early help hubs, and by collating case studies from across services).
