Agenda item

To provide an update of the Brent Children’s Trust (BCT) work programme covering the period April 2021 to September 2021.

Gail Tolley (Strategic Director Children and Young People, Brent Council) introduced the report, which provided an update of the BCT work programme covering the period April 2021 to September 2021. She advised that the Brent Children’s Trust fed in to the Health and Wellbeing Board as a statutory requirement, and ensured that the needs of children and young people had a strong profile in Brent.

The Trust had focused on transitional safeguarding with some good close working with Community Wellbeing colleagues and health partners. A report on transitional safeguarding had been presented to the Brent Safeguarding Adults Board that week. Children’s mental health and wellbeing had also been a focus, particularly during the pandemic, and Gail Tolley advised that there had been good synergy between the Trust and the Integrated Care Partnership on that work. Support for children with SEND was a priority for the Trust and Gail Tolley expressed that she was pleased with the launch of the Brent SEND Strategy 2021-2025, which had been endorsed by Councillor Stephens (Lead Member for Schools, Employment and Skills, Brent Council), and parents and children at the Learning Zone. The Strategy and the work being done on Education Health Care Plans (EHCPs) had been shared with the Department for Education (DfE) who had flagged it as an exemplar of best practice and had wanted to know more about how it was being delivered so effectively. Gail Tolley advised that parents and children & young people were at the core of the work and they would ensure it was being delivered on behalf of children. She hoped the members of the Health and Wellbeing Board were content to provide support to the ongoing work of the Trust.

The Chair thanked Gail Tolley for introducing the item, and invited comments and questions from those present, with the following raised:

·         The Board welcomed the report, expressing that it was a comprehensive update. The Board highlighted the importance of the Trust’s focus on children’s mental health, and Healthwatch colleagues advised they were seeing children’s mental health emerging strongly as a priority in the community and were happy to engage with the Trust and bring those voices into the discussion. 

·         In relation to children and young people’s mental health services and CAMHS, Gail Tolley advised that schools and family wellbeing centres at the pre-CAMHS stage were now seeing a strengthening of resources and training for staff in that area, but there remained challenges for CAMHS services regarding resourcing of staff. Robyn Doran (ICP Director for Brent, COO for CNWL) advised that there was money going into CAMHS via the national mental health investment standard, but one of the challenges was recruitment due to shortages of CAMHS specialists. She advised that waiting times had improved slightly over the past few months but there was still a lot of work to do which the ICP was monitoring closely. The working group sponsored by the ICP, which had been requested by the Brent Children’s Trust, was a multi-agency group working with third sector partners to look at what agencies were available in the Borough to engage children as early as possible regarding their wellbeing and mental wellbeing. She advised that the working group would make a significant difference and think creatively to address children’s mental health within the resource constraints.

·         In terms of transitional safeguarding, the Board queried what was needed from the Local Authority and what was needed from the local NHS to further improve that work. Gail Tolley advised that, as indicated in the report, there was a need to address the thresholds for adult social care and mental health services, as well as the pathway between children’s mental health services and adult’s mental health services, and children’s social care and adult safeguarding. There was pilot work between colleagues across the Council looking at this, which had resource implications but was being looked at in a collective and creative way.

RESOLVED:

i)              To note the work of the Brent Children’s Trust for the period April 2021 to September 2021.