Health and Wellbeing
North Lanarkshire Council · 23 May 2023
Back to Education, Children and Families Committee — 23 May 2023 and its agenda
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North Lanarkshire Council Report Education, Children and Families Committee Does this report require to be approved? ☒ Yes ☐ No Ref GMcL Date 23/05/23 Health and Wellbeing From Gerard McLaughlin, Chief Officer (Education – North) E-mail mclaughling@northlan.gov.uk Telephone Executive Summary This report is intended to update committee on the progress of the implementation and development of the Roadmap to Recovery Mental Health and Wellbeing Plan, across the Education and Families Service. The report will first update members on the development of the Roadmap to Recovery, mental health, and wellbeing plan for children in North Lanarkshire. The report focuses on the outputs and outcome measures coming from work carried out through the Roadmap to Recovery, at the ‘what are we doing’ level within the Wellbeing Quality Framework. The plan covers a number of factors that are significant in improving health and wellbeing. This report will consider a range of developments and the measures of impact including action to improve attendance, provision of approaches to develop supportive relationships and positive mental health and wellbeing. Recommendations It is recommended that the Education, Children and Families Committee: (1) endorse the content of this report The Plan for North Lanarkshire Priority Support all children and young people to realise their full potential Ambition statement (7) Enhance collaborative working to maximise support and ensure all our children and young people are included, supported, and safe
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1. Background 1.1 The Roadmap to Recovery mental health and wellbeing plan was presented to this committee in September 2022. It set out a way forward in developing the health and wellbeing of our learners over the period from August 2022-2025. This plan supports the movement from the impact of COVID19 restrictions to a point beyond, with well- developed health and wellbeing among our children and young people. 1.2 The plan recognises the importance of structural and process developments in North Lanarkshire in relation to health and wellbeing, including the Empowering Clusters model and the GIRFEC pathway. It looks at high level outcomes that can be improved, linking into the Integrated Children Services Plan and the Plan for North Lanarkshire. It also looks at improvements in day-to-day operations and presents a format intended to assist schools, centres and teams to improve health and wellbeing in line with quality indicators currently used in improvement plans. 1.3 Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC) is the national policy framework for supporting children and their families in Scotland. GIRFEC processes have existed in North Lanarkshire for over 10 years, but the formation and development of the Education, Children and Families Service required the ongoing development of existing GIRFEC pathways to fit with revised operating arrangements and new guidance from Scottish Government. Developments around GIRFEC were reported to this committee in February 2023 and sit at the heart of the Roadmap to Recovery, as GIRFEC is the process model that will deliver Health and Wellbeing improvements. 1.4 Legislation identifies the key partners in GIREFEC as the local authority and NHS Board. In practice many other partners work to deliver services to children and families as reflected in the Children’s Services Partnership. The multi-agency nature of work to improve the wellbeing of children requires developments in services to fit with, and where possible develop with the involvement of key partners within the Partnership. 1.5 A key element of the Roadmap to Recovery is the focus on getting the right help to the right children and families at the right time. This requires the development of supports at the additional level of the three stage GIRFEC pathway, in line with The Promise which arose from the Independent Care Review and set out a range of measures and approaches to improve the experience of children experiencing care or close to requiring a care experience. One of the main elements of this is the provision of family support following key principles of family support. 1.6 The Roadmap to recovery identifies a number of impact measures that will demonstrate the services ability to and impact of providing the right support at the right time to the right children and families. This report will consider the following developments and the measures of impact: • School Attendance • Provision of Nurture and resilience training • Trauma Informed Practice • Early Intervention approaches to support good mental health. • Staff Support Approaches • Pupil Support and Curricular approaches • Wellbeing Measures – SDQ and Outcome Star
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1.7 Previous reports approved by the Education and Families Committee, introduced and updated the Wellbeing Quality Framework (Appendix 1), set around the questions of: • Why we are doing it? - Governance and Policy Drivers • How we are doing it? – Key Systems and Processes • What we are doing? – Our Outputs and Outcome This report focuses on the systems and process and the outputs and outcomes that are associated with the plan and these are linked to the Wellbeing Quality Framework within the report.. 2. Report 2.1 School Attendance 2.1.1 School attendance has been identified in the Roadmap to Recovery as a key indicator of health and wellbeing in our children and young people at school. Attendance levels are a key outcome in terms of the Wellbeing Quality Framework and this section will also discuss systems and processes used to monitor and improve attendance. 2.1.2 As part of the process of monitoring progress attendance monitoring has been set to take place at three points in the year. Early December, Late March, and the end of June. Previously it was reported to this committee that the December figures have shown a 2% increase in attendance compared with 2021/22. 2.1.3 Monitoring in March (Appendix-2) has shown that the increase in attendance has reduced but is still above last year’s figure. Attendance improved across all our clusters in the authority with every cluster showing a positive trajectory. The average increase is 0.37% in attendance across the authority. As the December monitoring took place in early December it appears that attendance issues around the Christmas holiday period contributed significantly to the lower attendance figure in March. In future years December will need to be a period of focused effort on improving attendance across schools. 2.1.4 A report to this committee in February 2023 highlighted that posts of Family Engagement Support Assistant have been created through the use of Scottish Attainment Challenge funding. These posts will work around the school clusters with a view to supporting families to maximise school attendance of their children and minimise exclusion. This follows a key theme in the Roadmap to Recovery around the development of family support approaches as an additional level intervention, particularly aimed at improving school attendance and inclusion. The posts will particularly target families experiencing disadvantage and attendance issues. Our monitoring data shows that families in the lower SIMD areas have greatest issues with attendance, as shown below:
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2.1.5 So far 7 Family Engagement Support Assistants have taken up post and are working with 99 families. Initial indications are positive with case examples showing quick increases in attendance for some children and young people. As they took up post in mid-December and built up their workload since then, comparative data is not yet available to give significant outcome measures. This will continue to be monitored and reported on. 2.1.6 Following COVID 19, School attendance is regarded as a significant issue across all Scottish Local Authorities. A number of Head Teachers and central officers attended a recent West Partnership event on Supporting Good Attendance. This demonstrates our continued commitment to improving this measure through effective and informed leadership. 2.1.7 An action plan is attached to this report intended to improve attendance (Appendix 3). The action plan focuses on four themes: • Leadership and Management • Relationships and communication • Systems and data • Intervention • The plan also links to the three levels of the Wellbeing Quality Framework, which will link to future evaluation and development. 2.2 Provision of Nurture and resilience training 2.2.1 The Educational Psychology Service (EPS) continue to support self-evaluation of whole school nurture practice and coaching to embed whole school nurture approaches. The delivery of this, and other related training, are key systems identified in the Wellbeing Quality Framework to improve wellbeing. The nurture self-evaluation framework is used by establishments to evaluate and improve their own approaches to nurture. EPS also provide training on specific principles of nurture for staff in schools. EPS also continue to deliver training on the Resilience Planning Toolkit (RPT) to build practitioner’s capacity in analysis of GIRFEC assessment information and ultimately support in the planning for children. 2.2.2 To date, a total of 89 establishments have completed the Nurture Self-Evaluation framework with 32 having undertaken training in session 22/23. Evaluation of the training courses shows staff knowledge increasing through pre and post training questionnaires. The scoring of these questionnaires shows a 33% increase in staff knowledge from undertaking this training. This is shown below: 70.00 75.00 80.00 85.00 90.00 95.00 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ATTENDANCE BY SIMD LEVEL SECONDARY SECTOR
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2.2.3 A total of 89 establishments have also undertaken Resilience Planning Toolkit training. Of these 71 are primary, 8 are secondary, 6 are early years, 3 are ASN establishments, 1 is a SEBN establishment and in addition the Virtual School team have also undertaken this training. This represents over 400 staff trained in nurture principles. 2.2.4 A Nurture Sharing Practice Event was held in person in November 2022 that was attended by staff from 21 schools across the authority. Evaluations from 23 staff who attended indicated that 96% found the session to be very effective. Another Nurture Sharing Practice Event is due to take place in March 2023. These events involve establishments sharing practice to promote learning and development across 2.3 Trauma Informed Practice 2.3.1 The Roadmap to Recovery, and other key policy drivers within the Wellbeing Quality Framework, identified that intervention around resilience and nurture underpin our work to help children deal with trauma that they may have experienced, and this is a developing area of work in line with national and local policy. As part of the development, a Trauma Informed Practice in Education working group has been established with representation from all sectors of the service. The group is considering the tools and training that are already used that will promote the ability of staff to work with the trauma of children they work with. 2.3.2 Each child is unique and there is no set level of wellbeing that children should achieve. Wellbeing is influenced by children’s individual experiences and changing needs as they grow. A range of traumatic experiences can have negative effects on young people. This might be one of the 10 recognised Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) or other adversities such as bereavement or bullying, or where a family is affected by illness, disability or poverty. Each child should be helped to reach their full potential as an individual. Previous reports regarding the development of GIRFEC approaches have indicated how the cluster model of working has been used during the pandemic period to identify vulnerable children and families to target appropriate support. In moving from the pandemic period to a business-as-usual model, trauma informed practice is required to develop further in each school and cluster to appropriately support children, young people and families requiring additional or intensive support. 6.3 8.4 0 2 4 6 8 10 PRE-TRAINING POST-TRAINING Average Staff Knowledge Ratings
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2.3.3 NHS Education Scotland has developed a trauma training framework that identifies four practice levels that are required for services that may come into contact with traumatised individuals. The levels are: • Trauma Informed - The minimum standard for all staff. • Trauma Skilled – Aimed at staff likely to come into contact with people who have experienced trauma. • Trauma Enhanced- Workers who have a specific remit to respond to people affected by trauma and provide advocacy support or interventions or are required to adapt the way they work to take into account trauma reactions and reduce risk of traumatisation. • Trauma Specialist - Workers who have a specific remit to provide specialist interventions or therapies for people known to be affected by trauma with complex needs. 2.3.4 The working group will make recommendations as to the level of training required for staff at each level, However this illustrates the complexity of the task. Any member of staff within a school may come into contact with traumatised children with some who hold specific roles more likely to. Those who work in child protection, or have duties related to care experienced young people will have to take account of trauma reactions in the children they work with and adapt responses to lower risks of further traumatisation. This indicates that staff within schools may require training to one of the first three practice levels. Depending on role. This will be a significant task. 2.3.5 The working group also attended the online Education Scotland input into Trauma programme 'Keeping Trauma in Mind'. This is a series of five twilight sessions which provides educators from all sectors with an opportunity to understand the impact of trauma and develop trauma responsive strategies to support children and young people affected by psychological trauma. 2.3.6 NL Mental Health Strategy is a multi-agency strategy to develop a supportive and stigma free culture, encourage resilience and address factors that may negatively affect mental wellbeing. Representatives have been selected from Education & Families and work should begin on this group in the coming months. This will align work going on across services. 2.4 Early Intervention approaches to support good mental health. 2.4.1 The Roadmap to Recovery set a target to increase early intervention mental health approaches, particularly at the additional level of the three stage GIRFEC framework. Developing this additional level of support improves the GIRFEC Pathway and the cluster delivery model identified as key systems in the Wellbeing Quality Framework. Four areas of input are now developing at this level of support: • The launch of Kooth • School Based Counselling • Increased Counselling to P4 and 5 children • LIAM • Pilot of Distress Brief Intervention (DBI)
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2.4.2 Kooth is a mental health support website that offers 10-18year olds (or up to 26 with care experience) access to free and anonymous support. Through the website young people can access counselling, self-help tools and community spaces to safely seek mental health support. The service can be accessed 365 days a year, 24/7 and works in partnership with other services in Education and Families and the NHS. Kooth has now launched in North Lanarkshire and briefings have been carried out with staff to promote awareness of the service. 2.4.3 As reported to this committee in February 2023, development of School based counselling was an action identified in the Roadmap to Recovery. School based counselling is well used with a spend of 97% achieved in financial year 2021/22 and a high rate of usage by young people. The success of this service has led to development of the policy around the approach to locate it robustly within the staged interventions of the GIRFEC pathway. 2.4.4 As a result of the success of school-based counselling the Health and Social Care Partnership have identified a funding stream which will be made available to Education & Families to facilitate an intervention to a targeted group of children to increase health and wellbeing outcomes. This, and other additional level approaches, have been associated with a significant drop in demand for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. In financial year 2023/24 and 2024/25 a total of £450,000 of additional funding is being made available to increase the reach of the counselling approach. This has been allocated to schools based on both school roll of pupils in P4 and P5 and total population of SIMD 1-3, in order to target areas with the highest level of need. The interventions consist of an offer of Play or Art Therapy. A short summary of key points are outlined below: • Earlier intervention to complement counselling in schools service. • Target group of children is P4/P5. • Play and Art therapy inputs. • Predominantly group work, with some targeted 1:1 as appropriate. • Utilising approved providers from existing SAC/PEF framework for quality assurance. • Funding allocated per cluster based on an approved model. • Funding accessed by Primary HTs through CIILs/cluster chair. • Funding requests made must feature evidence of a robust needs analysis. • Reporting framework in place to evidence outcomes 2.4.5 In session 2021-22 a team of Educational Psychologists delivered LIAM to 52 children and young people within their link schools. This is a 9 session CBT-informed approach targeted at children and young people with mild to moderate difficulties with anxiety. Potential children are identified through the named person, and appropriateness for the intervention is then discussed with the LIAM supervisor. Currently 9 Educational Psychologists are supervising staff in schools to deliver LIAM. Pre and post intervention measures are taken around the anxiety that children and young people are experiencing. The results from the first completed group are shown below:
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 DBI provides connected and compassionate support to young people experiencing emotional distress through a collaboration between NHS Lanarkshire, NHS24 and the Community and Voluntary Sector. North Lanarkshire is one of three areas of Scotland where this model is being piloted with young people in schools and this is taking place in three secondary schools. Since the start of the pilot in Febryary 2021, there have been 172 referrals with referals numbers showing an increasing trend. The highest referral numbers so far have been in March 2023. Intervention is provided on a quick response basis with the option of referral into Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) where required. So far there have been only 7 referrals into CAMHS across the three areas, indicating that early intervention is being effective. 2.5 Staff Support Approaches 2.5.1 In delivering on nurture, resilience, and trauma informed approaches it is important to provide appropriate support to staff who are working with emotionally challenging situations. An important set of outputs aligned with the Wellbeing Quality Framework, show activity levels around staff support. In recognising this the Roadmap to Recovery set out staff support as an important element that will support success of the plan. In August of 2022, at the same time of the launch of the Roadmap to Recovery, a new Staff Support Education Support Officer took up post and has been delivering support to staff involved in the delivery of the plan. The support of this officer is an additional option for staff members beyond the support options provided to all employees. This section will update members on the provision of staff support over this school year. 2.5.2 Since August 2022 153 staff members have made use of the staff support service. The distribution across sectors is shown in the chart below, it shows a broad distribution across sectors, however it should be noted that as the ASN sector is relatively small, the challenges of working in the sector appear to be associated with seeking support 0 50 100 Pre Score Post Score61 47 Mean Total Anxiety Score (RCADS) (n=22) 0 5 10 First Session Final Session 1.9 8 Goal Based Outcomes (0- 10) (n=22)
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2.5.3 The position held by staff seeking support is indicated below, which shows a spread across the roles noted, however it should be noted that promoted staff represent 32% of those seeking support, a significant number. Heads of Establishments 22 Employees 14% DHT/PT 27 Employees 18% Teacher 43 Employees 28% Early Years 32 Employees 21% ASN Support Staff 15 Employees 10% Central Officer 4 Employees 3% Other 10 Employees 7% 2.5.4 For the majority of staff seeking support work issues featured, either as the main reason they sought support or combined with personal issues. The numbers are as follows: 2.5.5 Most staff seeking support were seen over 2-5 sessions, however a significant minority were seen for 6 or more sessions. The breakdown by sector and number is as follows: 22 12 27 35 CLIENT BASE SETTINGS EARLY YEARS ASN SECONDARY PRIMARY 39% WORK BASED ISSUE 25% PERSONAL ISSUE 36% BOTH WORK & PERSONAL
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2.6 Pupil Support and Curricular approaches 2.6.1 The provision of strong curricular and pupil support approaches is an essential universal level foundation set out in the Roadmap to Recovery. Early intervention by pupil support staff and universal approaches in school will reduce demand for interventions through additional and intensive level planning within the GIRFEC pathway. 2.6.2 The development of pupil support staff has been an important factor in this delivery and over the past year a Pupil Support Leadership Programme and an Introduction to Pupil Support have provided development at two levels for appropriate staff. Additionally, an ‘Introduction to Counselling Skills’ course has been developed as a universal offer for all staff, in all educational establishments. To date, 36 school practitioners have been trained. This sits well with the early intervention counselling approaches discussed above and serves as our universal offer to improve communication, relationships and solution focussed approaches. 2.6.3 The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is the most complete statement of children’s rights ever produced and is the most widely ratified international human rights treaty in history. The Rights Respecting Schools Award is intended to put children’s rights at the heart of schools. The UK Committee for UNICEF (UNICEF UK) works with schools in the UK to give the award to schools which can demonstrate safe and inspiring places to learn, where children are respected, their talents are nurtured, and they are able to thrive. The Rights Respecting Schools Award embeds these values in school life and gives children the best chance to lead happy, healthy lives and to be responsible, active citizens. Rolling out the award across schools is an aim of the Roadmap to Recovery. The total number of schools in North Lanarkshire who are involved with Rights Respecting Schools Awards is 123. 2.7 Physical Activity 2.7.1 The Roadmap to Recovery recognised the link between physical activity and good health and wellbeing. In implementing the plan, the provision of physical activity has been an important element. Data around this is in Appendix 4. 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% EARLY YEARS ASN SECONDARY PRIMARY Number of Sessions 1 Session 2-5 Sessions 6 + Sessions
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2.7.2 The Outdoor Education programme is run at Strathclyde Country Park and is led by a team of staff formerly employed within Active Schools, supported by a team of coaches. The activities on offer at the park have developed significantly since 2020. This has included the introduction of the climbing wall and rowing activities with Scottish Rowing who are based at the park. On average, 93 young people from 2-4 school attend the programme each week, taking part in a range of activities including: • Bikeability, giving every pupil the chance to reach level where they can cycle safely on the roads. • Orienteering, starting from the new Rainbow shelter co designed with pupils. • Watersports activities on fun boats in the loch, supported by the parks stewarding team. • Bushcraft and environmental education. • Rowing sessions delivered in partnership with Scottish Rowing, giving pupils the unique chance to have experience this sport and receive tuition from high level coaches. • Highland Games • Team building • Archery 2.7.3 In total 111 schools, including ASN establishments, are booked to take part in the programme during 2022/23 academic year. During August to December 2022, 38 schools and 1,154 pupils attended the programme. In 2020 to 2021, 26 schools and 871 pupils attend the park, this increased in 2021 to 2022, when 95 schools and 2,630 pupils attended. 2.7.4 The Active Schools team delivered high quality curricular activity during lockdown. This moved to a hybrid approach of curricular and extracurricular activity in the COVID recover phase and the focus is now on extracurricular activity. During August to December 2022, there were 10,555 pupils attending extracurricular activities, resulting in 116,863 visits. From August – December 21 there were 5,516 pupils engaged in extra-curricular activities with a total of 51,164 visits. The activities on offer include football, dance, badminton, netball and many more. 358 young people from secondary schools were trained and delivered activity to primary school pupils. 2.7.5 Girls in S1-S3 have been an important target group for increased physical activity. So far in 2022/23 685 S1 – S3 girls participated in the SAC Active Girls programme across all 23 secondary schools. 284 sessions were delivered that resulted in 5,852 visits. 2.8 Wellbeing Measures – SDQ and Outcome Star 2.8.1 As previously reported to this Committee in November 2022, the further use of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) following its initial use in 2020 will take place this school year. This would allow the gathering of comparative data from the initial baseline, which would be useful in measuring progress in children’s wellbeing in schools and planning further developments around the use of the GIRFEC pathway. It will also show progress as regards the processes and interventions delivered as part of the Roadmap to Recovery. Such measurement processes and outcome measures are important elements of the Wellbeing Quality Framework. 2.8.2 Since that date a group of officers has been in discussion with Youth in Mind, the company that holds the rights to SDQ, and a timeline for the running of the survey a second time was developed. The necessary work to carry out the survey has now been carried out and the survey will start immediately after the spring break.
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2.8.3 The gathering of updated SDQ data will form an important measure in looking at the success of the plan going forward through comparison with the previous data. 2.8.4 Members may recall the Outcome Star Pilot being referred to in previous reports. Outcome Star is a family of evidence-based tools for measuring and supporting change when working with people, particularly around health and wellbeing factors. This has been piloted for use in Education and Families, giving important, personalised outcome data related work with children, young people and families. The use of this tool has been piloted and information from that will form further expansion of use and measure progress as regards the wellbeing of children, young people and families. 2.8.5 Data from the use of outcome star shows that at the time of writing 344 stars have been completed with 81 stars having been completed as second or third stars allowing a measure of distance travelled as regards the wellbeing of the people they concern. The spread of completed stars across sectors is as follows: 2.8.6 At the point of reporting the data, the number of review stars is fairly low, however, an analysis of all 1st vs 2nd stars across the authority is showing the greatest number of improvements are seen in the areas of Feelings & Behaviour, Friends and Education & Learning. As regards the number of areas that children, young people and families show improvements in, the following can be reported so far: • 87% of children, young people and families have made progress in one outcome area. • 72% in 2 or more areas • 46% in 3 or more areas 2.8.7 In summary the data shows a positive picture of improvement for those children and young people and families in the sample: 2.8.8 Outcome Star is identified in the Roadmap to recovery as an important source of outcome data that can measure progress. The above data is encouraging but is based on a relatively small sample. As the use of the Outcome Star increases more data will 3% 73% 6% 17% 1% total stars by sector Early Years Primary Secondary ASN Social Work
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become available giving a fuller picture of the changes that health and wellbeing interventions are making for our children, families, and young people. 3. Measures of success 3.1 The Roadmap to Recovery is planned to continue until 2025. Measures of success in developing the wellbeing of children and families are set out in the Roadmap to Recovery and will continue to be reported on. These link to the high-level measures in the Plan for North Lanarkshire. 3.2 Further increase in the use of Outcome Star will provide important measures of progress in the development of health and Wellbeing in children, young people, and families. This will reflect outcomes at individual level, an important area of measurement in our development of processes and interventions to support health and wellbeing. The sections of this report all link to the Wellbeing Quality Framework and gathering this data will be crucial in using the Wellbeing Quality Framework to further measure success. 4. Supporting documentation 4.1 Appendix 1 – Wellbeing Quality Framework 4.2 Appendix 2 – Attendance Data 4.3 Appendix 3 - Attendance Action Plan 4.4 Appendix 4 - Active Schools and Outdoor Education Information Gerard McLaughlin Chief Officer (Education - North)
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5. Impacts ( http://connect/report-template-guidance ) 5.1 Public Sector Equality Duty and Fairer Scotland Duty Does the report contain information that has an impact as a result of the Public Sector Equality Duty and/or Fairer Scotland Duty? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? If Yes, has an assessment been carried out and published on the council’s website? https://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/your-community/equalities/equality-and-fairer- scotland-duty-impact-assessments Yes ☐ No ☐ 5.2 Financial impact Does the report contain any financial impacts? Yes ☒ No ☐ If Yes, have all relevant financial impacts have been discussed and agreed with Financial Solutions? Yes ☒ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? The Family Engagement Support Assistant Posts have been funded, initially until the end of March 2024, through the Scottish Attainment Challenge. This has been approved through the Workforce Steering Group. As this is a reducing financial envelope the funding and effectiveness of this approach will have to be revisited before March 2024 5.3 HR policy impact Does the report contain any HR policy or procedure impacts? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, have all relevant HR impacts have been discussed and agreed with People and Organisational Development? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.4 Legal impact Does the report contain any legal impacts (such as general legal matters, statutory considerations (including employment law considerations), or new legislation)? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, have all relevant legal impacts have been discussed and agreed with Legal and Democratic Solutions? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.5 Data protection impact Does the report / project / practice contain or involve the processing of personal data? Yes ☒ No ☒ If Yes, is the processing of this personal data likely to result in a high risk to the data subject? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, has a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) been carried out and e- mailed to dataprotection@northlan.gov.uk Yes ☐ No ☐
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5.6 Technology / Digital impact Does the report contain information that has an impact on either technology, digital transformation, service redesign / business change processes, data management, or connectivity / broadband / Wi-Fi? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? Where the impact identifies a requirement for technology, has an assessment been carried out (or scheduled) by the Enterprise Architecture Governance Group (EAGG)? Yes ☐ No ☐ 5.7 Environmental / Carbon impact Does the report / project / practice contain information that has an impact on any environmental or carbon matters? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.8 Communications impact Does the report contain any information that has an impact on the council’s communications activities? Yes ☒ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? The Roadmap to Recovery, the GIRFEC Pathway and the GIRFEC online tool all have been communicated to staff. Work will continues using an online dashboard and other reposts to keep a spotlight on attendance and other health and wellbeing issues. 5.9 Risk impact Is there a risk impact? Yes ☒ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the key risks and potential impacts, highlighting where the risk(s) are assessed and recorded (e.g., Corporate or Service or Project Risk Registers), and how they are managed? Many of the interventions mentioned in this report are dependent of continued funding, at a time of reducing budgets. As part of the SAC activity, the future of Family Engagement Support Assistant posts and the related family support approach poses a risk going forward. Given the stretch aims around improving attendance, the risk of failing to achieve or sustain these stretch aims must be considered. The risk associated with the implementation of SAC is regularly reviewed in line with Council arrangements. The most recent internal Audit report gave assurance as to the efficacy of SAC planning arrangements. Due to the downward taper of current funding within the Strategic Equity Fund, close scrutiny of outcomes from this initiative will take place to assist decision making around future achievement of the stretch aim. 5.10 Armed Forces Covenant Duty Does the report require to take due regard of the Armed Forces Covenant Duty (i.e. does it relate to healthcare, housing, or education services for in-Service or ex- Service personnel, or their families, or widow(er)s)? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the provision which has been made to ensure there has been appropriate consideration of the particular needs of the Armed Forces community to make sure that they do not face disadvantage compared to other citizens in the provision of public services.
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Appendix 1 – Wellbeing Quality Framework
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Appendix 2 – Attendance Data
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Appendix 3 - Attendance Action Plan Why we are doing this Attendance is set as a key measure of success in the roadmap to recovery. The association between attendance and attainment has been well established and this action plan is also likely to positively impact on the poverty related attainment gap, a key priority for the service. In recent times, NLC has performed consistently well in external inspection processes relevant to the HGIOS 4 quality indicator 3.1, Ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion. However, this appears incongruent with our statistical profile for attendance which, at a national level, is unfavourable. This action plan sets out current plans to support and challenge this measure. Additionally, whilst this session’s Attendance Tracking Reports have identified that we are on a positive trajectory across all sectors, further and sustained improvements in this measure remain a priority! Of note, the gap in attendance profiles relative to SIMD profile remains discouraging. How we are doing this In keeping with known evidence-based principles, the following universal themes are central to our strategy for supporting good attendance: 1. Leadership and Management – where the plan is prioritised and communicated. 2. Relationships and communication - which foster a culture and ethos, where all are valued, listened to, and included. A whole school approach is pivotal – supported by our Roadmap to Recovery and cluster and partnership arrangements. 3. Systems and data – clear and consistent systems in place, which are the responsibility of all. Data analysis takes place at authority, cluster and individual school level to give an accurate view and reasons for patterns. 4. Intervention – these are targeted and in response to data intelligence. All are planned and monitored for impact. Statutory guidelines are followed as necessary.
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What we are doing - Action Plan Supporting Theme What 1,2,3 &4 Continue to progress the work identified in our Roadmap to Recovery which is likely to positively impact on attendance – Nurture/ Resilience approaches, GIRFEC, Counselling,Outcome Star, SDQ, Staff CLPL etc 1 Continue to prioritise attendance and communicate approaches through central events, including Headteachers meetings, pupil support network and health and wellbeing champions 1,2,3 & 4 All Education and Family Managers and central officers continue to work to acknowledge and strengthen a prioritised approach to improving attendance. 1, 3 & 4 Attendance measures included in central attainment reviews, improvement planning processes and challenge conversations at school level. 1.3 & 4 Develop understanding across the authority, clusters and individual schools of patterns in attendance (e.g. lead up to Christmas holiday period) and develop approp[riate responses. 2, 3 & 4 Develop central resource allocation at additional GIRFEC level, including FESA interventions and child and family centred approach provided by partners at cluster level 3 & 4 Cluster Attendance Data dashboard developed to provide accurate monitoring data. 3 SIMD Attendance profiles per establishment detailed and shared. 2, 3 & 4 Follow up CIIL individual attendance planning reports within each cluster – identifying what is working. 1 & 3 Attendance target(s)/ outcomes to be detailed in all school improvement plans and reports next session. 1, 2 & 4 Continue to use network approaches to share identified good practice. Review Centralised Tracking Report(s) to note progress at three points each year, before Christmas, before the spring break and before the summer break. At Cluster level targets set and reported on by CIIL, detailing improvements and good practice in clusters . FESA impact measured using attendance measures in SIMD 1-3 and outcome star at same intervals as tracking reports.
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Appendix 4 – Active Schools and Outdoor Education Information •
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