Issue:

A case was reported relating to a family who were being subjected to abuse from local children.

Approach:

A low level Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) case was entered on ECINS.

Current Situation:

The case started to escalate when an 8 year old boy threatened the victimised family with a knife. The 8 year old was from a family who had recently moved into the area and very little was known about them. It was then established that there were high levels of domestic abuse within the family home involving the 8 year old’s mother with his step father being the perpetrator.   A referral was made to the local Family Intervention Programme. The mother had serious mental health issues, she was in and out of hospital, frequently overdosing and being found drunk. All events about this family were documented on ECINS and the family were subject to the involvement of Social Care Services.   A number of agencies including Education started to flag up concerns and things very quickly started to spiral out of control.

Within one day this case went from Social Care saying it was a low level case to it being classified as a high risk case with a social worker sleeping at the address that night. The initial report was put together very quickly because information was all in one place on ECINS and this allowed for a more comprehensive report to be put together. Having all the information on ECINS meant that nothing was missed as it was stored in a comprehensive way. It also saved a great deal of time, sped up the processes and potentially prevented a serious case review as there were genuine fears that this situation could have resulted in a death.

Andy Solomon, ASB Network Manager based in Ipswich said ‘The information collated on ECINS was vital in producing a report to Social Care which helped in identifying that more intense help was needed. ECINS was key in the information sharing process and the use of ECINS in this case may well have prevented a serious case review having to be carried out.’