1.1.1 Values and Principles

RELEVANT CHAPTERS

This chapter should be read in conjunction with Placements Strategy Procedure and Information Sharing Guidance.

AMENDMENT

This chapter was amended slightly in July 2011

Underlying Values and Principles
Equality Opportunities
Corporate Parenting
Recording Values and Principles
Confidentiality Values and Principles
Consultation Values and Principles

1. Underlying Values and Principles

These principles apply to all units providing services under the Children Act within Lambeth; whether or not part of Social Care Division

All service provision by Lambeth Children and Young People's Service is within the framework consistent with a range of government guidance, particularly the principles set out in Working Together to Safeguard Children.

Key Outcomes

Being healthy
Staying Safe
Enjoying and Achieving
Making a positive contribution
Achieving economic well being.

Within this the following specific principles apply to children receiving social care services:

The best interests of the child: All decisions made in relation to children must have, as the first and paramount consideration, the best interests of the child.
Assessment, planning and review: Services will be provided to children on the basis of information gathering, planning, monitoring and review through the Integrated Children's System. For those who are Looked After, this will continue through the transition from childhood to adulthood.
Avoiding delay: All decisions in relation to the provision of services to children will be made promptly and within agreed time-scales, having regard to the needs of the child; the achievement of these time scales will be monitored and reviewed
Anti-discriminatory: Children will receive services which take account of their race, culture, language, disability, and religion.
Valuing the family: Children have the right, whenever possible, to be brought up within their own family and community. Potential carers within the family's network will always be considered where children cannot remain with their parents
Partnership: In promoting this right, services will be provided in partnership with parents, significant people in children's lives and with other agencies to assist and support parents in meeting their children's needs within the family.
Listening and taking action: We will promote an 'open door' culture for all children, which encourages them to express their views, wishes and feelings; and say what they think about anything which affects them. We will then do all we can to ensure their views are taken into account when decisions are made about them.
Quality services for children: Where services are provided for children, they will be provided by skilled people, committed to meeting children's needs; in a manner which promotes their educational, physical, emotional, social and psychological needs and in an environment where they feel safe, positive and encouraged.
Keeping children informed: Children will be provided with a range of accessible information about our services and those which they may require to improve their life chances.
Promoting independence: We will help children to be as independent to take as full and active a part in everyday life and to make as much use of mainstream services within the community as possible.
Safeguarding children: We understand that, on occasions, it will be necessary for limits to be placed on the actions of some children for the sake of their welfare or to protect them or others from injury or harm. Interventions used in these circumstances will be the least restrictive and disruptive that are consistent with the child's safety.
Resolving dissatisfaction: Where children, or others on their behalf, are dissatisfied, we will take steps to resolve their dissatisfaction informally and to provide opportunities for them to complain if matter remains unresolved .
The appropriate looked after placement: Where children are unable to live with their birth family, they will be looked after in a placement which has been assessed as appropriate to their needs; either in family based or, residential care. Also see Placements Strategy Procedure
Respecting privacy: Looked after children will be treated with respect and afforded privacy.
Permanence: We will ensure a plan exists for all looked after children to achieve a permanent solution for their future upbringing. Wherever possible, permanence will be secured through a return to their parents' care or a placement within their wider family but where this cannot be achieved within a time-scale appropriate to the child's needs, plans will be made for a permanent alternative family placement, which may include adoption, or, for older children, a stable placement which prepares the child for adulthood.
Maintaining community links: Where children are looked after away from the family, they will be placed as near to their family home or community as possible unless their needs otherwise dictate.
Promoting contact: We will promote meaningful contact between looked after children and their families and community of origin unless particular circumstances indicate that such contact would not be in their best interests.
Monitoring and Review: We will ensure that all looked after children receive regular and frequent visits from their social workers for the purposes of monitoring and reviewing the suitability of their placement arrangements.
Effective working together within the organisation: All teams and services are required to co-operate to ensure effective collaboration on service users' behalf and to ensure a smooth handover of responsibilities when this is necessary.

2. Equal Opportunities

This statement stems from our commitment to valuing all children and young people and a recognition that we do not always provide services that meet their needs well. It is driven by a determined wish to do better.

We are committed to:

Ensuring and promoting equality of opportunity for all. We are therefore opposed to discrimination on grounds of race, religion, gender, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, age or any other unjustifiable criteria.
Delivering services that respond to all our communities’ needs and aspirations in a fair, consistent and equitable way.
Developing an organisational culture which values people from all section of society and that strives to continuously improve the way we serve them through involving them, understanding their needs and aspirations and the way our services impact on these.
Adhering to legislation relating to equalities and diversity and seeking out and working towards accepted good practice, including the Equality Standard for Local Government.
Working within the Corporate Equality and Diversity Policy and related plans, including corporate fair employment and equal pay policies.
Recruiting, developing and retaining a workforce, which reflects the communities and needs that we serve, and that is motivated and skilled to understand and meet people’s needs efficiently, effectively and respectfully.
Developing and monitoring our plans, systems, resource allocation and ways of working so we continuously improve the way we promote equality and diversity.

3. Corporate Parenting

It is the legal duty of Lambeth Council to make sure that every child and young person in their care does not miss out, and are provided with opportunities so that they can reach their full potential.

Lambeth Council has a legal duty to act as a 'parent' for each and every child and young person that is Looked After, whether this is as a result of a voluntary agreement with their parents, or under a care order agreed by the Court.

We are all responsible.

This means that all staff working for Lambeth Council must:

Accept responsibility for children in the council's care
Prioritise the needs of Looked After children
Seek the same outcomes for Looked After children as any good parent would for their own children

It is not just the responsibility of those services that are targeted towards children and young people. It requires all services to work together, with partner agencies such as health, housing and leisure to achieve the best possible outcomes for children and young people looked after by Lambeth Council.

That is, that all children in the care of Lambeth Council should have the best educational and leisure opportunities possible, that their health and welfare is taken care of, and that they receive encouragement, praise, support and preparation towards independence.

Lambeth Council are developing a set of Corporate Parenting Standards for all foster carers, social workers and staff working with looked after children and young people to set standards for best practice.

There are two Corporate Parenting Development Workers who are responsible for undertaking projects in consultation with children and young people in care, to improve services for them, and improve their quality of life and opportunities for the future.

The corporate parenting team also exists to generally raise awareness about the needs of looked after children - because they consult directly with them.

Lambeth have created a website for young people and care leavers called G2K (Get 2 know). It contains information about being in care including rights, what to expect, leaving care, seeing family and friends and education, as well as members-only discussion boards, chat rooms and games. To find out more go to the Lambeth G2K Website.

Lambeth have also created a detailed Placements Strategy, to read the strategy please go to: Placements Strategy Procedure.

4. Recording Values and Principles

Also see Recording Guidance

Each of the following values is summarised in this section.

Electronic records must be kept of all children who receive services
Children and their families must be informed about their records
The practitioner primarily involved should maintain and update the record
Recording Legal Advice
Records must be up to date
Records must be written in plain English and prejudice must be avoided
Records must be accurate and adequate
Managers must oversee, monitor and review records
Records should be kept securely
Records must usually be retained after closure
Bichard Principles

1. Electronic records must be kept of all children who receive services

All work with children and families must be recorded within the Frameworki electronic document management system, using the appropriate Integrated Children's System or Lambeth formats. 'Hard copy' files can be maintained only for the limited purposes stated within the Lambeth Recording Guidance

2. Children and their families must be informed about their records

Records must be shared with children and families as an ongoing element of working with them. Copies of Initial and Core Assessments and reports for Child Protection Conferences and Looked After Reviews must always be provided to the parents concerned and to the children subject to their age and understanding. Information may only be withheld if it would be likely to result in significant harm to the child, or if it would identify a third party who has requested anonymity.

See Section 5.1, Principles of Confidentiality.

Information must be provided in a form that children and their families will understand - in their preferred language or method of communication. Social workers are responsible for developing and maintaining skills in communicating with children at an age appropriate level. An interpreter will be provided if needed.

3. The practitioner primarily involved should maintain and update the record

The practitioner primarily involved, that is by the person who directly observes or witnesses the event that is being recorded or who has participated in the meeting/conversation, must complete records.

The allocated worker is responsible for ensuring that all information is updated and accurate and that all emails and third party reports are loaded on the the case record.

4. Recording Legal Advice

Legal discussion and advice should be recorded within a Legal Planning Meeting episode on Framework , and any minutes attendance notes or associated documentation uploaded within the episode.

Please note that legal advice is professionally privileged and must not be disclosed within access to personal records requests or to Children's Guardians.

5. Records must be up to date

Records should be updated as information becomes available or as decisions or actions are taken as soon as practicable or, at the latest, within 24 hours.

6. Records must be written in plain English and prejudice must be avoided

Records must be written concisely, in plain English, and must not contain any expressions that might give offence to any individual or group of people on the basis of race, culture, religion, age, disability, or sexual orientation.

Use of technical or professional terms and abbreviations must be kept to a minimum; and if there is likely to be any doubt of their meaning, they must be defined or explained.

7. Records must be accurate and adequate

Care must be taken to ensure that information contained in records is relevant and accurate and is sufficient to meet legislative responsibilities and the requirements of these procedures.

Every effort must be made to ensure records are factually correct.

Records must distinguish clearly between facts, opinions, assessments, judgements and decisions. Records must also distinguish between first hand information and information obtained from third parties.

See Section 5.1, Principles of Confidentiality

8. Managers must oversee, monitor and review records

The overall responsibility for ensuring all records are maintained appropriately rests with managers with day-to-day responsibility, delegated to other staff as appropriate.

The Manager should check samples of records as part of all supervision sessions to ensure they are up to date and maintained as required and, if not, that deficiencies are rectified as soon as practicable.

Managers should ensure that they enter all significant decisions and instructions on the case record.

9. Records should be kept securely

All records held on children must be kept securely.

Manual files should normally be stored in a locked cabinet, or a similar manner, usually in an office to which only staff/carers have access.

Manual records should not be left unattended when not in their normal location.

Accesses to electronic records are password protected. Workers will be required to change their unique passwords regularly and must not divulge their passwords to any other individual.

Workers' personal PCs must never be used for case recording.

Recording, whether on an office based or laptop PC should normally be completed directly onto Framework, where it is protected by the Lambeth IT Network. Where this is not possible records should be kept on the shared drive.

Where it not possible to connect to the Lambeth Network e.g. during a train journey records can be completed on the hard disk (C; drive) of the laptop but must be immediately uploaded to the network dive and deleted from the hard disk on return to the office.

10. Records must usually be retained after closure

All files must be retained in accordance with the Departments Archiving and File Retention procedures.

11. Bichard Principles

All allocated workers are responsible for ensuring that details of all adults connected with a child are recorded on the child's Personal Details Screen.

5. Confidentiality Values and Principles

Each of the following values is summarised in this section.

5.1	Principles of confidentiality
5.2	Personal information is subject to a legal duty of confidence
5.3	Disclosure of confidential information permitted in specific circumstances
5.4	Freedom of Information Act 2000

5.1 Principles of confidentiality

The introduction of electronic case recording has resulted in much greater accessibility to individual records to those involved in a case. This does, however, increase the risk of information being used insensitively or inadvertently being disclosed to someone inappropriately.

Staff should be aware that while all information regarding service users must be treated as confidential there particular safeguards must be applied when considering the disclosure of certain data. This includes:

Information regarding health issues and medical treatment
An individual's sexual and relationship history
Information regarding criminal convictions or alleged criminal acts, where these are not directly relevant to suitability to care for a child.
Certain family history data such as disputed paternity
Information which might lead to the disclosure of the identity of an anonymous informant.
Information which might identify adoptive or other carers to natural parents in circumstances where this is not part of the care plan.

Please note that this list is indicative, not exhaustive.

Advice should be sought from the Team Manager and placed on the case record where disclosure of sensitive information is under consideration.

5.2 Personal information is subject to a legal duty of confidence

All personal information is subject to a legal duty of confidence. The legal framework for confidentiality is contained in common law, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Data Protection Act 1998. All staff are obliged to safeguard information held about our users and are personally responsible for any breach of this statutory responsibility.

5.3 Disclosure of confidential information is permitted in specific circumstances

As far as possible, a worker should seek consent before disclosing personal information, even to other care agencies. If consent is not forthcoming, information can be disclosed in circumstances when the individuals right to confidentiality is superseded by the need to comply with a statute, court order, where there is a serious risk to public health, a risk of harm to other individuals particularly children or for the prevention, detection or prosecution of crime. If disclosure is made without consent, a careful record needs to be kept of what has been disclosed. Also, only the minimum personal information necessary should be disclosed. Information should not be disclosed to a non-agency body or person without first seeking legal advice.

Workers are allowed to exchange necessary personal information with other care or health agencies when enquiries are being pursued under Child Protection Enquiries (Section 47 of the Children Act 1989).

For more detailed guidance, seek advice from the Data Protection Advisor x 62341

5.4 The Freedom of Information Act 2000

The Freedom of Information Act came into force on 1 January 2005.

Under the Act anybody may request information from a public authority (which includes all local authorities). The Act confers two statutory rights on applicants:

To be informed in writing whether or not the public authority holds the information requested;

and if so
To have that information communicated to him/her.

The Act applies to all information whether recent or old.

The Act sets out 23 exemptions from rights of access to information. If the information is exempt, there is no right of access under the Act.

One exemption relates to personal information. This means that an application for personal information under the Act is exempt and will not therefore be dealt with under the Act. A right of access to such information must still be dealt with in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

Another category relates to information provided in confidence where disclosure would involve an actionable breach of confidence. This would include information provided by a member of the public about a child protection issue where the provider has provided the information on the basis that anonymity will be maintained.

The Act therefore does not change the legal position into the principles of confidentiality set out in the paragraphs above.

6. Consultation Values and Principles

Peoples views should be sought and taken into account in relation to all decisions, which are likely to affect their daily life and their future.

The older and more mature the child is, the more weight can and should be given to their wishes and feelings.

Unless there are exceptional circumstances, reasonable steps must be taken in all cases to consult the parents. Exceptions will include where older children with an appropriate level of maturity specifically request that their parents are not consulted and a decision is made to respect their wishes.

Consultation should take place on a regular and frequent basis with those who need to be consulted and assumptions should not be made about the inability or lack of interest of those who should be consulted.

Where people have communication difficulties of any sort, suitable means must be provided to enable them to be consulted, including arranging access to advocates or representatives who may speak on their behalf.

If consultation is not possible or is restricted for whatever reason, steps should be taken to ensure those affected are informed of decisions as soon as practicable after they are made, and an explanation for the decision given, together with the opportunity to make a comment and express their views.

If it is then felt that a different decision may have been appropriate, steps should be taken to reconsider the decision.

If decisions are made against peoples wishes, they should be informed of the decision and the reasons for the decision should be explained. In these circumstances, the person should be informed of any rights they have to formally challenge the decision, and of the availability of the Complaints Procedure

Looked after children are encouraged to participate in consultation events organised through the Corporate Parenting Team and the results of this are used to inform policy development.

End