Chamber and committees

Thefindings of the independent Process Review evaluation are:

Documentary analysis evidencedthe extent of discussion with, and involvement of, a range of stakeholders throughoutthe CPRP (Child Protection Reform Programme).

Children and young people inDundee have developed a resource pack about the Children’s Charter – “Charterman”- as part of an Enterprise in Education challenge. The pack explains the key messagesof the charter in a manner accessible to children and young people.

Before child protection training,social workers in adult settings expressed anxiety about making a mistake, describedfeelings of being overwhelmed, and indicated the need for clarity about their rolesand responsibilities.

Media coverage tended to focuson adult offending and substance misuse and few explicit links were drawn betweensystems to tackle these and the CPRP; however, concepts relating to the CPRP werecovered in the context of local authority and health board initiatives.

There was an overwhelming consensusthat the CPRP has been successful in meeting its aims and objectives and has leadto improvements at a national and local level.

Respondents noted increased publicand professional awareness of children’s needs for care and protection.

All sub-projects of the CPRPwere influential; the Framework for Standards’ and guidance for CPCs tended to besingled out as particularly important.

Much of the success so far wasattributed to the extensive work and commitment put in by staff, at all levels inall key agencies, in taking the national policy agenda forward locally.

The majority of respondents bothagreed that practice to safeguard the welfare of children had improved (71%), andthat policy had improved (75%); nearly two-thirds (62%) agreed that practice changeswere for the better for children; two-thirds agreed (66%) that policy changes were.

Of the 166 who had heard of theCPRP two-thirds (65%) agreed with the aims and 80% felt that it built on good practice.

Whether professionals had specificallyheard of the CPRP or not, they were clearly aware of changes in policy and practiceand were largely in support of the direction of change.

In both the survey and focusgroups professionals described significant improvements in the amount of awareness,information sharing and joint working; they considered that there had been a risein a sense of shared responsibility for identifying the unmet needs of childrenand helping to meet those needs.

In the survey and in focus groupsthere was a strongly expressed view that increased awareness had lead to an increasedworkload for all professions and that this had impacted on resources.