Board Membership responsibilities
The Medway Safeguarding Children Board is the strategic group that ensures that Child Protection and safeguarding objectives are coordinated, monitored and effective. It is made up of senior strategic managers of partner agencies. It is the key group that, whilst operating in the context of the local children's trust arrangements and developing a strong relationship with the wider strategic partnerships within Medway, has a unique statutory role in safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.
MSCB Structure (pdf, 16Kb)
The MSCB Group are chaired by an Independent Chair. Agency representatives are as follows:
Independent Chair |
Medway Safeguarding Children Board |
Detective Superintendent /Vice Chair |
Kent Police |
Detective Chief Inspector |
Kent Police |
Chief Executive |
CVS |
Assistant Director, Children's & Specialist Community Services |
NHS Medway |
General Manager, Children and Women's department |
Medway NHS Acute Trust |
Governor |
YOI Cookham Wood |
Service Manager, West Kent |
CAFCASS |
Assistant Chief Officer for Medway and North Kent |
Kent Probation |
Director |
Medway Secure Training Centre |
Headteacher |
Fort Pitt Grammar School |
Assistant Director, Children's Care |
Medway Council |
Director of Children's and Adults' Services |
Medway Council |
Assistant Director, Learning and Acheivement |
Medway Council |
Safeguarding Lead for vunerable adults & children |
NHS Mental Health Partnership Trust |
Assistant Director for Inclusion |
Medway Council |
Headteacher |
Thames View Infants School |
Manager |
Medway Safeguarding Children Board |
Assistant Director, Community Services, Social Care |
Medway Council |
Assistant Director of Clinical Standards |
NHS Medway |
Director for Integrated Commissioning |
NHS Medway |
Administrator |
Medway Safeguarding Children Board |
Accountability and governance
Although the MSCB's role includes coordinating and ensuring the effectiveness of work done by member organisations to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people, it is not accountable for the operational work. This remains with the individual organisations and services.
The work of the MSCB has been divided between three sub-groups, overseen by the Management Group. The chairs of the three sub-groups sit on the MSCB.
The three subgroups are:
- Policy and Procedures - responsible for developing policies and procedures for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and ensuring they are compliant with national requirements.
- Quality Assurance and Case Review - responsible for monitoring the effectiveness of work done to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and for reviewing cases where a child has died or has been seriously harmed in circumstances where abuse or neglect is know or suspected, and advising on the lessons that can be learned;
- Training - responsible for undertaking an annual training and development needs analysis, developing a training strategy and delivering a programme of multi-agency training to meet the identified needs
In addition, the MSCB Child Death Overview Panel - (which became statutorily operational in April 2008), is responsible for reviewing all deaths of children aged 0-18 years resident in Medway at the time of their death, to identify patterns or trends and consider how such deaths might be prevented in the future. It is chaired by the Director of Public Health.
