NISB discussion notes – Summer 2017

The NISB met at the Welsh Government Offices in Llandudno during June 2017. Although we favour meeting locations which signal the National Board’s independence – in Cardiff we usually we meet at 30 Park Place Chambers – we were unsuccessful in finding an alternative venue.

We discussed a potential programme and title for the conference which heralds the start of National Safeguarding week, that is, “Safeguarding in Sport – Taking responsibility, taking action.” It is a conference with a difference because the speakers’ lives have been upended by specific harms and yet they have surmounted the experience and its aftereffects. Since the Regional Boards have acknowledged the challenge of capturing people’s voices, we envisage that the conference will encourage each of us to reflect on ways of credibly intervening in people’s lives.

We had a helpful discussion with the authors of the Home Education Review and they sought an extension which we agreed; we had an update on the NISB’s website; and we did some problem-solving concerning the difficulties of creating a public learning agenda/ thematic review (which features in the National Board’s work plan).

We met at 30 Park Place Chambers for our July 2017 meeting. We had an update from the Welsh Government concerning the prospective Handling Individual Cases Guidance, possible developments concerning the availability of secure accommodation for children and young people. (During February 2017 the National Board made a recommendation to Ministers during concerning the paucity of secure accommodation and/or secure hospital beds for children in Wales.)

We had a presentation from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. This set out the public hearings, its Truth Project and its research projects. The National Board has undertaken to complement this work with its “on our doorstep learning” which draws from judges’ summing up of key Welsh trials.

We discussed the budget for the public learning agenda/ thematic review and the possibility of jointly funding this work.