Midlothian Child Protection Committee

The Midlothian Child Protection Committee (MCPC) has primary responsibility for child protection and is supported by the Edinburgh, Lothian and Borders Co-ordinating Group (ELBCG) and the Edinburgh, Lothian and Borders Executive Group (ELBEG).

To support the MCPC, the ELBCG will:

• Manage the Child Protection Office
• Support consistency of developments across the 5 council areas
• Promote best practice
• Develop procedures and protocols across the 5 council areas
• Promote pan-Lothian training strategies 

Midlothian Child Protection Committee functions

Strategy/Planning

• Work within the context of National Guidance developed for the Child Protection Reform Programme and link to other planning mechanisms within Midlothian - the Children's Services Planning Group, the Community Safety Partnership, the Health and Well-Being Partnership, and the Midlothian Drug and Alcohol Action Team.
• Provide an independent overview of multi-agency child protection activities throughout Midlothian and implement the Scottish Executive guidance 'Protecting children and young people: framework for standards' to ensure effective mechanisms for quality assurance and continuous improvement in child protection services.
• Support the achievement of the strategic goals set by ELBEG in the Child Protection Strategic Action Plan for Edinburgh, Lothian and Borders, ensuring that child protection priorities are incorporated into the work of the MCPC, Children's Services, and Community Plans, and into links with other relevant planning groups - Community Safety Partnership and the Domestic Abuse Strategy Forum.
• Remain aware of new developments in child protection, including changes in legislation, Scottish Executive policies, regulations and guidance; research evidence and best practice examples in child protection.
• Analyse trends in child protection, identify the implications for planning and service provision and incorporate findings into the inter-agency child protection strategy and MCPC business plan.
• Develop the MCPC annual business plan and annual report.
• Review progress, strategy and plan implementation, key findings and lessons from inspections, review results and trends.

Clarifying Roles and Responsibilities:

• Liaise closely with the Edinburgh Lothian and Borders Child Protection Office (ELBCPO) to develop and review inter-agency child protection policies and procedures and to disseminate these at local level.
• Develop protocols in respect of key issues and regularly review their effectiveness.

Building Capacity:

• Oversee the planning and implementation of the MCPC Training and Development Strategy and monitor and review the quality of inter-agency MCPC training and development

Monitoring and Evaluation:

• Provide an independent overview of multi-agency child protection activities throughout Midlothian and ensure continuous improvement in the service;
• Assist development and improvement of established quality assurance mechanisms to promote better information exchange and co-operation between child protection agencies, earlier identification of children at risk and improved outcomes for vulnerable children and young people;
• Contribute to an integrated system of multi-agency inspections of child protection services and ensure that quality assurance mechanisms across child protection agencies in Midlothian include frameworks to enable audit and comparison at national level;
• Continuously review information relating to children and young people on the Child Protection Register;
• Promote good practice in child protection between and within member agencies of the MCPC, identifying poor practice where necessary, and implement recommendations from Critical Case Reviews where there has been child death or near death;
• Ensure that lessons learned from Child Protection Audits by MCPC, Inquiry Reports and Reviews commissioned by the Scottish Executive and multi-agency inspections by regulatory bodies are incorporated into the MCPC Training and Development Strategy and into training and development opportunities offered through MCPC; and
• Approve monitoring and review reports about performance and standards of practice in child protection and report to the ELBCG.

Communication:

• Promote effective communication and collaboration between agencies to exchange best practice and contribute to the identification and resolution of problems and issues between agencies regarding planning, priorities, and resource allocation;
• Raise public awareness of child protection issues, of the role of the community, and of agencies' work with communities and families, to protect children and young people; and
• Assist in the involvement of children, young people and their families in the work of the MCPC; regularly seek their views about the effectiveness of services with which they have contact.