Today, Slough Children’s Services Trust (the Trust) and Thames Valley police have launched a multi agency safeguarding hub known as MASH, to provide a multi-faceted point of contact for children and young people concerned with their own safety or that of a peer.
Berkshire Healthcare, NHS Foundation Trust, National Probation Service, Slough Borough Council, and Slough Clinical Commissioning Group have all joined the Trust’s MASH – providing effective triage and screening, and to facilitate timely decision making for safeguarding children in Slough.
Based at Slough Police Station, MASH identifies risks to children and adults at the earliest possible point in order to identify and reduce any potential harm, crime and anti social behaviour. The MASH sees the partner agencies collaborate to increase communication and enable better information sharing so that signposting to the next appropriate service can take place.
This MASH hub-based approach sees the Trust continue to raise the bar on delivering the best possible safeguarding decisions, so that the lives of children & young people in Slough are safe, secure and successful.
MASH goes live as part of the Trust’s new Social Care Model called Safe, Secure and Successful – ensuring that children, young people and families experience a more complete and responsive service, and addressing some of their most urgent concerns.
The Trust launched ‘Safe, Secure, Successful’ on 4 July 2016 which has redesigned children and young people’s services in Slough by moving away from conventional teams to small hubs grouped into clusters based on function. There are 18 hubs made up of professionals from different disciplines who work directly with children and families, and this includes the MASH hub launched today.
CEO for the Trust, Nicola Clemo says:
“The MASH is a Hub-based way of working launched as part of our new Social Care Model, ‘Safe, Secure and Successful’ – enabling us to build trust, improve relationships and achieve lasting change for children, young people and families in Slough.
“The children that go to the MASH will include all Slough’s Children at risk of Child Sexual Exploitation; those who are missing from home or care, have complex histories, or those who have a current situation that requires multi agency information to enable the right pathway to be determined.
Clemo goes on to say:
“We believe that this new approach has raised the bar in terms of delivering a high quality relationship-based social work model in Slough, where the views and needs of our children and families are listened to without the fear of having to repeat their story time and time again.
“Our vision at the Trust is to ensure every child in Slough is safe, secure and successful and we will achieve this by continuing to put the children we support at the heart of all we do.”
Det. Ch. Insp Andy Howard from the Protecting Vulnerable People Investigation Unit at Thames Valley Police says:
“Safeguarding is everyone’s business and working with our partners to protect vulnerable people is a high priority for Thames Valley Police. The co-location of key agencies in a single hub enables enhanced information sharing and earlier identification of those that may be at risk. The MASH will facilitate a more coordinated, effective and timely response to strategically implement safeguarding decisions, helping to keep vulnerable members of our community safe from harm.”
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