Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Tuesday 18 November 2025, 7:30pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting

Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Tuesday, 18th November 2025 at 7:30pm 

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Good evening everyone. I'm Councillor Sheila Boswell, Chair of the Children's Overview
and Scrutiny Committee. Welcome to this really very special committee this evening where
we've brought two committees together. We haven't done that before and it's a real tribute
to a new way of working and breaking down silos. So tonight marks a significant milestone.
As I've said, the Children's and Health Committees are meeting together to receive and discuss
a Task and Finish Group report. The collaboration reflects the seriousness and cross -cutting
nature of violence against women and girls' agenda and our shared commitment to working
preventively together for the safety and wellbeing of women and girls in our communities.
I want to thank members of both committees, actually, for your willingness to come together
for this important work and a big thank you also to everyone who has contributed to the
Our meeting coincides with the International 16 Days of Activism Against Gender -Based Violence.
And Wandsworth Council are proud to be white ribbon accredited organisations and during
this period our community safety team is leading a calendar of free webinars, training sessions
and engagement events to raise awareness and encourage allyship in tackling violence against
women and girls.
and in Wandsworth we organised torch parades and walks to show solidarity
with women and we encourage all residents to make a stand and call out
always call out abusive behaviour. Anyone who lives works or studies in Wandsworth
is invited to join us on the upcoming White Ribbon Torch Walk it's on Tuesday
the 25th of November at 6 p .m. and we are meeting at the junction of Dainbury
Avenue and Roehampton so please feel free to come and join and spread the word. I will now pass over
to Councillor Lizzie Dobrez, chair of the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, who is also chair
of the Task and Finish Group, who will lead this meeting. Thanks Councillor Boswell. For those of
you that don't know me, I'm Councillor Lizzie Dobrez, Councillor in Trinity Ward. So before
welcome our very special guests. I don't propose that all members of the OSEs introduce themselves
at the start of the meeting but rather introduce yourselves as you come in and ask for questions
throughout. We received a couple of apologies from Anthony, parent governor, from Anna Popovici.
Have we received any other apologies from councillor members? Sorry can I make apologies
for Councillor Will Sweet. Thank you. Accepted. So I'd now like to offer a really warm welcome
to our members of our Youth Council that are joining us this evening. So we've got Kwazi,
Elizabeth and Basma here in person. Thank you so much for coming. They're going to share
some of their reflections as part of the Violence Against Women and Girls Review. But yeah,
thank you for giving up your evening to come and be with us.
And remotely, I'm really pleased to say we've got Rosie joining
and who is Operations Manager for Refuge.
There are local violence against women and girls advocacy service
at the council commissions and funds and they provide
amazing wraparound support to women who are fleeing domestic abuse.
And again, they're going to share some of their feedback in the area.
We're also very glad to be joined by our cabinet members this evening, so Councillor Graham Henderson, Councillor Judy Gasser, thank you for being here.
And we have a number of officers present more towards this side of the room who will introduce themselves as they come in and address the OSTs.
So before we take our first item and get into the discussion, are there any declarations of pecuniary or non -registable interests?
Councillor Fraser. Thank you chair and chance given the items being discussed
tonight that we will stray into discussion on education and the
curriculum so it's probably I'll take the precautionary step of declaring my
interest I work for AQA the examining body. Thank you Councillor Fraser any
other declarations of interest?
Okay, great. I will now move on to the introduction of the violence against women and girls task
and finisher group scaping report. As a note, this is an interim report. So our final report
is coming to our February meeting. This is a real opportunity to have a really good constructive
and open discussion about the report. There's still time to shape it. And at the end, the
idea is that this report will make a number of recommendations to the council. And I just
wanted to acknowledge that this subject matter can be really, really challenging for some.
Domestic abuse and violence against women and girls has a really high prevalence. So
the chances are that there may be someone in this room who's been affected either directly
or indirectly by the subject matter. So we've got our wonderful manager and community safety
team Gabrielle over here so at the end of this meeting or any point in this meeting
if you need to take a step out Gabrielle is on the hands have a conversation so just offer
that and before we kick off. So the prevention and violence against women and girls isn't
just a national priority it's an absolute moral imperative that demands our action locally
as well. Nationally the statistics are really really stark. One in four women across their
lifetimes will experience domestic abuse. That's one in four, so really really large numbers.
And one in five will experience some kind of sexual violence. Violence against women and girls
accounts for nearly a fifth of all police recorded crime in England and Wales with millions affected
each year. The human cost is immeasurable but the economic and social cost of domestic abuse alone
is estimated at £84 billion annually. Here in Wandsworth I'm really proud of the progress that
we've made already in supporting survivors and responding to incidents of violence.
Our borough endorsed and implemented a new violence against women and girls strategy
in 2024 directly informed by the voices of survivors of domestic abuse and guided by
really clear priorities around changing attitudes, early identification and providing safety
and holding perpetrators to account. For example, we've commissioned Refuge to deliver the independent
domestic violence advocate service, they've newly been appointed and we've had absolutely
fantastic feedback from women who said it's made the difference between being able to
leave an abusive relationship and not for anyone that don't know, it does provide that
wraparound advocacy support and help guide women throughout her journey.
Alongside this we have our one stop shops in the borough and offer discreet drop in
services and offer a range of different services joined up in the council so that you don't
have to go to lots of different places.
We also provide refuge accommodation provided for currently by Hestia for women to actually
stay in accommodation when they need to leave domestic abuse.
And in terms of our work in the community, we've been absolutely committed to trying
to take some of this conversation and the support to the streets.
We establish our first safe space outside Clapham Junction for those of you who haven't
seen it's on Friday nights.
Lots of members of the police, of council officers are there.
You can go and charge your phone if you're feeling unsafe.
And you can have conversations around anything that might be affecting your safety.
We've also launched a safe haven scheme, which is training businesses to be able to provide that safe place of assistance to anyone who might be feeling intimidated.
And we've really worked hard to engage the community on this.
Like Violence Against Women and Girls and cultural change doesn't happen without our communities.
We absolutely have to bring our communities with us.
And we're really, really proud to have over 200 local organisations,
which is one of the largest forums of this kind in the country on violence against women and girls,
coming together very regularly to talk about these issues,
to join up all of our fantastic voluntary sector services,
to offer robust and constructive challenge to the council
to keep us improving, to keep us being the absolute best.
And our cross committee group
on violence against women and girls
started only a few months ago.
I'm really pleased that this has been
a real cross -party effort with councillors from both sides being equally really passionate
about this work.
Our aim with this review that's going to end in February was to identify bold system -wide
opportunities for specifically early intervention and prevention of violence against women and
girls.
So we know that prevention is always better than cure.
How can we support people to be having these conversations about misogynistic attitudes,
about the drivers towards some of those more insidious behaviours earlier on so that we can
prevent a lot of this happening. How do we create the spaces for that? This is what our review is
all about. That's what we're here talking about this evening. And we absolutely are committed to
doing that in collaboration with young people early on in their pathway as much as possible
and committed to hearing the voices of women, girls, children, young men,
in addressing this in our schools, our colleges, our youth spaces.
And we're absolutely focused on trying to deliver the highest quality education
on relationships, consent and respect.
And absolutely engaging men and boys as part of the solution
in a really constructive and open way.
We want to be rooted in inclusivity and intersectionality throughout.
and we're looking closely at how we can already improve what we're doing and how we can align
to best practise on this. In the information pack you'll have received this evening is
an interim report. It's a flavour of what we've done already to map some of the services
and training and interventions that we provide, but it absolutely needs to focus around addressing
the root causes and promoting change at every single level.
We heard a lot through our conversations with stakeholders and with young people about online
safety and how a lot of this conversation is unfortunately starting online.
It's a lot harder for us to understand exactly how that behaviour then starts to expand if
people are experiencing and seeing different forms of content at different stages.
It's a lot harder that we're not all sat in the room experiencing the same thing and same
experiences at the same time, it's happening at different stages, people are being fed different
content on the algorithm. So really, really interested to see how that conversation plays out
tonight. And I guess, you know, in the spirit of this review, we really want to hear lots of ideas
tonight. And we want to have a really kind of open and inclusive discussion around that, that is
positive and that moves the dial forward on that. And I'm now just going to hand over
to Councillor Della Sejour to say a few words from the opposition's perspective.
Yes, thank you. I just wanted to echo some of the comments you've just made there. And
this Task Off Finish group, I think, is a great example of working together across parties
and a cause that we all feel passionate about. And I'd like to thank the Chair for her collaborative
approach to this group and ensuring that everyone had a say and could contribute to shaping
this strategy which we'll be discussing very shortly. Thanks.
Great. So now enough from me and from us and we're going to hear from some of our Youth Council
members about their reflections on the priority areas for young people and then we're going to
hear from Refuge after that. So I'll hand over to you guys to take it away.
Thank you chair.
So we propose continuing to expand and develop investment in CCTV and public services, public
areas such as parks, streets and etc.
So young women and girls feel safe accessing public spaces.
Classes around respecting young women from a young age, echoing kind of what you said
earlier about acting as prevention rather than cure.
social media messaging to encourage young people to say that it is okay to
call out misogyny, engaging ways to educate people at impressionable ages
with specialists trained teachers that get the point across while
allowing students to bring in their own opinions, peer support groups in schools
to reach those who were listening to people such as Andrew
Tate said different negative like influences and so they don't feel
targeted about their opinion and have that opportunity to be more open and
susceptible to making change. Moreover, education in preventing violence against
women and girls should be addressed both in primary and secondary school. These
lessons should be interactive and should directly address misogyny which is
which is known to manifest into violence against women and girls. There should be
also an implicit focus through integrating more intersectional studies
and women representation across all subjects, as well as critical discussions and condemning
misogynistic ideas when they appear in text or lesson content.
I think the prevention also needs to go further than just schools, youth clubs, places of
worship, just community areas in general.
That could include inviting young women and girls to share their storeys to make these more open conversations.
And so young boys and men in general don't feel like stigmatised or feel attacked by these conversations and they can happen naturally.
Because making these conversations like much more frequent helps break down that conditioning that like loads of young boys are also brought up with from a young age.
and it just it means that we can tackle these issues from that lower scale from stuff like
deemed smaller like cat calling or just misogynistic behaviour before it has to build
up into something more so thank you so much. Thank you so much I know there'll be loads of
questions for you guys in a minute I'm just going to move on to Refuge online to come in
with their thoughts. Yes thank you very much for inviting us so my name is
I'm Elisabeth de Bellarossi and I am speaking on behalf of Refuge.
As it has been explained in one workshop, we deliver a single point of access.
And also we are currently delivering the ARVIS project that focuses on training GP surgeries to identify and respond to domestic abuse.
We have so far trained 12 surgeries and we hope to secure additional funding so we continue this vital work.
We also deliver a MOPAC funded announced support service for clients who, as a community, we struggle to support as well as we possibly can because services are not often set up for clients who might have additional needs around mental health, immigration status, disability or language.
and the focus really there is to make services truly accessible.
So, as I think has already been mentioned, we deliver a range of strategic collocations
so survivors can access help in places that they already trust.
We are currently already with housing, we are at the Rose Ward, at the hospital
and it's really about creating a joined -up approach to prevent unsafe situations for our survivors.
We are also hoping to secure funding to deliver All My Life, which is a community group programme that empowers survivors,
and we are working with partners to expand access to specialist domestic abuse and counselling.
You have a packed agenda with lots of really, really interesting information and suggestions for ways to move forward.
And I think a lot of what I've read in your agenda so far really echoes some of the priorities that we see as really, really important to improve prevention and achieve early intervention.
prevention so that we as much as possible,
the most minimised but manage the impact of domestic abuse on survivors,
which will include their children.
So for us, those priorities would be early identification in the settings where
this is most likely to take place.
So that would be GP surgeries, midwives,
community health visiting services.
So those are safe places where disclosures can be encouraged and can occur.
Support for a hidden group. We believe that there is a need to invest in culturally competent services and immigration safe pathways for women with insecure immigration status who are often excluded from mainstream support.
We think that a priority should be trauma -informed practise,
ensuring that all frontline practitioners from social care to housing,
everyone receive training to respond safely and avoid re -traumatization.
And we are very pleased that we've already started a piece of work around training with the Wandsworth Housing Department.
and community safety and based prevention programmes like Own My Life and other educational
initiatives to break the so -called cycle of abuse and build resilience in our community
of survivors. And the last priority that I'm going to cite tonight is integrated mental
health support. So what we've seen that works best is co -location of domestic abuse specialists
within mental health services to address the intersection of trauma and recovery
and really maximise the opportunity that exists in that setting to identify the survivor
and link them up to the specialist support.
So, yes, I'm really, really pleased to be here this evening
and hopefully continue some of this work, which we seem to be in agreement on.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Isabella.
It was really, really interesting to hear about lots of that and really heartening to
see that it's chiming with a lot of what we want to do as well.
Thank you for the work that you do locally for our IDLA service.
We're very, very grateful.
I also just wanted to say that Mysha, who's the chair of our Voluntary Sector of Fog programme
is online.
Mysha, thank you so much for joining us this evening.
and if you do want to come in at any point and ask a question you're very welcome to.
And finally, before I get on to questions and the discussion, I'm just going to come
to Councillor Davis to share some of the feedback that she received from Parent Champions and
Speakers Headteachers.
Yes, thank you, Chair. Yeah, so I've had two sessions I attended. In both, I think there
was a very high level of interest in the offer from the Council and the offer that's coming
forward, but also in our scrutiny project. So the parent champions, it was very useful
to hear their perspectives and they felt very much sidelined. They felt the sexism just
out and about in the community. But also it gave them the opportunity to then go back
home and have the conversations with their sons and daughters about what they were experiencing.
And actually some of the things are, you know, things that I certainly experienced when I was a teenager,
the advice to hold keys in your hand and things like that.
So that was a really useful learning experience.
And then I went to the Headteacher Safeguarding Forum.
And there, yeah, there's interest in the offer for schools.
There was mention about school attendance that could be affected by sort of an emotionally based school avoidance
because of the want to stay at home to protect mum who's upset or evicted them.
They wanted to have something on sexism in the workplace, but I think foremost it was about
collaboration and whether the council can facilitate sharing the sharing of best practise.
They did comment that one of the things that is very much appreciated is our social work in school
So, you know, we've got nine social workers across 22 schools working directly with parents in the playgrounds offering support to teachers and dealing with children in need and child protection.
But one thing that's coming out of that is we're going to get a Padlet together to capture all the teachers' views and perspectives.
So that's being developed at the moment. Thank you.
Fantastic. Thank you everyone for sharing the different evidence from the stakeholder
sessions we've held so far. We've spoken to almost 100 different people over a few months,
so thank you to everyone that's been involved in that. So now for the discussion, I'm really
conscious that we've got lots of members, lots of people who want to ask questions.
So at first I'm just going to take one question from everyone and then if we have time we'll
back around. So who wants to go first? Councillor Crivelli and then Councillor Caddy.
Can I say that I think the whole idea about the meeting and everything is superb. The
idea we're doing the cross -party working on this and the initiatives we're looking at.
There was one thing that did concern me and that is back in August, the then home secretary
of Ed Cooper put quite a bit of emphasis on honour -based abuse. She introduced new statutory
guidance and a legal definition of honour -based abuse to help the police and social workers.
Somewhere in the region of nearly 3 ,000 people were, there was honour -based recorded offences
by the police last year and obviously honour -based violence can be domestic abuse, forced marriage,
threats to kill, any coercive sort of behaviour like that within a family context and of course
the vast majority of people who are subject to honour -based domestic violence are obviously
willing, the overwhelming majority are women. A lot of them can't speak out. A lot of them
don't feel safe about the environment that they are in. And I want to know what we, with
this committee, what we are going to do to try and encourage people who are subject to
honour -based violence to speak out and to seek help about it. But also, there seems to need
to be public awareness about the issue so that they can assist with identifying these
problems because we've talked about early intervention and how that's critical in tackling
violence against women and girls.
Just to say thank you so much, it's such an important issue and honour based violence
is absolutely critical to tackling violence against women and girls so thank you for raising
it. I'm just going to briefly come to Gabrielle, I know we've got lots of questions, but to
talk about we absolutely are committed to this as a council and what we might be doing already.
Thank you for the question, Councillor. This is an area of increasing focus for us at the council
and in the community safety in the VOG team. We have, for example, instituted a standalone
section within our high risk domestic abuse MARAC. This is the multi -agency panel that coordinates
risk management for high risk cases. There is a standalone section now that we've implemented
to ensure that we allocate more time to HBA cases because of the complexity and the need for very
carefully considered engagement around those cases. We have also commissioned the DCS partner
Carmen Nirvana to come and sit with us and accompany us on that panel and to do workshops
with our specialist representatives on the panel to ensure that we are continuously upskilling and
and getting their expertise on cases so that we can ensure
that we're embedding that within our American representatives.
Additionally, we've recently translated our domestic abuse
poster into three languages within Wandsworth
where we know there is some overlap in terms
of prevalence of harmful practises
and honour -based abuse.
So that's something that we've just
done within the last few weeks and are planning
to distribute those.
And we additionally have done quite a few trainings now,
even just this financial year on this topic,
and we have one coming up during the 16 days of activism as well.
Thanks, Gabrielle, and thanks for sharing that.
But absolutely, it's going to make sure it will form part of the final report as well.
Councillor Caddy, how do you next?
Thank you very much, Chair.
Firstly, I just wanted to really welcome this work and this focus
on what really is a critical area.
And it's obviously a huge testament to everyone here
who's worked really hard on it.
So thank you for that.
My question is really on the idea of a whole system
approach.
And I wondered whether there'd be any work with the justice
system and the courts in terms of the kind of interaction
with the council in terms of looking at repeat offenders,
looking at people who are perhaps released early
or dealt with in a way that is not helpful and supportive
for survivors of violence against women and girls.
And I wondered if you could just talk us through perhaps
some of the work that's been done there.
Yeah, absolutely.
I just will caveat before Gabrielle comes in
that I'm sure you'll know there's such a huge backlot
in family courts and in all courts at the moment
with some of this, unfortunately.
But I hand over to Gabrielle.
Thank you, Councillor.
I'll just mention a few things.
So our IDVA service, they do provide support to victims
as they're going through the criminal justice system
if they choose to take that path.
So we very much appreciate their engagement
with victim survivors on that.
We also track repeat offenders in the MARIC
so that that is an automatic high risk escalation
if it's a repeat offence.
So we do track the rates of repeat offenders
and those cases are looked at particularly with that lens. And one more thing maybe just to
highlight is that the Crown Prosecution Service has recently reinstituted a cross -partnership
domestic abuse subgroup to look at exactly the outcomes and improving outcomes in the justice
system for victim survivors and I am sitting, we are sitting on that group as well which is
meeting bi -monthly at the moment. Thank you. Chair, can I just very quickly in terms of comment
on what you said, I completely agree that obviously those court delays are a huge problem
and I would just really like the work here to be able to raise that and make that really clear
because I think we have an opportunity to, as it says, raise kind of, you know, broad brush issues
and I think given that it is such an issue, I think it is behaving on the kind of results,
you know, team to be pointing that out and to be offering advice on how it can be improved.
Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for raising it. And I've had a couple of questions here.
I'll go Councillor Fraser, then I had Councillor Osborne, and then I'll come back.
Thank you, Chair. And really thank you to all for being here this evening and for the
work that you've all done leading this. And I'm going to direct my question to some of
the young people and also thank you to Basma, Elizabeth and Quasi for your comments. You
can be doing in schools.
And one of the things, I did have my interest earlier,
but one of the things that the government has recently done
is conducted a review of the curriculum assessment system.
And one of the things that they are now looking to do
is really looking at the future of the curriculum
in areas such as PSHE, citizenship,
actually to try and tackle things like online,
you know, what's true and what's false online,
and really what are your thoughts on
if the if what what could be done to change the curriculum based on some of the things that you
said and and whether you'd consider maybe through this group or via council officers perhaps
reporting back to the department for education about the work that you've done here to try and
shape the future of the curriculum as it goes out to to really look at what what can be changed in it
would one of you like to come in
um that's a really good question so thank you very much i think um it's quite loaded in the
sense that there's a lot of things that go into shaping the curriculum.
But I'd say having it be something that students can actually resonate with.
Because I think when it's delivered by someone who maybe you don't relate to as
a student, it can, I guess, lead to you wanting to seek out more radical views.
In terms of how to approach a situation.
And I think that's how people get indoctrinated,
because they're not taught how to think critically.
I think as teachers, there's kind of that duty to ensure that you're able to relate
to young people in a sense.
So I'd say it's not necessarily even just about
the curriculum itself, but it's also about how educators
are able to relate to young people
and ensure that they feel that the curriculum
sees people like them in it,
because it just makes it so much easier to learn
when it's being delivered by someone
or you're being taught about someone
who's a little bit more similar to you.
And to add to that, I totally agree, but also the lessons that at least I'm exposed to and
I've heard from my friends is very passive and it's more of a something to get to just
do once a week. And that attitude is where the problem stems because it shouldn't be
another 30 minutes of a lesson.
It should be something more interactive
and should really have that important discussion,
not something to sit down and watch the slides
or the PowerPoint, because it's so much more to that.
And the topics tackled are so important,
but they're treated less so,
and they're treated as content
like you would learn for any other subject, but that's simply not the case.
So making those lessons more interactive, them being led by something, someone more
relatable in that sense is so integral to have the meaning and the effect we want.
Thank you. Thank you so much, some really, really valuable contributions there.
I think I had Councillor Osborne next.
Yes, I, like a lot of people, I endorse the whole idea behind this meeting tonight and the way things have gone.
But in particular, I want to say how valuable I found the contribution from the Youth Council earlier on.
And there was one particular bit that I wanted to pick up, which was the comments about the need to engage young men and boys in the subject matter of this evening.
because I think we should be honest with ourselves and say that sometimes there
is a shadow over the option for that kind of conversation. There are elements
sometimes of family conditioning or elements of peer group pressure which
make those conversations more difficult to initiate in the first place and I
think my point is I'm I'm interested in people's comments and interested in
people's ideas in how exactly do we make sure that not only we get that
conversation we get the right conversation with young men and boys on
this subject. Thank you Rex. Do you want to come back on that? Thank you for your
question. I think by having groups where young men and boys don't feel
necessarily like they're being villainized in the sense that I feel
like in schools it's really easy to paint every young man and every boy with
the same brush and say you're the cause of this issue and I think it causes a
lot of young men to be quite dismissive of violence against women and girls so I
think about having these smaller focus groups where you're not kind of
villainizing these students it's how you have more open and interactive
discussions and kind of recognising that is an issue and you are able to
call it out because I think in terms of like stuff like catcalling like was
mentioned earlier it can be quite normalised like within schools and I
think often schools don't want to have these discussions because they think
it's just easier to kind of bypass them but I think when you have these smaller
groups and you're able to get people together and open up and have these
conversations it's how we build a better society because changes and achieves
through just waiting for like a light bulb to switch and then something
happens. It's about what can we do here and now in getting these conversations
to happen and getting people to open up and see the issues that lie in society
and how they can kind of be a beacon to make that better or call out a
particular issue that they see. Thank you so much, Kose. I think I had
Councillor Gassane, Councillor Apps and then Councillor Owens. Thank you, Chair. I echo
everybody's words in terms of thanks to everybody in the group for the important work they're
doing and I welcome the focus on prevention and the system -wide approach of the paper.
Having said that, I am somewhat surprised to say the least given that there are a number
of real -world examples that are referred to in the paper that there isn't any mention
of the large -scale group exploitation scandals, particularly the rape gangs in places like
Botherham, and the inquiry reports
of the role of institutional fear around race and religion
in those scandals.
We've had numerous investigations, reports,
audits into that particular scandal.
And as recently as last summer, the then home secretary
not only gave an unequivocal apology for everything
that happened, but a wholehearted commitment
to following all 12 of Baroness Casey's recommendations,
and to learning the lessons from that scandal.
So this report, or paper rather,
which is purporting to promote, I think, system leading,
was the word that's used,
approach to the problem of violence against women and girls,
is that there isn't a commitment,
an explicit commitment in the paper about learning
from those national examples.
And my questions are related to that.
Firstly is why the report doesn't reference
those national inquiries into group -based child sexual
exploitation.
And will the chair commit to adding those explicitly
into the literature and policy review that will inform
the work of the group?
Will the data review include information on perpetrators as well as victims,
including ethnicity, age and offending patterns?
And if not, why not?
And how will the group ensure that fear of being accused of racism
or stigmatising particular communities
doesn't stop agencies from naming and addressing patterns of offending
that have been identified in national inquiries?
Thank you very much for your contributions, your question, Councillor Kossain. I guess this is our kind of interim stage to have conversations about the scope of the review.
And as the group contains members of both sides of the group, the option is to kind of suggest things that could be a part of the literature review.
So just to say that.
And absolutely, you know, we can have, if there's some specific suggestions,
you can, you know, we can absolutely take those offline.
And yeah, but I don't know if officers have anything else that they want to add to that.
I think just obviously the group will pick up how that plays into review,
but just from a safeguarding perspective, I guess, to assure you of our rise on that
as a council, we have a variety of mechanisms
that we would use to look at grooming
and grooming gangs in particular.
So on a very operational level, each day,
we have a meeting with the police
and with a variety of partners,
including community safety, to think about children
who have been missing overnight,
children who have patterns of going missing,
and initiate a kind of immediate safeguarding response.
And we use that to track themes and patterns
in terms of individuals, locations and other things.
Separately to that, we have a multi -agency panel
once a month that looks at children who are being exploited
or at risk of being exploited, criminally and sexually.
And we have a joint multi -agency response,
again, that's co -chaired with police
to think about those individuals
and the safety plans around them,
but also using the information that we have
about their experiences, the people who are exploiting them to track patterns which feed
into a more strategic meeting each month where we look at locations of concern, people of concern
and our kind of joint coordinated response to that. So just to reassure you of the kind of day -to -day
practise around supporting safety of young women in the community. Pat did you want to come in?
Yeah and thank you and just to add that actually there was quite a substantial literature review
that was undertaken to help inform the work of the task and finish group. I
think actually amounted to about 68 page presentation in the end so just to
reassure you that actually we have drawn down from those learnings from National
Enquiries etc but actually acknowledge the point that we need to reflect that
more in the report. So could I just very quickly come in I really welcome
everything that's been said. Now I think I've asked a couple of questions at full
council about this. I submitted an amendment to the Health Committee a
a couple of years ago.
And there still hasn't been an explicit commitment
of the council to learning the lessons of those scandals.
I don't see what the barrier here is.
Are we, as a council, as a borough, committed to,
as Yvette Cooper said in the summer,
to learning the lessons of that scandal
and incorporating whatever change is necessary to ensure
that something like that never happens in Wandsworth?
Thanks for your contributions, Councillor Koussane. I think we're going to move on to the next question.
Councillor Owens. Thank you. Again, echo a lot of the comments made. It's been a very interesting
reading and fascinating to hear from our members of the Youth Council. Just going back actually
to some of the points you were making. I know on the Youth Council, I know that obviously it's not
just about schools. You raised other groups and football clubs, I think you mentioned in the
report, but just on schools and phones in particular, I'd like to see perhaps the
next stage something I know that's something Wandsworth could lead, it was
something for Wandsworth to put in place, but there is an issue where schools,
different year groups are allowed phones and obviously schools are
different. I have two sons, teenage sons in Wandsworth schools and there are
completely different policies and I know that phones are a huge issue
particularly for girls because boys are messaging during the day and sending
images and that sort of thing. And it seems quite strange to me that something that could
be nipped in the bud quite quickly and easily should be being addressed with something like
this council and the other or this this this piece of work, but my other point was perhaps
more just for the officers. And that is I also know of children in my own ward who have
ended up in temporary accommodation in another borough, and obviously at risk because they're
in accommodation, schoolgirls, primary schoolgirls,
were in accommodation with adult unrelated males.
They may be separated by sex,
but they're in the same blocks.
And obviously the borough is not aware of it,
and frequently the school is not aware of it
because obviously they've ended up there
from perhaps private rented accommodation,
and they're looking to come back to the borough,
but at the same time they're at risk somewhere else.
And I was just curious as to how the boroughs work together.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So I think the first question on phones to the Youth Council,
who wants to take that? Thank you for your question. I can talk personally from my experience
because I attended the school from year seven which did not allow phones and phones were
like not allowed on the premises at all and I did see a difference on in general treatment
of students which includes treatment of gals because the fact that there is no phone limits
the possibility for uncomfortable conversations I had between whether
there is a group of boys or even girls between each other and even like taking
pictures without consent in school. If for example at lunch you this could
happen outside of school as well but during break times when you're there in
a lot can arise and not having phones did have an impact on limiting that mistreatment
compared to my peers from other schools which I've heard many instances where there was
cases where girls were mistreated by a group of boys because of a picture they took at
lunch without her consent and so on and so forth.
So in general, phones not being allowed is helpful to limit treatment girls receive.
Thank you very much. And Gabrielle, did you just want to touch on the second point?
Sure. So, you know, just to acknowledge it is a challenge. Housing is a challenge across London and it is something that we're working on very closely with housing.
so acknowledging that it's not perfect and it is a work in progress.
But to just mention a few things that have been done recently.
There is a new domestic abuse housing policy that has been released
internally that was consulted on with with survivors,
as well as across the different council departments and agencies and partners.
There's also the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance accreditation process
that we've been going through, and that's been a real positive
step in terms of ensuring that you know that standard that we want to meet is is being met.
There's also a domestic abuse coordinator post in housing, including in
temporary accommodation I believe as of recently. So you know this is something that we continue
to work very closely with housing on and we'll just continue to do so. Thank you. I have, I know
I've got a lot of questions. I realise I missed out Councillor Warr who's had his hand up pretty much
the whole meeting, so I'll go to you first.
Thank you, Chie. First of all, just to say,
I recognise the amount of work that's actually gone into this review
and the continuing amount of work that goes into this.
And also, as you said about the beginning of the psychological toil
and the impact that it has on people being involved in this.
And so I would like to say a big thank you to everybody that's participated
and actually been involved.
My question is, I'm not sure if it's a question or a comment, but I have a concern about how the voices of people who operate on the margins of society or in the legal grey area are actually captured, and who are not part of the stakeholder groupings that you've seen.
So I was just thinking, for example, women and young girls, for example, who are controlled through faith -based organisations.
So religious pastors, for example, who we know are abusing, but might not actually, women concerned might not feel empowered enough to actually disclose that.
We know that it's a hostile environment for trans women, for example, and lesbians often have the highest rate, have high domestic violence rates, but do not engage in reporting them to services.
and only to get discovered through A &E admissions, etc.
We have a quite active sex worker network
that operates in this part of London,
but I was wondering how their voices get heard,
because we know that sex workers are subject to high rates
of domestic violence, high rates of violence
as part of the work that they actually do,
and often do not report it for fear of the law.
And also, for example, people who are subject to...
It's been mentioned earlier, subject to immigration control,
but who actually are dependent on visas.
So for example, their partners will abuse them,
subject them to sexual violence,
and then threaten them with reporting them
to the home office for deportation.
So the, and also people from drug use,
who are part of the drug -using community.
So these are people who are very much on the margins,
who only come into our viewpoint or on our radar
when they're often present through A &E
or present through a service
that actually where they need help in that particular way,
but often get overlooked or their voices don't get heard.
So that would be my first point, how do we include,
make sure that those are captured.
And I'm sure some work has been done already,
so I don't, you know, I'm not disregarding that already.
And then the second one is really how we ensure that
once we've got to the end of this,
we don't fall back into the patterns of silo working.
We continue that intersectionality,
we continue that work across the OACs, across the council,
because this is valuable and we now have the chance to really embed it and we mustn't lose that opportunity.
Thank you, Councillor Laura, for those really important points. Just on some of those groups,
what I would say is our really fantastic voluntary sector forum that has
about 200 organisations as part of it. Many of
those marginalised communities that you talked about, we're really, you know, glad to have some of those grassroots
organisations represented, especially around LGBTQ +, women and girls and women that identify
as girls. Absolutely, they're going to be at the heart of the evidence review. And you touched on
a really important point around no recourse to public funds around some of those points around
the Home Office. And again, absolutely, the Council is looking at what we can do to better support
those women and that needs to be at the heart of this review. So just to thank you for those
really, really important contributions. And the point around siloed working, I guess, yeah,
I think it has been a really great exercise to work more closely together. I don't know,
Kat, if you want to come in with any reflections on that?
I think I'll echo the reflections in the room in terms of coming together and exploring the work
that's being undertaken across the council in terms of where there's opportunities that we
know about, where there's further opportunities to develop the work that we're undertaking.
as I mentioned earlier, we put together a kind of a literature review and a review of all of the activity that's going on.
It was actually phenomenal, the amount of work that's already actually being undertaken in this place.
I think we all recognise that there's opportunities to continue to strengthen that connexion though, as well,
and ensuring that one, there's a visibility within the organisation about what's on offer,
but actually ensuring that that visibility is there within our communities, with our young people,
with our community organisations so they know as well what support is there,
and actually that that's delivered in a really contextual and culturally informed way as well.
Thank you. And then I'll go Councillor Apps and Councillor Jeffery.
Thank you very much. I was interested to read in the interim report, but also to hear from the
from the Youth Council members too about the support for the concept of more education and
empowerment for young people both at primary and at secondary level.
and I would really support that.
I think that does play an important role for young people.
However, I think we have to make sure
it's safe and supported, and I would really like
the report to flesh that out a little bit in future.
So for example, if somebody has been the victim
and discloses that they've been a victim of domestic abuse,
perhaps they've witnessed domestic abuse in their home,
they could experience trauma,
it's going to be incredibly important
to make sure that that's picked up appropriately and that that is escalated where needed and
that the person giving that teaching or training is equipped to deal with those situations
so that has to be embedded as part of the process. And I'd be interested to hear if
there's ideas of how that's done at the moment and how we can make sure that happens in the
future.
Thank you, Councillor Apps. I don't know, Gabrielle, if you want to touch on that, but
absolutely some really important points about how we integrate that.
Oh, sorry, Andy, you wanted to come in.
Yeah, I mean, I think first of all, I welcome the fact that in both the curriculum review
and in keeping children's health and education and in the updated RSC guidance,
that there is a real acknowledgement that this is a really serious area,
which is key for schools.
DSLs, designated safeguarding leads, have very challenging roles
and often are dealing with really difficult situations.
And we offer supervision through our education psychology service
and through our education safeguarding lead for those individuals,
many of whom take that up.
In terms of domestic violence, we know that it has a significant impact
on young people at school. My background originally was at the secondary crew and I'm sure it'll come
as no surprise that many of the young people who came through to us had domestic violence. So again,
I think it's really important that aid is picked up and be it is dealt with sensitively by schools.
And I think that's about messaging and ensuring that, you know, that approach,
sympathetic approach is embedded and more and more of our schools are actually taking on trauma
informed practise, virtual school delivers training for free to our schools on trauma
informed practise so that they understand the impact that this has on young people.
So I think there's certainly more that can be done.
Also within the RSE, the new guidance, there is a necessity for schools to ensure that
people who are delivering those lessons have adequate training as well.
So whereas in the past, I think we've heard about people probably delivering lessons who
not necessarily confident, who are not necessarily specialists. So it would be incumbent on schools
to ensure that those people delivering those lessons have the appropriate training.
And I've just realised we're totally stopping ahead with time. And so I'm just going to
take two final questions. Councillor Stork and Councillor McLeod.
Thank you, Chair. Again, I'd echo what others have said about the ways of working in terms
of this new task and finish group, I think it's really to be welcome. I think it's been
a really insightful discussion this evening that will no doubt continue. I just wanted
to share a space, some reflections from a meeting that I attended with the chair and
Mac Boys Football Club, a boys football club in Putney. And thank you to them for taking
the time to share their insight. And their insight was definitely around prevention rather
than some of the kind of discussion that has taken place in terms of court enforcement
and things like that.
So I'll focus on that.
And it was actually just interesting in and of itself
that I think they reflected during the course
of our discussion that this really
had provided an opportunity for them
to discuss this issue that hadn't really been there
before.
I think that echoes some of what's
been said by the Youth Council around providing a safe space.
And it definitely felt that that wouldn't
be the end of the conversation for them.
And that as they went off, I think, in the evening
to play football, that they would
continue amongst themselves as men talking about this issue.
So I think that goes to show that this work in and of itself can have real impact.
But there, I think there were a couple of reflections that they had.
I think they would also really concur with what you've said from the Youth Council in terms of education,
both in and out of school, that importance, which I think you've just touched on a little bit,
again, in terms of how that lesson is delivered and the importance of that being by peers
and how that can really be far more powerful and memorable.
I think they use an example such as Safe Drive, Stay Alive,
which uses kind of quite emotive videos, survivors,
and that really being a powerful opportunity.
And that was something that was quite memorable for them.
So I do wonder whether there is an opportunity for us
to think about a piece of work locally that we could do
that could be really impactful in local schools,
possibly our maintained schools.
Then there was also an area that they discussed, which I think again the youth council have touched on.
In terms of the qualities, that they looked at it perhaps as a football club through the lens of
sport and feeling that there's quite a lot of focus on young boys in sport and they were wondering
about the opportunities for promoting mixed sports, particularly pre -puberty in primary schools and
whether that might be an opportunity to focus equally across the genders rather than
their sense that sometimes sport was focused more on men and that began to create some
gender stereotypes that they on reflection didn't feel comfortable about.
And then there was also, I think there's a lot of focus on social media and I think the
national government is trying to address that, but it is just a moving feast and moving so
quickly.
And I was really, I found it quite powerful in a way that the young men that we spoke
to looked at things through a different way to say you can't really fight the algorithm,
but you know if actually I wasn't at home looking at my phone and I was
engaged in activities and there was an equalities issue there as to kind of
the cost of some activities actually the more there is free and low -cost
activities and I can be out connecting with people that I wouldn't necessarily
be on my phone kind of engaged in that algorithm so I think real recognition in
this piece of work for the work we can do with the Wandsworth Youth Partnership
and the HAF scheme and Promoting Access for All is really making sure that we
are providing free and low -cost activities for young people.
So I do think there is some reflections, perhaps,
as part of this piece of work that we could do around how,
I think, the report touches on the community safety
scene commissioning of proactive offers in violence
against women and girls.
Thinking about that opportunity for working together
across the council, whether there could be thought
amongst community safety, our ones with youth partnership,
and our education team to be thinking about commissioning
something really hyper -local that could be
delivered amongst our peers in school that could really resonate for young people.
Thanks Kate, because of time I'm just going to go to Councillor McLeod and then we will have to wrap up.
Hello and yes, echoing everybody else saying really great piece of work and great meeting between the two councils.
I just wanted to, I guess do a sentence cheque, something that I know is part of this work, but I just wanted to hear it.
So we spoke a little bit about being culturally aware
and making sure that some of our marginalised communities
are involved in this work.
And even in your measures for what's good,
making sure that you're inclusive,
making sure that you commission local groups
seem to be part of the strategy.
Can I just hear something about how
we're actually commissioning local groups
who are maybe from particular communities?
Because as we found out during COVID, if you don't specifically pay attention to communities
and do broad brush work, you can end up further marginalising groups that are already marginalised.
We've spoken about the risk of certain groups being perpetrators, but I'm talking about
certain groups being the victims of some of this violence and maybe not having the faith
in authorities that mainstream groups have to come forward.
what sort of work are we doing to make sure we're breaking down those barriers.
Thanks, can I add a few words from maybe Gabriella and then Kat?
Sure, so to just give a few examples because we're short on time, we, as I mentioned earlier,
we commissioned Carmen Nirvana around harmful practises. We have a very wide training offer,
much of which is focused on particular groups that are at risk of certain types of abuse
or that we are not as effective at reaching as professionals sometimes.
So the training offer has included commissions such as the traveller movement to talk about the
traveller community, looking at male victims, looking at a wide range. And, you know, we,
again, we've done translations, we've got, you know, quite a few things going on, but perhaps
I can follow up with you in more detail when there's a bit more time to go into that.
Thank you, I'm just conscious that we have two other committee meetings to get through
and we're three minutes over. I'm sorry, Councillor Jaffray.
Do you want to make one final very, very brief point?
Thank you so much, Chair. I'll be really quick. So this evening has been really constructive
and I really appreciate spending my time with you all tonight. It is absolutely disgusting
and appalling to hear about grooming gangs across the UK. And I hope and pray that these
kind of incidents never occur in Wandsworth. But in terms of, it's just a plea basically that we
don't use a rhetoric which has been used against Muslim Pakistani men who have been predominantly
known for these grooming gangs because this is just going to cause more cohesion and problems
in our community and we've worked really hard with all communities and so and in terms of
safeguarding, this can be an issue. So it's just a plea, really, thank you.
Thank you, Councillor Jeffrey. So thank you for all the really valuable input from all
sides this evening. As I said, it's an interim report, we've got councils from both sides.
So if there's things that you feel needs to be included in that literature review, please
speak to your member on your side and make sure that that's included as part of the final
report. We're really open, want to hear as much as we can. And I should have said at
beginning we had a huge, huge list of reports that were summarised for today. So there are
loads of stuff, loads of amazing stuff in there that we might not have seen today. So
I just need to ask the committee to take the report for information and are they happy,
is the committee happy to move forward for the final report in February? Okay, thank
you. And if you're in the health committee, we're staying in this room. If you're moving
into children's committee then you're moving into one two three. Thank you.