Welcome to the Torbay Children's Services Policies and Procedures Manual

Welcome to this update of Torbay Children's Services Policies and Practice Guidance. In it you will find all the information necessary to support you in your day to day work. It consists of different sections which you can access from the menu bar. The chapters in this manual should always be read in conjunction with the relevant local procedures and guidance, which are available in the Torbay Guidance section of the manual.

Torbay Children’s Service recognise that Government guidance and regulation documents use terms such as ‘LAC’ and ‘Contact’ which are not in keeping with our restorative model of practice. It is not currently possible for us to request amendments to be made to such documents.

However, our Restorative Language framework provides a helpful guide to suggest alternative restorative words that we prefer to use within our practice here in Torbay. These terms should be used whenever possible.

• Main Policies – this contains our key policies and ensures that we comply with the law and statutory guidance when safeguarding the needs of the children and families we work with. This guides our social work practice and is updated every 6 months;
• Torbay Guidance – this contains local practice guidance, templates and other information that supports and complements our main policies;
• South West Child Protection Procedures – in this section you can access the multi-agency Safeguarding Children Partnership procedures that we have signed up to with other local authority partners. This ensures that we can work in a consistent way across the region in many key areas of our work.

Note to all staff: If you are sharing documents from this database please share the link and not download the whole document as this will ensure that the most recent version is being circulated.

You can find out more about using this manual by clicking 'Using this Manual'. If you have any queries please get in touch with Faye McNiven at: faye.mcniven@torbay.gov.uk.

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