Children and Education Scrutiny Sub-Committee - Monday 20 October 2025, 6:30pm - Tower Hamlets Council webcasts

Children and Education Scrutiny Sub-Committee
Monday, 20th October 2025 at 6:30pm 

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Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Children's Education and Scrutiny meeting.
My name is Kansel Abdoumenan. I'll be the chair in the meeting.
During the meeting, please raise your hand when you want to speak.
And when I give the permission, please speak on my direction.
Those who are online, please use your right hand thing on the computer so I can see your hand being raised.
If you want to ask questions, when you're not speaking, please put your microphone on and mute.
So therefore we all can hear. There will be no interruption.
Apologies, just from Harun Miah.
Do you have any other apologies?
No chair, no other apologies.
Any members who want to go through, if there is, please just say so now.
Online anybody?
Anybody? No one? Okay.
Our first decision will be performance, sorry, minutes, Justyna.
Can somebody agree on the minutes, please? Anybody or any corrections?
I have given some correction, but anybody want to highlight anything or someone second it, please?
You happy here? Fantastic. Okay.
Moving on to item number one, 4 .1.
Okay.
I'd like to welcome everybody on the panel.
Okay, why not?
Please introduce yourself.
Please, induction.
Can you induction?
Introduce yourself.
It would be nice to get everybody so at least we know who we are.
Hi, my name is Shiv Lumia.
I'm one of the co -op team members.
I'm a Muslim representative. Thank you.
Hi, I'm Jo Hannon.
I'm the diocese of Westminster, a cult C representative.
Good evening everyone.
I'm Councillor Leslie Garmet.
I present the Spirit of Vision, Bongtown Ward.
Daniel Kerr, I'm under the office of support in the screening team.
Thank you.
advice period
and
included
cats
am
The officers are joining you.
Please be seated.
Lisa Fraser, Director of Education.
Susanna Beasley -Murray, Director of Supporting Families.
Stuart Andrews, Head of Service for Family Support Protection, Children with Disabilities and Exploitation.
Nigel Parlous, Designator of Social Care Officer.
James Dodd, Designator of Clinical Officer for SEND in Dal Amelits.
Grace Walker, Head of Integrated Commissioning for Children
Steve, do you want to introduce yourself please?
Evening everyone, sincere apologies I'm not in the room with you this evening, Steve Radicop, Director of Children's Services, thank you.
Thank you Steve.
OK, we will move swiftly, we will add 8, oh sorry, did see.
Councillor Rebecca, do you want to introduce yourself please?
We are now moving to item 4 .1.
I understand the Deputy Mayor is supposed to be here, but maybe it's running late.
We are on a take.
The item has been read for our members.
But from the panel who want to take over, just a brief description of the item and then
we have more time for questioning rather than going through all the slides.
Thank you.
Did you want me to start off?
Is that okay, Justina?
Yeah, one was Steve, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, thank you. So colleagues, I'll be really,
really quick because I know you want to give most of the time over for questions and discussion.
You'll see in the slides today's session on SEND and EHCP specifically, we're going to focus on
the findings from the inspection briefly, then talk about our systems for quality assurance
and timeliness of new EHCPs and reviews, and also talk about how we're strengthening multi -agency
working and we were hopeful that one of our parent carer forum was going to be
able to attend or dial in and give you the sort of parent perspective but we
might may still be able to do that. And the second slide just a reiteration
you've all seen the send inspection report and there's some really positive
feedback in the inspection report you know really proud of all the hard work
everyone's done but equally we accept there's a lot more work to do as well
Specifically around education, health and care plans.
There's a line there around preparing for adulthood,
starting from year nine,
making sure plans reflects the children's health
and social care needs,
making sure amended HCPs are issued
in a consistently timely way.
And also all the young people
with outdated plans are prioritised.
So that's the sort of headlines
of what we're gonna talk about.
And obviously take all your questions about this evening.
and I don't know if any colleagues in the room,
or I know Emma's joined us online,
wanted to say anything about any of the specific slides,
really very briefly.
Over to you, thanks.
Yes, so on slide four,
it details the actions that we took prior to the inspection,
and we were really fortunate to get
a bit of mayoral investment, which supported us to do so.
but we had obviously recognised that we needed to improve timeliness
and there were various things that we did, including taking our EHCP writing in -house
with the aim of improving consistency, reducing delays.
We worked with colleagues across a range of agencies to develop our quality assurance framework.
We also appointed a dedicated SEND worker in the mass to carry out screening for children who are not known to social care.
We are also really fortunate, and he is here with us tonight, to have the designated social care officer Nigel in post as a point of escalation for those one -to -one consultations around EHCPs.
Since the inspection we have developed our joint working further, establishing weekly
advice review meetings between social care, between health and CENAR, accelerating improvements
in terms of annual reviews, focusing very much on training with health colleagues and
focusing on what good advice in the UCP looks like and putting in local authority funding
for Barts to provide speech and language therapy advice for children
up until the end of reception.
So, Emma, do you want to highlight,
from your perspective, aspects around quality assurance?
Absolutely.
So we've put in a new quality assurance framework,
which we are using...
Sorry, can you... Do you mind introducing yourself, please?
Oh, sorry. Yes, of course.
I'm Emma Kinraid. I'm the interim centre service manager.
I'm just going to talk you through a bit about our quality assurance of education, health
and care plans. So we have introduced a new EHCP quality assurance framework and we're
using that to provide a programme of training on quality advice and plan writing. All health
advice is quality assurance by a senior manager before it is submitted, as is all social care
advice. We also quality assure all of our draught plans before they are issued. We had
our first multi -agency audit which focused on the quality of EHC plans and that was attended
by practitioners from across health, education and social care. And we're looking at a scoring
system which will be agreed to grade the different sections of an EHC -P and then we can indicate
compliance with the expected standard. We've also got an EHC -P audit evidence base. It's
in its early stages, but we're going to use those findings to establish a baseline for
the quality of the EHCP documents we issue, as well as to evaluate the preliminary assessment
and annual review processes that accompany them. We're going to use that information
to inform our future improvements to the writing of EHCPs and training for the professionals
that are providing the advice. We've also had a multi -agency audit group, which is across
the education, health and social care systems to look at the quality of assessment support and
provision that's received by a child or young person and their families across the SEND system.
So looking at the impact of our partnership working prior to the inspection we had met three
times and we had had five children selected and reviewed and we looked at areas of good practise
that were identified along with that. We had some good examples of co -production and effective joint
working but had some good areas of learning around our timeliness, information sharing
and access to records. We are going to look at this group and have a scoring system to
grade the impact of support received by children and young people.
In terms of timeliness...
Sorry, carry on please, yeah.
No problems. In terms of timeliness of new EHCPs, the number and proportion of EHCPs
issued within 20 weeks is on the chart that you've got there. For the 2025 calendar year,
January to September, we are at 44 .4 % of all plans issued within 20 weeks. This is 4 .7 %
higher than the 2024 calendar year position for last year, which was at 39 .7%. It's slightly
lower than the 2024 calendar average, but we do have a couple of months to go until
we will be reporting those figures. We've also looked at our timeliness of annual
reviews. So you've got the chart there around the decisions that we're making for our annual
reviews. There are more than 3 ,900 children and young people who've had an EHCP for longer
85 .5 % of those received an annual review in the 2024 -25 academic year.
And that's that most of those annual reviews are carried out by schools and colleges on our behalf and then are submitted to the local authority.
Although children who have elective home education or education other than at school, the local authority carry those out.
The timeliness is higher than reported for Tower Hamlets last year and higher than the
2024 London average.
In terms of oversight of quality and performance, we have weekly senior management meetings
where we review our EHCP progress and we address delays and ensure timely completion within
those. Since the inspection we've also put in weekly advice review meetings between Sennar,
the DCO and the DCSCO to address any issues or delays and escalate where advice has not
been received. The Senned Improvement Board oversees EHCP timeliness and your review data
is going to be in the next iteration of quarterly performance dashboard
and the Senned Multi -Agency Audit Group reports findings regularly to the SIB.
Thank you for your presentations.
Members, anybody want to, any questions to the panel?
Okay, well done.
Anybody else?
Let me take the names.
Anyone else?
Thank you, Chiram.
I release to slide 8.
Why did 15 % of Education, Health and Care Plans not have a review of...
review in 2024 -25 and why did the 12 % of reviews end in no outcomes? Thank you.
So some of the annual reviews that have been held have not been submitted to us yet so
we are in the process of strengthening our reporting of that and chasing those. So we're
contacting the schools and colleges that are responsible for holding those reviews to ensure
that they submit that paperwork to us. So that will be an ongoing process that our team
managers are looking at at the moment and we are putting that together. The ones who've
had no outcome, that could mean that we've quite recently received that annual review,
but we haven't made a decision about what the outcome is yet.
What are the main barriers preventing EHCPs from being issued within the statutory 20 -week
time frame?
Thank you.
It's a really good question.
I mean nationally there is an increase in terms of education, health and care needs
assessments and plans and that does create capacity issues.
We have just finished a round of recruitment where we have recruited more Education, Health and Care Plan coordinators to try and assist us with that.
There is also the issues around advice coming in late.
So we're working really closely with our partners in health and social care and our educational psychologists to work on making sure that the advice comes in in a timely manner.
Thank you.
And, Hasan, please, do you want to throw your question to the panel?
Thank you for your presentation.
My question is similar to Councillor, regarding EHCPs.
How are the local authorities addressing the backlog and outdated EHCPs for older and young
people?
Also, do you have any mechanisms in place to ensure that amended EACPs are issued promptly?
Thank you.
We have recently introduced more updated reporting suites for our educational health and care
plans and also our annual review so that we can track the annual reviews as they come
through.
We're putting together a plan in terms of looking at those outdated plans and making
sure that at the next annual review we have everything we need to be able to amend those
and update them.
Thank you. Do these reports or data get audited by any chance?
They do. So the data comes through and our performance team support us with that. But
they are also live data that we look at and we report in, in terms of how the annual reviews
are being processed and looking at the outcomes from those annual reviews.
Should also mention the status reports to the SEND Improvement Board, which is a partnership
board with the Parent Carer Forum on and also our DFE advisor sits on that group as well. Thanks.
Please your question.
You know every meeting I always ask about EHCP so this one I'm not going to, you'll
be pleased about.
I'm actually interested in the latter part of the presentation where we talk about the
strengthening multi -agency work in.
There's a number of points there that you're saying that we're going to be achieving
but there's no timelines or any expectations of when these things are going to happen so
I'd just like to have some more information about when are we looking at recruiting and
Where are we with these particular activities, please?
So if I could answer that one.
So following our inspection, we have amended our delivery plan.
So these are actions that come from the delivery plan behind all of this,
the SITS delivery plan that identifies who's responsible and with timelines.
And as we've discussed, it all feeds into the SEND improvement board
who have that tracking and monitoring function.
So hopefully that offers some assurance.
So there will be a timeline for us in the delivery plan for us to see soon, yeah?
So the actions are covered in the delivery plan with timelines, yes.
I have a question for you guys, okay.
On the slide four shows improvement which has been made to speed up assessment of children
for education, health and care plan.
But the recent report on the performance
showed that around half of the request
for assessment are resulting in a completed plan.
Report on the performance showed that around half of the request
has been resulting in a completed plan within the five months
of the statutory deadline.
This means around half the children have not been assessed.
Any reason on this at all, behind it and how the rest of the students will be assessed?
All of the children and young people will be assessed, but some of them don't have their EOCPs within 20 weeks.
we've put together sort of a full performance plan in terms of making sure that any of those that are overdue and that have gone past
their 20 weeks are processed in a timely manner. So working with those professionals who we're perhaps waiting advice for
our making sure that we issue that draught and final as promptly as possible once we've missed that 20 -week deadline.
Emma could we just mention as well the most recent performance is significantly higher so more like 70 %
And could you also say something, Emma, about how we support children and families during
the assessment process as well? Could you just comment on that for us? Thanks.
Yes, absolutely. So in September we were at 67 .1 % for our statutory timescales. We are
somewhere around that at the moment for October, but we don't report until the end of the month
because things do change with those assessments. But our EHCP coordinators make contact with
those families to keep them updated in terms of what support there is available and to
talk them through the processes of the EHC needs assessment.
Any other person?
No?
Should we move on to the next item?
There's everybody happy with their groups and stuff.
Okay, fine.
So, yeah, Phillip.
No, I don't think so, you can't.
Phillip, can you hear us?
I'm content. That was, the timetable was well covered, I thought. Thank you.
Thank you for your presentation and swift answers.
We're going to move on to our next item.
Thank you for coming.
Those who want to leave on this screen were happy to do so.
Thank you.
think.
Lisa, Lisa.
Panel, officers and panel members, can you introduce yourself please?
I know we have introduced ourselves in the before, can you introduce yourself please?
So we can move on to the item.
Hi everyone, my name is Georgia Ramirez.
I'm the Public Health Programme Lead for Maternity in Early Years covering for Katie Cole tonight.
Hi everyone, my name is Jordan Oliver.
I'm a Senior Programme Manager in the Integrated Commission team covering children and people's mental health and emotional wellbeing.
Good evening all, my name is George Chingosho, I'm an interim service director for East London NHS Foundation Trust, providing children at the mental health services in the town of Hamlets.
Hello my name is Julie Proctor, I'm a consultant clinical psychologist and I also work at East London Foundation Trust in the town of Hamlets.
You have met me at Grace Walker, Head of Integrated Commission of Children.
On the webcam, can you introduce please the...
Sorry, who is here? I can't see.
Do you want to introduce yourself, please?
I can share my screen.
Jordan Oliver.
Just to say, Lisa,
apologies,
we had the send item earlier on.
So we have now moved on to the next item,
which is about children's mental health,
but obviously you are welcome to stay to watch that.
Thanks.
Thank you.
OK, we are going to discuss
on the mental health,
the next item on the agenda.
What the children's mental health
and obviously is a big issue with the inner city mental health with children.
So this is where we get to ask a lot of questions.
Whoever wants to do presentation will be nice.
Thank you. Over to you.
Okay, cool. Thank you.
So just to kind of run through the key points of the presentation really,
I think just by way of introduction we understand mental health in children and young people
as a broad range of factors that will influence their kind of experience.
So this first slide just illustrating there's the wider environmental and society level,
the community level, the relationships and then the individual experiences of those.
BCYP is babies, children and young people in NHS language.
So just kind of thinking about the Tower Hamlets context, this is what we think about when
we're shaping and designing services.
So we have increasing numbers of children and young people, a higher than average population
growth.
We take a whole family approach.
More than half of the households have a child under 18 years old, so we can't just look
at children, we look at the wider family around them.
As you've mentioned, there are particular cultural considerations, there's significant
cultural diversity in the children in the borough and then we have ongoing challenges
around recovering from COVID -19 pandemic and then ongoing kind of things around the cost of living
prices which are those environmental effectors that are affecting the kind of health and
mental health and well -being of our children. So in Tower Hamlets, this slide is just a kind of overview
of the experiences of young people according to the data that we have.
So in terms of supporting parents and carers in the perinatal period, we have public health
programmes that kind of work with those cohorts.
So this is lower than we would like in terms of the central government target, but in line
with England.
We have the second highest prevalence of one or more mental health diagnosis for young people in North East London after City and Hackney.
And we have Tower Hamlets residents aged 5 to 19 to have the highest rates of early attendance with self -inflicted injury compared to other age groups.
So that's common across the country. That's not kind of unique to Tower Hamlets that that age group is most affected by that.
In Tower Hamlets we see in our data mixed and white ethnic groups have a higher recorded
prevalence of mental health issues and among male white children is the highest.
And then the age group is significant in terms of those teenagers, they're always the highest
kind of age group that are accessing our services.
So just moving on, the way that we understand services that we are delivering and how we
are responding to local need, we operate this, it's called the Thrive Model, so it's getting
advice, getting help, getting more help and getting risk support.
So this is just by way of illustrating the range of different services that are available
to young people, so getting risk support is obviously the point of crisis for children
and we work as a partnership and as a system to avoid children having to get to that point.
But this is a kind of children are not just, they move between these quadrants throughout
their lives and the support that we can give them and it's reflected under those headings
there.
So we have colleagues here from CAMS today who will be able to speak in more detail and
answer any questions you have about child and adolescent mental health services, but
this is just to kind of give you an overview.
We have a service which is an NHS England funded CAM service.
We also have a local CAMs in social care service and service for children with disabilities,
so that's the wraparound support for our most vulnerable children by way of a pathway into
our CAM services.
services and there's also CAM services just listed there, some specialist pathways around
children with autism, ADHD, eating disorders, learning disabilities. So there's a range
of support just with it over the umbrella of child and adult mental health services.
It's a very highly performing CAM service. There was a Children's Commissioner report
last year which really highlighted East London Foundation Trust as being an area where there
is really excellent practise.
So we, at the moment, we're kind of establishing
a mental health and emotional well -being board locally,
which is currently co -chaired by one of the assistant
directors in East London Foundation Trust
and the director of supporting families here,
where we're looking at this data and just making sure
that everyone is really clear about the performance.
And we kind of understand the expectations
that we have of our CAM services.
So this is just to show at the moment the data showing that over 83 % of our children
are seen within five weeks and the waiting time from assessment to appointment is two
weeks.
So we feel that that's quite positive data.
So just to kind of alongside those camera service we also have support for our children
in schools.
So that is the Tower Hamlets Education Welfare Service.
that sits under our CAM services and there's just a kind of overview of the
kind of the areas that that service works with that I've mentioned CAMS and
Social Care, CAMS Disabled Children's Outreach Service and we also have CAMS
and Youth Justice so for those children who are entering our Youth Justice
Service a dedicated CAMS practitioner who can support them on their journey.
We've just got a couple of slides here with some the voice of our children and
our parents so just to kind of basically be clear with you that we do try and
seek feedback. We have in East London Foundation Trust there is a
participation work stream where we try and get the voice of children young
people to inform the services that are being delivered there and then just on
to parent voice because we are talking about a whole family kind of approach
to the wellbeing and wellness of our children.
So just to kind of quickly go over the assurance of our services,
so East London Foundation Trust is a CQC registered provider,
but in terms of our local understanding of how our services are meeting the needs of our children in particular,
we've just got some quotes that we've picked up there from the Children's Social Care ILACs,
which was in November last year,
and in the more recent SEND inspection,
we had some really encouraging feedback
about the support that our children get
with their mental health and emotional well -being.
And then more recently, well, over the last 12 months,
we've been looking at all that data,
and we've been working with our colleagues
in public health to develop a needs assessment
so that we can create a plan for how we're gonna
kind of move forward and develop our services. Georgia do you want to just give an overview
of that? Thank you.
Yeah, so some of you might know about the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment that Public
Health do, it's a sort of statutory duty and over the past 12 months my team have been
working with Grace and Jordan on a mental health needs assessment for children and young
people, also includes babies and as we said whole family as well so we're going right
back to sort of preconception really in terms of those foundations. So in terms of what
we did to develop that we looked at kind of our local health and care data, some national
data as well, we engaged with local stakeholders, those involved in children and young people's
mental health but also adult mental health because that's obviously a part of a risk
for children. We utilised existing insight that was shared by children and young people.
So there have been, as I'm sure you know, a couple of big consultations over the past
couple of years, one with Young Tower Hamlets, one that happened with Toynbee Hall as well.
So rather than go out and get new insight that we've already just asked those children
about, we used the secondary insights, the stuff that we already had, and then we've
looked at all the policies and evidence base for good public mental health, so national
and regional guidelines but also local insight as well.
So in terms of the priorities, so as Grace said, there's a Children and Young People's
Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing Board,
that board's responsible for delivering
on the aim of the strategy, and the aim of the strategy
to be to implement the THRIVE framework,
but with other kind of key guidance as well.
So in early September, these recommendations
were agreed by that board.
And then later in September, very recently,
those recommendations were reviewed and then ratified
by the Health and Wellbeing Board for Tower Hamlets.
And broadly I'll go through those priorities.
So the first being kind of to sort of get better
at system coordination and integration.
And that's ensuring that we sort of strengthen collaboration,
make sure those pathways are really clear,
embed our sort of prevention mode of support,
and that goes all the way back to sort of health visiting
and maternity services.
The second priority was really to develop
and implement a sort of communication approach that was inclusive, went across the whole system
and that was sort of consistent, accessible and coordinated across partners. We also kind of said
what we would need to do as a system is improve our data quality. We can't always tell how
accessible services are, how good the experiences of families using those services are, so we really
want to understand that because that will then tell us how we might want to improve which leads
to the next recommendation about addressing inequity in interventions and what we mean
by that is precisely that they're accessible for everyone, that the experience is good
for everyone and the quality of service is good for everyone regardless of their background.
And lastly we want to maximise the impact of all the participation work and co -production
work that we do with children and their families.
So one thing we noted through the needs assessment that we're not always very good as a system
at sharing that learning and then you kind of duplicate that effort six months later
another team will, when really we could be sharing that and kind of improving those services
with the information we have rather than keep going out.
And I think for our side today with these priorities we'd really welcome some steer
from members on what's the first thing to prioritise really, recognising that we can't
do everything all at once.
Thank you.
Thank you for your presentation.
I have a question to the panel, please.
My question is, what steps have I been taking to improve the access to mental health service
for children from a culturally diverse background?
And second question, follow up on that, which you may have answered at the same time.
How is the bar addressing the lack of culture tailored to mental health communication and
service delivery?
Sorry, could you repeat the question, Chair?
What steps have been taken to improve access to the mental health service for children
from culturally diverse backgrounds?
And second question is, how is the borough addressing the lack of culture tailoring in
mental health, communication and service delivery.
Thank you, so I can speak from a provider perspective.
I'm sure these are the perspectives that are probably wider
but certainly within East London, ELFs,
there are projects that we call quality improvement projects
that we've been testing out.
I'm thinking what's coming to mind is focused work with the Somali community in
in Tawa Hamlets to really try and understand their experience of services
and what gets in the way of accessing services and learning from some work
that we've done in our adult services for example work around depression with
Bengali women and really tailoring the interventions towards certain specific
groups particularly appreciating the role of faith and religion into what is
traditionally westernised, manualized treatment approaches and really bringing
what matters to people and you know the role of religion and identity into
therapy. So we are doing and testing some work around that and we're
being early signs of success, which we hope to scale up in different groups across Tawa Hamlets.
I just wanted to add as well that we also have cultural advocates that work within our service
who are actually very highly skilled professionals
in their own right that work alongside our CAMS clinicians,
like myself, to work and support with families.
Not only the families that get referred in,
but also thinking about how to engage families outside that
perhaps maybe have not wanted to come through the door.
And that they can be the first protocol
to explain what it's about.
and to be able to, and in their language and things like that.
So we're very fortunate in Tower Helmets, we've had the cultural advocates working for quite a number of years
and very successfully.
So, and we don't, we would like to replicate that in other boroughs in fact because it is such a good service.
So at any point you wanted to have more information about the work that they do, we can certainly share that too.
Just to add specific to communication needs, I think we traditionally use interpreters
whenever possible, but we are actually taking that a step further because we use what is
called language line and sometimes the quality of the interpretation is not really good and
we are working on a project to actually use our workforce and people that work in services
to provide that function because we've tried elsewhere within our organisation and it works
and we want to bring it to support the work that we do with children and young people
in our hamlets.
Okay next is, sorry, Dr Phillips, do you want to come along on this please?
Thank you chair.
I always, my ears pick up when I hear about the school attendance variable.
And again, I've heard it this evening, but I haven't heard very much as to how it is playing into mental health and emotional wellbeing.
And I wonder if what is happening and what can be said programme wise.
Thank you.
I think
if you kill for your question, I mean, we've
definitely, this is nationwide, since post
COVID, there's been a certain increase in the
number of young people not attending schools.
And we've had to be flexible in our
approaches and learn from each other.
A lot of we're focusing on what we call
emotionally based school avoidance and thinking
about what the barriers to education for some
young people are.
That means that they don't get the pull to
come into the school.
into school and engage in mainstream sports.
So our THUS team, this is one of the core aspects of the work
that they provide within the schools.
So they're constantly, rather than seeing
non -attendance as bad behaviour, it's
trying to understand underneath what might be happening.
And often it's emotionally based school avoidance because of,
there's no, some of the young people
say there's no sense coming to school because life is not
going to get better for me, or trying
to understand what might be going underneath as to why
their behaviour is.
And we've got set approaches and interventions
to support the school, and the child, and the family,
because it needs all of them together to be
able to make the improvements.
Probably just with connecting it to the Thrive model.
If the preventative work hasn't really worked as well,
and people end up getting risk support and probably end up in our inpatient services.
We also have school provision there so that children don't miss out on education because they've gone into an inpatient mental health hospital.
So even though the school is not based in Tower Hamlets, we admit children from Tower Hamlets and they can attend the school.
Just to elaborate on that as well in terms of the crisis response, I think there is something
around our young people who are admitted to acute mental health settings or might be at
risk of admission to acute mental health settings, especially those who might have a learning
disability or be autistic. So we work really closely with our SEND colleagues, education
colleagues and social care colleagues to make sure that we really wrap around those young
people and think about the barriers to access and support and making sure that our young
people get what they need as part of the community offer where possible and try and be as a
as flexible as we can with that support.
So there's a, obviously we've got this specialist offer,
but there is a real appetite of working together
in the community to deliver for our young people as well.
Thank you.
Ashraf, can you hear us?
Oh yeah, I can.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you.
Okay.
Thank you, Chair.
Can I go back in terms of how closely does CAMS work with the school admission team in the borough
in regards to children who are moving schools and in particular the year six
students who transition into secondary schools and is there any data around
mental health issues that you know because as a result of children who miss
their first choices when it comes to going into secondary school and say
It happens every year where children from year six where the kids end up going to school, which is different from say their friends in the same class.
And so is there any data around issues that as a result of those children who end up going,
who you know, are sent to a school which is probably second, third and fourth on their application?
Thank you.
I'm not sure that we collect that data from CAM's perspective.
I don't know whether there's any feedback systems through school about how children
feel that they cope.
We certainly have, separate to that but related, transition support programmes.
So young people, particularly those who may have education health care plans or the primary
schools are identifying them as perhaps being vulnerable to managing the transition, working
quite directly with the schools and thinking about approaches to support the transition.
So that definitely is in place.
But I'm sorry I can't answer the question about when children don't get their preferences.
I haven't, I'm not aware of that specifically, I'm sorry.
Is there any work that can be done?
It would be interesting to find out because I know locally I've come across a few cases in my practise where I work in primary care.
I have come across and just generally have heard a few things.
It would be interesting to know what kind of data is out there and on the back of that.
and I guess if there is a greater uptake of the services provided by SCANs
on the back of this, it would be interesting to know if there is any planned work,
engagement that can be made with the school admission,
I don't know what else can be done, if you don't have that data or if there is something,
I don't know if that is something that can be brought back.
I can certainly take that away with the education team and our admissions team.
That's not a problem.
Thank you, Steve.
Thank you, Steve.
Now I'm coming to the panel on the ... Mr Saluk Ahmed, do you want to come along on this?
Yeah, thank you, sir.
I've got your first question, a similar kind of question, but at a different angle.
It's mentioned here like culturally and linguistically diverse, which is designing mental health and wellbeing activities.
I just wanted to clarify this.
Is there a room, because the children are 18,
if you're talking about, are they really have this issue
for language issue that you have to overcome
or you have to take into account culturally and understand?
Yeah, they do.
they may have but what was the main thing that stands out culturally
and is there any language barriers within these kids because they're supposed to be,
and I mean it's my knowledge they're supposed to understand English better than the mother tongue.
they usually live with their parents but they find it really difficult to speak their own language,
I mean their parents' language, but how often do you find that difficult to say?
I suppose I agree that majority of the children, young people themselves, probably speak and
understand English very well, but I suppose the work that we do a lot of the times involves
working with families to support some of the therapeutic initiatives whilst at home.
So I think the majority of the work might be about working with the families that support
the young people that are using our services.
That's where we probably tend to use a lot of the interpreters and find that maybe language
translation is probably necessary.
but in the main majority of the children, young people speak English.
When we're talking about cultural issues, the ones that I've definitely come across
relate to possible stigma that people experience and maybe young people talking about,
for example, if you are thinking about a young person having an eating disorder, for example,
and from communities where maybe eating disorders are probably not understood much in the same way as they are understood in western communities,
to navigate that and provide an intervention for an eating disorder might require a lot of work with the family, for example,
to kind of accept the problem and accept some of the interventions on offer.
I hope that that got some way to answering the question.
Yes, kind of. I'm just struggling to understand, especially because when it's mentioned here,
and you're seeing the majority of the children again,
And is there, I mean if you say, Mr. Ritchie, what percentage with the language barrier?
Sorry, I don't have that data with me here, but if it's something that people want, we can have a look in terms of percentages.
But I don't have that data.
For now, it is Hassan, is it?
Sorry, it's Shubu.
Sorry, Councillor Shubu.
Everyone, who are you to go?
Hi, everyone.
One of my, I've got a few questions, actually.
One of them is that I was dealing with a case recently, and it's unfortunate the individual
is no longer with us but and as a young person and that when I was working with
the family one thing we found out that the person was referred the individuals
referred to children's mash or I think that's what it's called the school
referred the individual to mash five six years ago when he was in school but the
parents had no knowledge of that. So is there something that we as a local authority that
can do to have maybe better dialogue within multi different agencies and have you come
across something like this? I've got other questions as well.
It sounds like that's a question about the front door of children's social care rather
about mental health so I just would like to clarify this. This initially came up
when I was working with family to get the person sectioned so this is where
these questions I had thinking about prior to coming here having to work with
Because the family didn't realise that the person was having psychosis issues,
whilst he was in school.
So, and there was a few years gap.
So if families knew that their child was going through, let's just say, certain episodes,
What can we as a local authority do better to notify parents that these are happening
in terms of mental health, let's just say?
I'm happy to have a great answer. I think there are bits of legislation that come into
play particularly when the Mental Health Act is being considered or being used. And depending
on the age of the young person as well in terms of, you know, if they're 16 and over,
then capacity legislation kicks in and we have to think about are they capacitous enough.
Even when they're younger, we have to think about killing competencies, are they of an
age to make a decision themselves about whether or not we get the family involved. We have
to make the decision alongside the young person because one of the things that comes up is
as a probably a driver away from services is not carefully navigating that bit about
what do we tell the families and how do we bring the young people along in that conversation
in a supportive way so that they don't just go home and their parents have found out something
that the young person was trying to keep secret. So it's a challenging area and the bits of
legislation can further complicate that but we certainly recognise that it requires a
of sensitivity so specifically to answer your question I think there's an awful
sort of educating our communities and what people participation team recently
did a piece of work around what does consent mean and we think it's a really
good product that can be used to promote issues around consent and capacity and
probably engage families around that work so I think education around these
things would be really really key because we don't want to lose the
relationship with the young person by what they would consider a breach of confidence if we if we just go against their wishes
And I'll just keep it relatively
Two more questions. So one of them is if some a young person is registered already with you
What support are there for the families who?
I understand you have visitors come in, cheque up on them, but on the individuals who are
going through, let's just say mental health, struggling with mental health, but what actual
support are there for families?
And the other question I have is what are we also doing as a local authority to, as
some of the taboos that we have in certain communities within town helmets where they
think they will say this person is possessed rather than an actual mental health issue,
what are we doing to break those taboos?
So, do you mind repeating your first question again?
Oh, support from FLAMS, okay, sorry.
So our CAM service works, we say it's child and adolescent mental health, but in many ways we are a family service really.
I mean, there are very few young people that we would work with in isolation, particularly young people presenting with more severe mental health problems
Because particularly if young people are the parents
of young people and the young person
has quite significant needs, we may also
speak with our local authority partners
to think about care as assessments.
So it would be very unusual for us
to work with young people in isolation,
because we know that a lot of the interventions moving
forward would be to work with the parents as a part of that.
So there may be some young people for consent reasons,
they've asked for their families not to be involved, but where possible we often say
even if you don't want them involved in all of this we might need them to come to some
parts of it because you're still living in the home and we want to make sure that the
best support there is available for you and not, yeah, because you're not independent
yet. So I think we have described before we are a whole family service really and the
interventions are there. So in terms of the second question. So I think it's what the
council are doing around de -stigmatising mental health and things like that. So we've got
I suppose from the very youngest in public health we have perinatal mental health. Do
you have anything that you want to say about that in particular? Yeah go on, go on Georgia.
So yeah, so there's a number of things I think are going on from the sort of perinatal mental
health side, so obviously starting as early as we possibly can. We have a sort of counselling
and support service that is kind of culturally appropriate and also language appropriate
as well. That's the first side and that's quite early on. With our other commission
services, so big services like health visiting that see all families. We had an evaluation
done a couple of years ago which told us precisely kind of what you're saying, that actually
staff aren't very confident to challenge those kind of taboos when they're having conversations
with families. So in recommissioning that service this year, that's something that we've
included as a sort of requirement of every member of staff in the service to have gone
through that training, cultural competence training, so not being competent in another
culture but being competent to work with people from other cultures who may have as you say
sort of deeply held beliefs about where a mental health problem might be coming from
that will be different to our understanding. So that's the other thing we've done at least
for nought to fives and for families is to start those conversations very early, as early
as we can really.
And just to add on to that,
and have you considered working with
like faith -based organisations
and other cultural organisations
that may be around in the borough,
like for example in the Bangladesh community
or the Somali community and other organisations
that may hold or work in partnership with the team?
So our perinatal mental health steering group includes VCS partners from across the board
including WIT and Sister Circle for example.
And then I suppose the next phase of what we want to do is partner precisely as you
say with community venues, faith settings.
So we would like to start getting baby clinics in mosques for example and normalise I guess
our way of thinking about things as well, if that makes sense.
Thank you, Chair.
I've got a few questions if time allows.
If not, then we'll drop you.
First of all, a small question. Do we have any data? How many
of the mental health needs in primary care at the moment are Hamlet's?
The data, how many in the number?
How many were there?
Sorry, can you repeat that?
Do you have the recorded mental health data in primary care currently in the hamlets?
How many is recorded on your system in primary care?
In primary care, so you mean in GP primary care settings?
Yes.
We don't have that data but we can have a look and see if it's possible to get...
Just basically I had to find all of this and it looks like significantly slower than national
So this is where my question is, like, are we missing on something?
Are we missing on recording and establishing the communication gaps?
I'm hearing from colleagues as well.
There are the communication gaps, pathways, like, identified that do not, they do not
understand the roles of the pathways.
For example, the coordination may be not collaborated equally to other departments, for an example,
between education, camps and voluntary sectors.
Is there a gap where the data is missing or referrals are missing and then it gets missed
out and then obviously after four, five, six years it goes on and child obesity and when
you're talking about inclusion, obviously family oriented you're saying if there is
a communication and if your data is missing and the report also highlights the lack of
mental and culturally tailoring mental communications, which is quite important, then how do you
actually ensure that it's actually everything is inclusive, we're not missing one part and
we are just following whatever is coming on the table really without any data. Because
at the moment I can't see any data in here to say okay we missed X amount and we don't
have any data, how do we ensure that everything can be inclusive?
So we do have data around CAMS, children who are referred into CAMS, we have data around
children who are accessing our Tohamish educational welfare service through schools, so we do
have some information about children who are accessing the service.
Understanding the need is more complicated and I think that one of the recommendations
coming out of the JSNA is to open up conversations about how we understand that we work in a
system where there are a lot of different, as you say, there are a lot of different organisations
capturing a lot of different things. There's some things around how do we even define what
mental health is when we're talking about data. So we look at CAMs, CAMs have particular
thresholds, community organisations, they might be running a mental health and wellbeing
session with mothers and babies, so we're talking about a very different type of service
that we're offering and a different kind of need that we're addressing.
So I think we're really clear about the complexity of that and how we need to come together as
a system to kind of understand what that need is, which is why we're kind of, that's one
of the key aims of the JSNA really in terms of us thinking how we're going to work differently.
but I think we do have some data and I think that there's sometimes,
we try and kind of go into schools and talk to children there,
we try and meet them in our most vulnerable children in our camps,
in social care, our youth justice, so we go where we can
in terms of understanding what children need, but yeah, it's always a challenge.
Thank you for that.
But your report, I'm sorry I couldn't understand properly in here, your report says in here
they do not understand fully each other's role and referral pathways.
So how do you ensure that mechanisms are being developed or improved across coordination
and information as well between say education, camps and voluntary sectors.
It's in the report itself and says do not fully understand each other's role.
So if they don't understand how do they ensure that it's being coordinated, the information
has been sharing between partners equally, it's not repeated and it's not missed.
Thank you.
Yeah, I mean I suppose to reiterate that is what we're kind of trying to do as part of
the, so the Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing Board that we've established in Tower Hamlets
is between providers, it's between education colleagues are there, substance misuse charities
that we commission are there, we have children's social care present, we have public health
present, so we're trying to convene where we can, the relevant professional network
so that we can address some of those findings, because we accept the findings of the JSNA
that we always have more work to do.
I don't think it's perhaps as bleak as it might read.
I think there are some real strengths in the system.
But that is our mechanism at place now.
We're using that board to try and pull together our networks and prevent that kind of siloed
working.
In addition, there's a lot of work happening in the NHS at the moment around delivering
the 10 -year plan and delivering integrated neighbourhoods.
So really thinking more about how a real local level providers are working with children
and their families to understand what their need is and meet them where they're living.
So that will kind of really help us to understand what the really local bespoke offers are that
we know are available.
You speak about, for example, different faith groups or different voluntary sector organisations
that sometimes when we're in the council we can feel quite far away.
So there's a lot of work happening in the NHS around like really going to residents.
So I think in terms of future planning, we have an awareness that we need to do that.
But I think we have the right things in place to progress that work.
Rebecca, do you want to come along?
Sorry, I'll come to Joanna.
So, I think you last let me give her a chance.
Joanna, you want to come along please?
I'll come to you.
So given that demand is expected to rise,
how are you preparing to start looking at the needs of the children and young people?
But also, are there any plans existing at the moment
and how you are planning to fill these gaps?
So one of the really important focuses, I guess,
is early intervention and prevention where possible,
so that we don't end up in our main specialist camp service,
having more and more children come through our services.
So there is a commitment over the next few years
to continue to expand the mental health support
teams, so the THUS teams.
So they will be expecting to be expanding
to be able to have more early intervention in every school,
basically.
College and other kind of educational settings,
as well as also providing support
where they can to fund for some children for whatever reason
that aren't in...
So I suppose through the Thrive model, we're trying to think not just about how we're going
to support young people with significant mental health, because we've got some services to
do that, but we want to downstream and we want to make sure that our education colleagues,
school, how the community is in a position that we're all working together to support
young people and that they don't have to wait to come up to see somebody like me for example.
So I would be potentially involved in doing consultations with colleagues in social care
etc to be able to help meet the needs earlier on and not everybody needs therapy, I'll be
honest that's the other thing.
Sometimes it's about good access to the relationships that you're with and sometimes it's actually
about empathising that sometimes people's situations are really, they are really difficult
and they're facing lots of struggles and supporting them at that point rather than waiting and
thinking that everybody needs to see a therapist. So that's another part of it.
Yeah we have obviously as you all know things like we have a lot of investment in our youth
services so Young Tower Hamlets is an opportunity where we're talking about relationship building
and creating kind of opportunities for children to kind of have good quality rewarding relationships
and positive activities. That's one thing there's work in the council going on around
resident hubs and helping families to think about the cost of living issues that they're
experiencing. So there are a wide variety of things happening in the council that kind
of to put that support in place for families. So we have like I said we've got the young
to our hamlets and then there's the family's first social care reforms which is really
looking to work doing that early intervention work and really putting the emphasis there
in the system rather than when families are reaching those crisis points. So those are
the things that are happening over the next 12 months which I think is the council addressing
and wider reforms addressing some of these issues.
Rebecca, please.
Thank you so much for your presentation.
It was really useful, you know, so many questions that you answered thoroughly.
So I have got about the mental issue, you know, we know that many of our community like
Somali, Bangladeshi, there are so many multi -communities whose parents are struggling with mental health
with their children. As a local authority, how can you be addressed the mental health crisis among youth?
if you can explain me more about this, also given the high levels of need among the age group, I would say like 0 to 16,
so what plans are in place to expand provision for this age group? Thank you.
I mean we've spoken a bit about the different things that are coming upstream in terms of
a focus on earlier intervention and creating communities of support for children and their
families.
The data is showing that actually it's the kind of older teenagers who are accessing the more specialist support.
So we would expect to see that reducing as we put in more early intervention services for children and their families.
So it's that kind of wraparound support for them while they're younger.
we have in Young Tower Hamlets we have things like we fund a transitions programme so for
children who are going from primary to secondary school it's a theatre group where they do
work together and it's open to children in that age group so when they're reaching their
secondary school age they feel well supported and they have their community around them
and their peers to support them. So we have programmes like that to help kind of hold those
children at those significant points in their lives that can be quite challenging.
So why is the, I mean, time frame, if someone has got like mental issues, so why is the
time frame you can give the assurance to the parents?
So we have data around access to CAM services, which is the colleague sitting here.
So we have data that we look at at our Children and Mental Health Board, which is showing
that at the moment the data is a child will be seen within five weeks or less if they're
referred into CAM services.
Thank you so much.
Can I get the mic?
Hi guys. I just wanted to ask a question of reading some of your data here
about your highest prevalence is mixed and white ethnic,
I believe.
So I wanted to ask, why is that?
Is that because of some of the stigma around people,
ethnic group that probably not coming out more?
And if they're not, how are you tackling that?
You mentioned some of the stuff working with community
and I get it, but obviously, do you think that,
like obviously that's been an issue since forever, I think.
and why is it that mixed and white ethnic groups have more comfortability to come out and declare themselves to and seek the help?
So we don't know for sure, there's no sort of smoking gun to tell us, but we suspect
it's partly cultural in the sense that it's more normal I guess for white people culturally
to go to the GP and say I've got some problems and that may be less usual I guess for other
communities. Other communities may also go to kind of faith leaders for support rather
than a medical professional and hence that would affect prevalence recording as well
because obviously we only record prevalence in sort of medical services.
So going back to your first slide where you listed down the reasons for things and I can
understand if you can't answer this because it's quite broad.
What is the most common one that you experience coming into our service from youth?
So we have quite high prevalence of sort of your what we would call common mental disorders
so anxiety, depression and as I think it's elsewhere in the presentation we also have
quite high rates of people being admitted at AME for self -injury, self -harm. As far as I'm aware
there are kind of our top ones if you like, but colleagues in CAMS may also have a view on
kind of what's more common I guess in your services. I guess since the pandemic the complexity
of what people present with has changed and sort of increased.
At the moment we see a lot of people on what we would call the eating disorder pathway.
I mean probably more than we used to.
I don't know whether it's because people are speaking up more or whether it's representative of increased need
but definitely most services, most providers and commissioning colleagues are thinking about how do we prepare ourselves
for eating disorders and disordered eating and what that looks like in our community.
Thank you. Sorry, I understand all of that. What I'm trying to say is like in regards to,
I know you provide ad hoc support when they come and seek help, are you doing anything to
target the root cause to educate people? Of course you don't know if someone's going to
symptoms in terms of education so like we've got a lot of I'm sure
you've got quite a high number of care leavers or children's homes and that's
not family support but are you targeting them how are you educating the workers
there and follow on support. So with our care leavers we have a bespoke mental
health and emotional well -being offer for them so it's a it's a difficult time
because not only are those young people kind of moving on in terms of the support they're
getting from their social workers but also they're transitioning into adult social care.
So we've got a piece of work at the moment around transitions for those young people.
So for example with CAMS they will no longer be eligible for CAMS support so thinking about
how we make sure that there's still support in place for those young people.
So there's a board at the moment that's chaired by Susanna from Supporting Families and by her counterpart in adult social care to kind of really understand what the service is for those young people and how they can kind of maintain that support.
For our children and youth justice who are another vulnerable group, we have a dedicated cameras worker there who can work with those young people and has connexions to camera services as well.
So there's that kind of, they're able to access those more specialist pathways if they need them.
And then we've got the Cams and Social Care offer for those children who aren't Child Protection Plan,
so that, whose families require a lot of support.
I was just going to comment quickly.
NHS England launched something called PCREF, which is sort of Patient Care Race Equality Framework,
which places certain statutory obligations on providers or trusts that
provide mental health support to really think about improving the experience of
racialized or minority communities in terms of their access and experience of
being in mental health services and obviously we are part of that framework
and we're reporting to NHS England in terms of our initiatives and our thinking
So there's a lot of work going in, in different localities based on the demographics and what our data suggests.
In terms of, you know, we sort of draw comparisons between the populations of maybe children and young people,
sort of the global population and how many people are accessing services, trying to understand whether there are any communities that we're not reaching out to.
And some of it through sort of working together with colleagues and partners, we can pick up challenges.
So recently we were invited by our adult colleagues to a conversation with the Somali community
because there had been an increase in the number of people that had completed suicide
in the adult population and there was an appetite to get into that space and think about mental
health for those communities, including children.
So some of it, that's how we reach some of the communities.
Anybody else?
You announced a supplementary question.
Thanks, Chair.
I'm just following up what the Council was asking.
Do we know the data of what percentage of camps referral has been assessed within five
weeks, as you said?
I think it was 83%.
87%.
Thanks.
It's 87%.
So what do you do with the rest of what, do you have the timeframe, what the remaining
13 % what timeframe do you complete the assessment, also the children those are mid to moderate
needs may not meet the requirements or to refer to be CAMS and the threshold, what do
you do, what support do they get?
and how to do that.
I will just speak to the pre -CAMS
offer.
On the Thrive quadrant slide
it shows all the different
offers available in the
community.
We have some really good voluntary
care sector colleagues working
across
the outreach and step forward.
They also work
alongside CAMS as well so they are
really familiar with the pathways
of CAMS and what is their
responsibilities and how to
refer into CAMS as well.
I will not
read out that Thrive
slide to you.
That should be
That shows all of the different kinds of offers available in the borough leading up to and
including the CAHN's offer.
Thanks for that.
On accountability, I was going to ask, the report says that co -production insights from
children and families are not always shared system -wide.
So how will the Council ensure that young people's voices meaningfully shaped have been
taking account for future service design delivery evaluation and across the mental health programme.
I think that's similar to the data conversation earlier as well, like utilising the Mental Health Emotional Wellbeing Board
and really utilising all of the core production spaces that we already know happen, like Cam has explained,
there's a really strong people participation role there, but there's also lots of other people participation
and core production work across the borough.
So it's making sure that we're working in a really coordinated way.
And likewise when we spoke to the data perspective, I don't think it's as bleak as what it reads.
Obviously we've included the slides here around children, young people voice and parent voice,
and there is some really, really strong narrative coming out.
But yeah, we've got lots of information available to us, so it's how we come together to allow
that to inform our services moving forward as well.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you everyone. Thank you for the panel.
Thank you for coming over today and giving presentation.
There's a lot of questionings from everyone.
And you're free to go.
And thank you for coming again.
So, yeah.
All it is is that at the EHCP questioning when I asked Lisa Fraser, she spoke about
this one, about the delivery plan and I've checked, there's nothing in this agenda or
agenda pack. There's nothing in the last one either and there's nothing online either about our delivery
online. The only one that's on there is the, sorry there was a word for it and I can't find it now,
I did have it, but it's the the key findings and that and what we plan to do. There's not a delivery
plan and a time scales which was what Lisa said was in the delivery plan. Can we have a copy of
delivery plan please so that we're able to see. The only one that comes up on the website is the
Special Educational Needs Disability and Inclusion Strategy. So Steve is it possible to have a copy
please? Yeah absolutely, what we did was we took the delivery plan from the new strategy
and we've updated it with the findings of the inspection and we're sharing that with the DFE
now for their sign off and then we'll send it to yourself straight away as soon as the DFE have
signed off, which I'm fairly sure they will do. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. Lisa, welcome. Do you have any comment? I know you came late on our first item.
Oh, she's gone.
Is she gone?
She's gone.
Thank you.
I wasn't sure that our webcam would be working today.
No, it was a big worry.
So it did work.
Thank you for your contribution, Sir Dr. Phillips and Steve as well.
Thank you.
We are swiftly going to move into our AOB.
Anybody has got anything you want to say AOB?
I have got some thing on AOB.
Before I carry on, anybody want to come out AOB? Anything?
I did register at the last meeting about the update on the guidelines on ROC. I think it's been published.
Sorry, can I answer this? I believe, and I think Steve you can confirm this, that the details from the Department for Education on religious
section education has been released in was it in June or sometime can you confirm that
because I did find the details online and I believe I sent it to you Hassan so I just
wanted to make sure that that was the correct information.
Yeah I don't think they've been amended but we'll recirculate them to this committee and
we can take any questions at the next committee certainly.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
Thank you Steve.
I'm gonna make, I will see if you guys
will support me on a statement about
the mental health related to school bullying.
Steve, I think that I have spoke to you three weeks ago,
but let me materialise.
One other thing I would like to say,
we must all take issue of children being bullied
in the school very seriously,
which we know that is an uptrend in inner cities, not just in the Hamblet.
Many of us know children that have been bullied are our children,
or the children of our family members or friends.
Bullying affects children's mental health very seriously,
and they're able to realise their full potential in school.
So one of the things workshops we would like, I would like them to carry out is to carry out the student review
on the bullying in the primary and secondary school. I would like to review to include the following if it is possible.
At least one fact finding visit to primary school and secondary school as well.
but the test of review, anti -bullying, Steve, is possible on that.
Get a calculation and discuss among our head teachers if it's possible.
And the suggestion from the panel, what do you think on this?
Because I have also spoken to one of the envoys,
and he is overall heading the government sector,
and he said there is an uptrain in the cities.
It is bullying related to mental health issues.
So that is one of the things I would like to do
if you guys agree on this to outreach on this.
So open to the panel.
Yeah, no, I agree.
Happy to share it with you. I think we should...
Please Tim, did you get to hear me?
Yes, thank you chair.
I was just going to say that I think it's a good opportunity to collect evidence of
good work as well and share good practise.
And just as an anecdote, I've been visiting a couple of schools recently and speaking
to a couple of headteachers, some of those issues relate to contact on mobile phones
and things said on mobile phones and on social media. So I guess that will be something interesting
to include, you know, is how much of the bullying happens, you know, almost outside of school
with messaging and things said online, which is what headteachers have said there's been
a large rising. But I think it'd be really helpful to collate evidence of things that
work well and also importantly hear from our young people and what they think about bullying
and what they think is helpful. And finally, I guess from a school's perspective, it will
be good for us to look at ways that the wider partnership, the council, health, other people,
the police everyone could support schools in tackling it as well thanks.
Steve for your input, can you be in the panel want to say anything or otherwise?
Sorry just to add I think Steve made some very very good points chair so I look forward to seeing
those developments.
Thank you, Dr. Phillips.
Okay, so Daniel, you got the, yeah, so we're going to start hopefully this year and whatever
time that we get some sort of answers to it.
Thank you everyone for coming today.
Really appreciate for your support, okay, and see you next time.
Thank you.
End of meeting.
Webcast Finished - 1:34:53
Thank you, chat.
Thanks, everyone.
Thank you.