Tag Archives: Child

New powers will effectively ‘close’ problem alcohol retailers

Businesses that persistently sell alcoholic drinks to children could lose their license to sell alcohol in a matter of a few short weeks, thanks to new powers given to Warwickshire County Council’s Trading Standards Service.

Trading Standards Officers and Warwickshire Police can now stop businesses selling alcohol for up to two weeks where the retailer is found to have made two or more sales of alcohol to children in a three month period.

For many stores that rely wholly or predominately on the sale of alcohol for their profits, such as off-licenses, preventing a retailer from selling alcohol can often have a significant effect upon a business – effectively closing it for trade.

These new powers offer Trading Standards Services the opportunity to take quick and decisive action against problem businesses, whilst still allowing officers to take a full prosecution if a business transgressed further.

Warwickshire County Councillor Richard Hobbs, Portfolio Holder for Community Safety said: “Most retailers understand the problems caused by under-age drinking, to the health of young people and in terms of anti-social behaviour in the community. They take their responsibilities seriously and ensure that children and young people cannot buy alcohol.

“However, there remains a small minority who despite education, support and warnings, continue to sell to under 18s. This new power will help us to take quick and decisive action against them which will have an effect not only on their alcohol sales, but their entire business.”

In the latest undercover test purchase exercise, 17 alcohol retailers were visited across North Warwickshire, Nuneaton and Bedworth and Rugby. Businesses that were suspected of selling alcohol to children were targeted and four sales of alcohol were made to 15 year old child volunteers.

  • Nuneaton and Bedworth and North Warwickshire: 11 alcohol test purchases attempted and one sale made (in North Warwickshire).
  • Rugby: six alcohol test purchases attempted and three sales made.

Warwickshire Trading Standards uses information and intelligence gathered from local communities to target problem businesses and investigations by Warwickshire Trading Standards Service are now on-going.

  • A recent survey has revealed that 20 per cent of 13-year-olds drink alcohol at least once a week. In 2009, the Chief Medical Officer advised that under-15s should not be drinking alcohol at all.
  • Alcohol misuse is a major public health problem, placing a heavy burden on society, and affecting a large number of individuals of all ages.
  • A new national alcohol strategy was published in March 2012.
  • In Warwickshire, alcohol is key public health priority having featured in the Director of Public Health’s annual report of 2011; it is a cross-cutting priority for all four Community Safety Partnerships; and there is Warwickshire wide alcohol implementation plan supported by all key stakeholders.

Under 18?

Contact Compass Warwickshire for drug and alcohol advice, information and specialist treatment on freephone 08000 88 72 48. The service is available between the hours of 9am and 5pm. Please leave a message if your call isn’t answered – someone will get back to you.

More information from – http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/alcohol

In addition to the new powers detailed above, brought in following an amendment to the Licensing Act 2003, Trading Standards Officers also have the option to prosecute as an alternative. The offence of persistently selling alcohol to children now carries a maximum fine of £20,000 (raised from £10,000) and following conviction, a Magistrates court could suspend the retailers licence to sell alcohol for up to three months.

Looking after our children in Warwickshire

Warwickshire’s children are being safeguarded from harm and the quality of service to looked after children and care leavers is good, according to a new report from Ofsted inspectors.

The recent inspection was undertaken by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission between 31st October and 11th November. The overall effectiveness of services for safeguarding and looked after children were judged to be ‘good’ with ‘good’ capacity to improve.

The purpose of the inspection was to evaluate the contribution made by relevant services in the local area towards ensuring that children and young people are properly safeguarded, and to determine the quality of service provision for looked after children and care leavers.

Judgments are made on a four-point scale of inadequate(1), adequate(2), good(3) and outstanding(4).

Seven out of the ten judgments made for safeguarding services were “good” and three were “adequate”.  Ten out of the twelve judgments made for looked after children were “good” and two were “adequate”.

Warwickshire County Council Strategic Director for the People Group, Wendy Fabbro, said: “This is a very positive report which reflects much of the excellent work undertaken across the partnership in order to support children and young people in Warwickshire. We welcome Ofsted’s judgments on areas requiring further work, and plans are already in place to ensure these are acted upon.”

Warwickshire received praise for its ambition and partnership working to support some of the county’s most vulnerable children and young people. The inspectors highlighted many areas of good practice as well as making recommendations for improvement, such as: ensuring partnership arrangements remain robust and relevant case notes are shared with all appropriate key workers, and that the complaints service is effectively promoted and is readily accessible to looked after children and young people.

Cllr Heather Timms, Warwickshire County Council’s Portfolio Holder for Children, Young People and Families, said: “I am pleased to see Warwickshire maintaining our overall Ofsted rating as ‘good’. To put this in perspective of the 47 local authorities that received a full safeguarding inspection over the last year, 9 were judged inadequate, 25 adequate and just 13 rated good.

“We were praised as an authority for strong leadership to ensure improved safeguarding outcomes for children and young people enabling children’s social care services to be protected during a period of severe financial pressure and cuts to other services.

“The report also stated that the needs of looked after children and young people are prioritised well by the council, health services and other partners and that outcomes for looked after children and young people are good.”

The full report (48 pages) has been published on the Ofsted web site here under the heading ‘Safeguarding and looked after children inspection’.

Supporting excluded pupils

Warwickshire County Council Cabinet this week (Thursday 15 December) approved proposals to close the county’s pupil referral unit from September 2012, and to provide better support for excluded pupils and those at risk of exclusion.

The county council is committed to raising educational attainment for all children in Warwickshire, including ensuring that excluded pupils and those at risk of exclusion can meet their full potential.

The current arrangement in Warwickshire sees pupils excluded from mainstream school educated on a full time or temporary basis at the county’s Pupil Referral Unit.

However rising numbers of exclusions, and concerns raised by Ofsted into the quality of education provision on offer have led the council to investigate whether these arrangements are the best way of meeting the needs of excluded young people.

On Thursday, cabinet agreed to cease current provision at the PRU after the end of 2011/12 academic year. This move is part of a wider strategy to reduce permanent exclusion, and improve provision for pupils who are permanently excluded and followed a public consultation that took place during September and October 2011.

Proposals envisage a new system whereby funding is devolved to schools who will use the resources to work together in areas to provide support to pupils with the aim of reducing the number of permanent exclusions.

A pilot has been running since September 2011. Early indicators show that the number of permanent exclusions is going down as a result of schools investing in support to young people to prevent exclusions.  This includes alternative education through colleges and independent providers to supplement core curriculum in school.

Warwickshire County Councillor Heather Timms, Portfolio Holder for Children, Young People and Families said: “We have recognised that we need to do more to help pupils at risk of exclusion to reach their full potential. I believe a greater emphasis on early intervention practices is the best way to achieve this.

“We are proposing devolving funding to schools to play a more active role in addressing exclusion because they know their pupils best. By working together in Area Behaviour Partnerships and with continued support from the local authority they will be able to be more creative in dealing with challenging pupils, recognising the uniqueness of each child and identifying their different needs.

“Responses to the consultation confirm that the current arrangements are not working. We believe that by introducing a new approach we will be able to meet the needs of more pupils in their own school and provide personalised external support where necessary.”

Warwickshire’s innovative approach has attracted national interest from the Department of Education, which is also exploring similar new ways of reducing permanent exclusions in other local authorities.

The 21st century social club

Young people are now using social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, over phone conversations and texting, and almost as much as chatting in person to their friends, according to a new study.

A major consultation by Warwickshire County Council involving 303 young people from around the county, has discussed how they like to communicate with each other, and how they’d like to be communicated with.

Many of the questions were open to all ages, but some were restricted to those aged 14+ where discussing social media only permitted to this age group.

When asked ‘When you are catching up with your interests and want to know about new things how do you get the information?’ the survey found that face to face talking is the highest at 128 young people, but social media is a close second at 113, compared to just 38 reading magazines or 18 chatting on the phone.

Another question asked about communication with friends ‘When chatting what do you use?’ and found that again face to face was highest at 162, but closely followed by social media at 132, ahead of texting each other at 86, phone 93, and email just 22.

The Warwickshire County Council study also asked ‘When we’ve got urgent news how would you like us to contact you?’ and the vast majority opted for Facebook (107), followed by text (88), and email (56).

When questioned about access to the internet, the growth of smartphones, such as iPhones, HTC and Samsung, became apparent with only 30 of the respondents saying they did not have a smartphone, making it possible for young people to access social media and the internet from wherever they are.

The widespread use of social media has prompted Warwickshire County Council to remind young people and parents about keeping safe when updating Facebook or posting tweets.

Cllr Heather Timms, Warwickshire County Council’s Portfolio Holder for Children, Young People and Families, said: “Social media is the fastest growing phenomena on the internet. It provides a brilliant way to stay in touch with friends and share photographs, comments or even play online applications, but if used carelessly can expose you and your children to identity theft and online predators.

“I’m not intending to scaremonger, but parents and young people need to be aware of the risks, and there are a few simple things you can do to make the whole process safer.”

Simple social media rules:

  • Pay attention to age restrictions – for example Facebook and Bebo are only for people aged 13 years and older.
  • Social networking sites, such as Facebook and Bebo, have a range of privacy settings. These are often setup by default to ‘expose’ your details to anyone. When ‘open’ anyone could find you through a search of the networking site or even through a search engine, such as Google. So it is important to change your settings to ‘Friends only’ so that your details and profile content can only be seen by your invited and accepted friends and don’t forget to remove yourself from search engine results.
  • Have a neutral picture of yourself as your profile image. Don’t post embarrassing material.
  • You do not need to accept friendship requests. Reject or ignore unless you know the person or want to accept them. Be prepared that you may receive friendship requests or suggestions from people you do not know. It is not a competition to have as many friends as possible.
  • Remember you can delete unwanted ‘friends’ from your social networking sites. On some you can also ‘Block’ them as well so they can’t request your friendship again.
  • Exercise caution! For example in Facebook if you write on a friend’s wall all their friends can see your comment – even if they are not your friend.
  • If you or a friend are ‘tagged’ in an online photo album the whole photo album may be visible to their friends, your friends and anyone else tagged in the same album.
  • You do not have to be friends with someone to be tagged in their photo album. If you are tagged in a photo you can remove the tag, but not the photo.
  • Your friends may take and post photos you are not happy about. You need to speak to them first, rather than contacting a web site. If you are over 18 the web site will only look into issues that contravene their terms and conditions.

Facebook Privacy information can be found here

The safest way for your Facebook profile to be set-up is for it to be as private as possible, for example only allowing your ‘Friends’ to have access to your information and pictures. It is therefore advisable that you only have ‘real’ friends as contacts on Facebook and other Social Networking sites.

See the image below of the ideal set-up for a Facebook profile. You can find this by following these steps:

1) Click on Account in the top right hand corner of your Facebook page.

2) Choose the Privacy Settings option.

3) You will then see the page below and you can edit the settings to ensure that Friends only have access to your profile and its information.

More information is also available here or here

The most important safety message of all about any contact through social media or the internet is to ‘Never go alone to meet someone you have met online’ and to ‘Never reveal any personal contact details’.

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) is a government backed agency dedicated to keeping children safe on the internet. To find out more, visit: www.ceop.gov.uk

CEOP’s Top Tips for Staying Safe Online are:

  • Remember, everyone you meet online is a stranger, even though they might seem like a friend.
  • Always use a nickname when you log on and never give out any details that would allow someone you meet online to contact you. That means your full name, home or school address, telephone number, personal e-mail or mobile number.
  • If you publish a picture of yourself online, remember anyone can change it or share it, or use it to try and contact you.
  • Never arrange to meet up alone with someone you make friends with online, but if you are going to anyway, take an adult you trust and meet in a public place.
  • Accepting e-mails or opening files from people you don’t really know, can get you into trouble – they may contain viruses, nasty messages or annoying links to stuff you don’t want to see.
  • Talk to an adult you know well and ask for help if you’re worried or upset about anything you’ve sent or been sent online

Young people and parents are advised to visit www.thinkuknow.co.uk to find out the latest information on sites to visit, mobiles and new technologies.

See the links below for full details and advice from Warwickshire County Council on using the internet and social media safely.

Child Safety

An e-safety information booklet for parents, children and young people

Warwickshire e-safety advice for parents and carers

Children’s services are performing well

Children’s services in Warwickshire have been found to be exceeding requirements for the third year running by national inspectors.

Warwickshire County Council is judged against authorities throughout Britain in how it is providing services to children, and for the third year running has been found by Ofsted to be ‘Performing Well’.

This week’s announcement follows an annual assessment taking into account an array of performance data and findings from regulatory inspections of settings for which the local authority has operational or strategic responsibility, either alone or in partnership with other agencies.

Performance is compared against similar authorities and the national picture, in order to form the judgments and overall rating.

The annual assessment derives from a four point scale:

4 – Performs excellently – An organisation that significantly exceeds minimum requirements

3 – Performs well – An organisation that exceeds minimum requirements

2 – Performs adequately – An organisation that meets only minimum requirements

1 – Performs poorly – An organisation that does not meet minimum requirements

Warwickshire has been assessed as performing well – a rating which has been maintained over the last three years.

Ofsted inspectors identified the following key strengths:

  • Provision and outcomes for children in the early years stage.
  • Effectiveness of primary schools.
  • Post-16 provision.
  • A fast rate of improvement in results at Key Stage 4 (GCSE).
  • Special school provision.
  • Provision for looked after children and young people, including the internal fostering and adoption agencies.
  • Good performance and effective partnerships within the Youth Justice Service.

Two areas for improvement were identified:

  • The unsatisfactory judgment placed on the pupil re-integration unit (PRU) last year still stands and needs to be addressed though Ofsted recognises the LA proposals to improve provision for those at risk of exclusion and excluded pupils.
  • Not enough provision at secondary school or college/sixth form stage exceeds the “satisfactory” level.  Outcomes for young people from low-income backgrounds for these age groups are only improving at the same rate as for all young people, so the gaps are not closing sufficiently.

Cllr Heather Timms, Warwickshire County Council’s Portfolio Holder for Children, Young People and Families, said: “I’m extremely pleased to see Warwickshire recognised as performing well in its work with children. In these difficult financial times the county’s staff working with children, deserve great praise in maintaining levels of service.

“There are areas for improvement, but these are not surprises for us and we are already working in these areas, including a focus on early intervention, where we work with families and young people to identify problems at the first opportunity.”

The full report can be downloaded from the Ofsted website

Warwickshire’s Celebration of Parenting Services

Practitioners from a diverse range of public, private, community and voluntary services working with families across Warwickshire came together on 19 October to review parent support in the county and celebrate the local integrated parenting workforce.

Celebrating Parenting Day is an annual event, organised and facilitated by Warwickshire’s Parenting Development Team (PDP).

Practitioners, managers and volunteers from a plethora of services shared good practice methods and models and discussed the benefits to families of services working together to improve outcomes for children, young people and families and support family life.

A series of workshops took place to raise awareness about services for parents and families across sectors as well as to celebrate the positive outcomes of evidence based and accredited parenting programme Triple P, which practitioners across Warwickshire have been delivering to parents since 2009.

Workshops were interactive, fun and informative and facilitated by practitioners from Family Information Service (FIS), Positive About Young People (PAYP), Family Intervention Project (FIP) and Relate.

Caroline Thompson PDT Manager commented: “This day of celebration was a resounding success. It was heartening to see practitioners and volunteers from such a variety of services come together to share individual and mutual successes as well as discussing plans for the future.  Moreover, the positive attitude and commitment of partners to the wellbeing of children, young people and families was palpable.

“I am proud to be a part of this integrated team taking services forward to meet the needs of families and ultimately to improve outcomes for children and young people.”

For more information about family and parenting support in Warwickshire contact the Family Information Service on 0845 090 8044 or visit www.warwickshire.gov.uk/fis