Our Safeguarding Children Partnership Arrangements - introduction

All children in Lewisham regardless of their background and circumstances, should have a happy and fulfilled childhood where they enjoy school and family life, learn, belong, grow and achieve so that they enter adulthood ready, willing and able to achieve their highest potential.

We believe that everyone and every agency who comes into contact with children has a role to play in identifying concerns, sharing information and taking prompt action to safeguard them.

Safeguarding is everybody’s business.

For many years, the Lewisham Safeguarding Children Partnership has aimed to ensure that member agencies work together to keep children and young people safe, hold one another to account and ensure that safeguarding remains a priority.

In response to the Children and Social Work Act 2017, a new partnership has been created between the London Borough of Lewisham, the Southeast Basic Command Unit of the Metropolitan Police and Lewisham Integrated Care Board. Together we have a shared and equal duty to make arrangements to work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children in Lewisham. Effective 29 June 2019, the Lewisham Safeguarding Children Partnership replaced the Lewisham Safeguarding Children Board.

Our work is underpinned by shared values and a determination and commitment to improving outcomes for children and young people.

We are committed to building upon what has already been achieved. In designing the new arrangements, we have been acutely conscious that a partnership is only effective if all partners actively engage and buy into the shared vision. In these times of austerity and pressures on services, it is vital that the arrangements make the best possible use of everyone’s time and that all activities demonstrably improve the quality and impact of practice so that that outcomes for children improve.

Working together with relevant agencies we want to ensure a system where children are safeguarded and their welfare is promoted.

Our three statutory safeguarding partners are:

Ceri Jacob, Lewisham Place Executive Lead, NHS South East London ICB (Current Partnership chair)

Simon Dilkes, Detective Superintendent Public Protection South East BCU, Metropolitan Police

Pinaki Ghoshal, Executive Director for Children and Young People, London Borough of Lewisham

LSCP Memorandum of Understanding Document 2022-2023

Our LSCP Memorandum of Understanding, 2024-2025 is under development. 

Families First for Children Pathfinder

Lewisham are one of seven local authorities chosen by the UK Government to trial Pathfinder, a new way of delivering certain children’s social care services. The aim is to help even more children stay with their families in safe and loving homes.
We’ve been selected by the UK Government to trial the Pathfinder programme, backed up with £3.3million of government funding.

The Pathfinder is an opportunity to develop and evolve our practice and implement key changes as set out in Working Together 2023. We are being measured in the way we are delivering this programme and we are focussing on elements that we had already started to take forward as a natural evolution of our services and practice. The funding for the Pathfinder has been confirmed to March 2025.

The Pathfinder will test reforms across:

• Multi Agency Safeguarding Arrangements with a stronger role for Education as a strategic safeguarding partner.
• Family Help which will integrate Targeted Early Help and Children in Need into one single offer.
• Child protection with a multi-agency response led by an experienced lead child protection practitioner (LCPP).
• A Family Group Decision Making approach throughout the whole continuum of help.

The Lewisham Safeguarding Children Partnership (LSCP) holds the governance for the Pathfinder and have created a dedicated multi-agency Strategic Leadership Subgroup to oversee the delivery and to monitor the effectiveness of the Pathfinder.