Our teams
Help and Family Assessment
MASH is the multi-agency safeguarding hub for children and families. From April 2021 the MASH will be re-launched as the Children and Families Hub and will be our combined front door for Early Help/Prevention and Children's Social Care. The Children and Families Hub comprises of a Children's Social Care Team and Navigators from the police, education, health, probation, early years and domestic abuse. The Children and Families hub screen all requests for a service and information requests from professionals and the public.
We have 4 First Response Teams that comprise of one Team Manager and 5 Social Workers. First Response Social Workers complete child in need, safeguarding and pre-birth assessments. Families with Nil Recourse to Public Funds are also assessed in this service. The outcome of these assessments could be:
- Progress to an Initial Child Protection Plan
- Progress to a Child in Need Plan
- Child becomes Looked After
- Initiate Care Proceedings
- Step down to Family Wellbeing, Early Help and Prevention Services, Universal or Targeted Services
Family Support and Safeguarding
The Safeguarding and Care Planning Service provides long term help and protection to those children who are most vulnerable in Merton and require a Social Worker to see through long term plans for their support, safety and care. The Safeguarding and Care Planning Service is tenacious and enduring and social workers in this service are committed to families for the long term to help see them through whatever their challenges might be. Social Workers in this service develop relationships with families and go with them through their journey, helping families aspire to achieve their goals and live their lives positively and safely. The focus of the social workers is on helping families to problem solve, create safety and achieve stability for their children with no problem being insurmountable.
Social Workers working in the Safeguarding and Care Planning Teams work with a variety of different children and families with all different levels of need for example:
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Children with disabilities who require complicated packages of support, safety or protection plans.
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Children who are in need of extra support either through work with their parents to improve parenting skills, co-ordination of services to help their health and well-being or help with reaching their full potential in School.
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Young People who are involved in networks or behaviours that are harmful to them e.g. offending or exploitation.
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Children and Young People who need the support of child protection plans.
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Children and Young People who are in the care of the Local Authority.
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Children and Young People who are going through a period of Care Proceedings in Family Court.
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Children who require permanency either inside or outside of their family network.
The Safeguarding and Care Planning Teams offer a diverse social work experience across the board and have high expectations for its members to obtain Systemic Training in employment with us. We have an embedded commitment to newly qualified workers completing their ASYE and we have partnerships with the Front Line and Step Up to Social Work programmes bringing in trainees every year. Social Workers have the opportunity to take on students and train to become qualified Practice Educators. We are an enterprising service and recently trialled the Social Workers in Schools Pilot with funding granted by the What Works Centre. Staff report feeling supported by the stable management team with regular individual and group supervision an essential part of the way we work.
Corporate Parenting
This team works with young people who are aged 14 years and older who are under the care of Merton. They also support young people who have previously been in care, otherwise known as Young People Leaving Care (Care Leavers), up until the age of 25. The team also support Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children. The 14+ team consists of Qualified Social Workers, Personal Advisors and Income Support Maximisation Officers. The 14+ team work collaboratively with young people and their networks in supporting them to prepare for independence and for leaving care.
Adolescent and Safeguarding
Merton Youth Justice Service aims to prevent and reduce youth offending within the borough. We are a statutory multi-agency service with case practitioners and specialist practitioners, many of whom are from partner agencies. We have three overarching principles:
- Reducing First Time Entrants
- Reducing Reoffending
- Reducing the use of custody (including remands)
Activities include:
- offering opportunities to identify young people at risk from or on the edge of the Criminal Justice System
- supporting young people who have been arrested for the first-time on low level offences to prevent re-offending
- assessment and management of young people who are at risk of reoffending through the delivery of programmes
- giving victims the chance to explain the impact of a crime to the young person through restorative justice approaches
- providing services to parents to help them manage the behaviour of their children.
Further information can be found on the Youth Justice Service page
Quality Assurance and Practice Development
In the Quality Assurance Service, we offer a range of services. Independent Reviewing Officers chairs our Child Protection Conferences and Children’s Looked after Reviews, provide advice on safeguarding. The service also incorporates LADO, Signs of Safety consultant, Training and development and Quality assurance leads. We work collaboratively with social work teams and partner agencies to improve the service we offer to children in need of help and support. We provide offers of high quality training and strengthen CPD across the workforce. Whilst we support, lead and promote lunchtime learning events, group supervisions and appreciative learning events, alongside MSCP, we promote and share learning from learning case reviews and making a difference for the children and families we work with.
Structure charts
[Detail to be added]