Supporting and engaging schools in decision-making and multi-agency working for the protection of children.

学校是识别、转介和管理儿童保护问题的重要来源。然而，学校往往缺乏与儿童社会关怀部门合作的强有力安排，或者很难有效地实施这些安排（Baginsky, 2007; Ward, Brown & Maskell-Graham, 2012）。最近的一项重大审查发现，尽管有促进机构间合作的法定框架，但学校缺乏参与保护（Davies和Ward， 2012）。此外，近年来，国家资助的学校已经能够切断与地方当局的联系，学院和免费学校的数量显著增加，使校长和教师享有更大的自由和灵活性。政府明确表示，所有类型的学校都应继续在儿童保护和保障问题上与地方当局保持牢固的关系，尽管学校能够决定这种关系的形式。这些变化，加上地方当局结构的变化和健康与福利委员会（HWBs）的引入，意味着了解和促进强有力的地方协作保障安排的研究是及时和重要的。2010年6月，教育大臣要求艾琳·门罗教授对英国的儿童保护情况进行独立审查。作为这项工作的一部分，门罗教授考虑了促进或阻碍良好批判性思维的更广泛的组织系统。为了能够反映在多机构范围内儿童保护的动态和不可预测的性质，打算采用一种能够审查和分析这种复杂性的方法。这项研究将包括三个不同但相关的阶段：先启和范围界定由：文献综述；B.与关键利益相关者团体的代表进行讨论；对所有地方当局儿童服务部门（或同等部门）的所有教育和儿童社会关怀部门进行调查；所有LSCBs;所有hwb to:i。确定预测变量在成功的多机构工作中的相对贡献；andii。能够选择五个案例研究权威，代表通过调查确定的一系列合作实践，以及不同类型的权威。五个案例研究：将向五个案例研究当局的所有学校和继续教育学院发送一份简短的预表，以收集他们参与保护实践的经验，并告知每个地区10个教育机构（总共50个）的抽样情况，以反映提供的多样性。b.在50所确定的教育机构中，将对所有相关的关键人员进行访谈，并要求他们完成组织社会背景（OSC）测量，这是一种在美国开发的有效测量，但在少数英国当局中使用。c.学校数据将被映射到由Bob Hudson教授开发的框架中，以评估合作实践和伙伴关系的能力，在这种情况下是个别学校。将与案例研究当局的地方当局机构代表和学校工作人员举行讨论小组，讨论调查和访谈数据。这项研究将提供有关学校与负责保护儿童的主要机构之间现有安排以及这些安排如何发挥作用的资料。它还将有助于我们了解所有有关机构围绕儿童保护作出的决策，并就最能反映新配置的教育环境需要的结构和支持提出建议。这项研究产生的证据将与国内和国际上关于强制性报告儿童保护问题的辩论有关。

Schools are an important source for the identification, referral and management of child protection concerns. Yet schools often lack robust arrangements for working in partnership with children's social care departments and/or find it difficult to implement these effectively (Baginsky, 2007; Ward, Brown & Maskell-Graham, 2012). A recent major review identified a lack of engagement by schools with safeguarding, despite the statutory framework to promote inter-agency co-operation (Davies and Ward, 2012). Furthermore, in recent years state-funded schools have been able to sever their links with local authorities and there has been a significant increase in the number of Academies and free schools giving heads and teachers greater freedoms and flexibilities. The Government is clear that schools of all types should continue to maintain a strong relationship with local authorities over child protection and safeguarding concerns, although schools are able to determine the shape of that relationship. These changes, combined with changes in local authority structures and the introduction of Health and Wellbeing Boards (HWBs), mean research to understand and promote strong local collaborative safeguarding arrangements is timely and important.In June 2010, the Secretary of State for Education requested an independent review of child protection in England from Professor Eileen Munro. As part of this work Professor Munro considered the wider organisational system in promoting or hindering good critical thinking. In order to be able to reflect the dynamic and unpredictable nature of child protection within a multi-agency context it is intended to use an approach that is capable of allowing this complexity to be examined and analysed. The research will comprise three distinct but related phases:1. Inception and scoping informed by:a. a literature review; b. discussions with representatives from key stakeholder groups;2. A survey of all education and children's social care sections of children's service departments (or equivalents) in all local authorities; all LSCBs; all HWBs to:i. identify the relative contributions of predictive variables in successful multi-agency working; andii. enable the selection of five case study authorities which represent a range of collaborative practice as identified through the survey, as well as different types of authority.3. Five case studies:a. a short pro forma will be sent to all schools and Further Education colleges in the five case study authorities, to capture their experiences of involvement in safeguarding practice and to inform sampling of ten educational establishments in each area (total 50) to reflect diversity of provision. b. in the 50 identified educational establishments, all relevant key personnel will be interviewed and also asked to complete the Organisational Social Context (OSC) measure, a validated measure developed in United States (US) but used in a small number of English authorities. c. the school data will be mapped onto a framework developed by Professor Bob Hudson to assess capacity for collaborative practice and partnership, in this case of individual schools.d. discussion groups will be held with representatives from local authority agencies in the case study authorities and school staff to discuss the survey and interview data.This research will provide information on the current arrangements existing between schools and the key bodies with responsibility for child protection and on how these arrangements are working. It will also contribute to what we know about decision-making around child protection by all the agencies concerned and make recommendations about the structures and support that best reflect the needs of the newly configured educational context. Evidence generated by the research will be pertinent to the debate around mandatory reporting of child protection concerns, both nationally and internationally.