Key Highlights:

👮 Police: Croydon Police played a key role in protecting women and children through the national pilot of Domestic Abuse Protection Orders (DAPOs)—now showing real impact with the first convictions. They’ve also strengthened practice by auditing referral quality and delivering targeted training to frontline officers, setting a strong example in quality assurance.

🏥 Health: Health professionals continued contributing to the Suicide & Self-Harm Strategy, with Public Health taking the lead to reduce risk around suicide clusters. In a major development, four MASH Health staff will now be co-located at MASH from Q2—an important step toward improving decision-making and cross-agency working under pressure.

🏫 Education: The Education Behaviour Team welcomed two new appointments to support more child-centred approaches, including work on a referral form redesign that prioritises the voice of the child. DSLs and school staff also received briefings on audit findings to improve engagement with child protection conferences.

👶 Children’s Social Care (CSC): CSC continued to lead regular Windows Into Practice audits and initiated system-wide conversations on improving multi-agency engagement in safeguarding conferences. They’ve also engaged with national learning—hosting a workshop on the “It’s Silent” report (focused on race and safeguarding)—with staff pledging specific actions to improve cultural competence in practice.

✅ Partnership Progress:

• 75% of our “Working Together Effectively” priority is on track. All workstreams under the Business Plan are progressing, with improved visibility of partner engagement.

• 5/6 Q1 initiatives completed, including the Leadership, Trust & Accountability briefing, revised Neglect Strategy, and new accessible Business Plan.

👂 Voice of the Child: The Young Scrutineer is actively shaping projects like the "Use of Language" report, and a multi-agency "Voice of the Child" Conference is planned for November.

🔍 Audit & Assurance: Multi-agency audits around domestic abuse and safeguarding practice have been completed, resulting in system changes to improve child protection conference participation and increased cross-agency collaboration.

🛠️ Learning & Training: eLearning engagement has grown by 50%, with new CSA webinars in development. A focus remains on reducing training no-show rates following the launch of a new charging policy.

📊 Data-Driven Decisions: New Terms of Reference were introduced to strengthen dataset meetings and improve analysis. Early insights are driving targeted reviews—particularly around girls and contextual harm.

🤝 Community Engagement: Strong collaboration with the voluntary sector continues, with Croydon recognised as a leader in inclusive safeguarding practice across London.

🔜 Coming Up in Q2 (Jul–Sep 2025):

• New CSCP Website launched on 1st July providing easier access to safeguarding resources and learning.

• Voice of the Child Conference (19^th November 2025) planning has begun with an exciting lineup of speakers

• Benchmarking Tool for Serious Youth Violence findings to be reviewed at the11–25 Strategic Group.

• Safeguarding Assurance work with Family Hubs and the wider VCS, including national representation on LSCP best practice.

The CSCP continues to champion a collaborative, data-informed, and child-focused approach to safeguarding across Croydon. Together, we are making a difference.