The Keeping Bristol Safe Partnership prioritises participation, engagement, and communication through our PEC group (Participation, Engagement and Communication group). This group meets every 6 weeks. Members are a mixture of participation workers and facilitators from across our safeguarding agencies who share their expertise and knowledge around ongoing projects, groups, and initiatives.
The purpose of the group is to support in the delivery of Priority 2- Citizens of Bristol are our Equal Partners. The group are available for consultation to members of the partnership around the best ways to engage with our communities and to help support with coproduction.
The Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Victim and Survivor Group is a group of women who strategically inform on our domestic abuse and sexual violence service delivery. They meet every-other week and have been involved in commissioning evaluation, auditing of Avon and Somerset's feedback questionnaire when contacting victims and survivors, coproducing and quality assuring the KBSP's domestic abuse training package, facilitating and hosting the SOS Conference (Speaking Out: Survivors Conference), and the creation of two videos. The two videos feature members of the Forum, including their art work and animation, and their music. One video is for training purposes and is aimed at professionals. The other is for public awareness.
Both videos can be found on our YouTube page here.
We are always looking to recruit new members to the DASV Forum, so if you, or anyone you know are interested in becoming a member, please contact dasvforum@bristol.gov.uk
The Shadow Board is a group of young people aged 12-22 who meet once a month and shadow our Executive. The group are made up of Care Leavers, Young Carers, Youth Council members, children currently on child protection plans, and other young people who advocate for other young people. They strategically inform mainly on children's social care, but also on other areas of the partnership. The Shadow Board have been instrumental in interviewing for our new Executive Director of Children and Education (Hannah Woodhouse), and our Director for Children and Families (Fiona Tudge). They have also met with Ofsted recently and discussed their views on Bristol children's social care.
The Shadow Board recently launched a poetry competition. The winner, Finn, can be seen in a video on our web pages. Finn now sits on our board too.
The Shadow Board have met with Public Health and Avon and Somerset police to talk about drug use. This has led to the board raising concerns about vaping, leading to further conversations and initiatives being taken forward by Public Health and the University of Bristol.
The Shadow Board have also met with the Fiona Tudge, Director for Children and Families, and spoke about their concerns around education and their experiences with social workers. Fiona will be taking their comments back to senior leadership to ensure this is fed down to the wider workforce.
If you are a young person or know a young person who would like to join the Shadow Board, please complete this expression of interest form or email kbsp.shadow@bristol.gov.uk
The Child Protection Conference Development Board is a group who discuss child protection conferences and how we can support more parents and carers to engage in these. Two parents have sat on the board throughout the past two years, helping to shape these discussions.
This has included training Avon and Somerset Police Conference Officers about the lived experience of parents and carers when they are also attending conference.
Training of our ROADS (drug and alcohol) colleagues around CP Conferences and how it feels to be a parent who has experienced substance use to attend conference.
Both of these focused on the language used and how practitioners could be more inclusive.
Confidential slots have been removed as it was felt that parents and carers should not be excluded from conversations. These conversations should take place outside of the conference setting.
Descriptions and photographs of conferences spaces were created for social workers and Chairs to provide to families so that they know what to expect on arrival.
An Engaging Fathers group has been set up to discuss how to better engage fathers and male carers to attend conference as the numbers of males is less than females who attend on behalf of their children and we would like to discuss solutions to these barriers. This group was Chaired by one of our Parent Experts by Experience. The Chair will be attending our social work locality teams throughout September to present on the findings and the discussions. They will also be presenting to our newly qualified social workers, and to the whole workforce in our frequent whole service events.
One of our parents has attended numerous events to present, including the Changing Futures Lived Experience event, and the KBSP Partnership Day.
