Leading the way on child protection
Tuesday, November 20 2007
After 17 years of service as the Children’s Reporter for the Scottish Borders, Pauline Walker has taken up a three-year appointment as Independent Chair of the Child Protection Committee.
The top-level, multi-agency Critical Services Oversight group appointed Pauline to lead Child Protection in the Borders. Its Chair, David Hume, said: “We are delighted with this new appointment. The outgoing Chair, Dougie Watson, led us skilfully through a recent inspection of inter-agency child protection services. We welcome Pauline and look forward to her providing strong leadership over the next three years.”
The Critical Services Oversight group, which includes the Chief Executives of the Council and NHS Borders and the Divisional Commander of Lothian and Borders Police, is ultimately accountable for child protection and vulnerable adult protection in the Borders.
Pauline said: “My intention is to carry on building on the work of my predecessor to achieve continuous improvement in child protection services for children and young people in the Scottish Borders.
“The Child Protection Committee has a number of important functions, including raising awareness of child protection issues in the community, promoting good practice for those working with vulnerable children and families and ensuring clear multi-agency guidelines and procedures are in place to protect children.
“Earlier this year, the HMIe joint inspection report on child protection services in the Scottish Borders was published. This gave a very positive view of the work to protect children and young people in the Borders and indicated we were well placed to continue to improve services. The report’s recommendations are forming an important part of our ongoing work. We want to develop public participation in service improvement and planning and to make better use of the information we have to improve services.
“There are challenges ahead in the further development of child protection services. I look forward, with the Child Protection Committee and others, to working on these to build on what we have achieved already in protecting our children and young people.”
Unified Solutions.