Welcome to the Durham Children's Services Procedures Manual

Welcome to Durham's Children's Social Care procedure manual, assisted by tri.x.

Please see 'Using this Manual' for details about the way this manual works.

Practitioners may also need to refer to the DSCP Procedures. In addition to the procedures available within this procedures manual, there is Durham's Resource Library section (previously called Durham Local Resources) which contains guidance, operating manuals for specific services, forms, templates, flowcharts, and leaflets. This is where you will find all the tools to help you in your practice to achieve the best outcomes for our children and their families and to support you as a practitioner within Durham. Durham's Resource Library is your gateway to all other external practice guidance, research and resources and if you have anything to add, please get in touch.

All documents/resources can be accessed in an unaltered form however, they should not be printed as they are continuously updated. If you do need to print these, please discard after 72 hours.

See also: How Durham Children's Social Care will Update the tri.x Procedures Manual Including Durham's Resource Library.

HOW TO RECOMMEND THE INCLUSION OF A NEW DOCUMENT OR THE AMENDING OF AN EXISTING DOCUMENT

If you would like to recommend a document to be included in Durham's Resource Library or an amendment to an existing document, please contact Laura Armstrong (Laura.Armstrong@durham.gov.uk).

HOW TO FIND AND ACCESS A DOCUMENT

They are two options available when searching for a document:

Option 1: 'Search' function 

This option allows you to search the Durham Resource Library in a similar way to using an internet search engine. The number of hits (i.e. the documents retrieved) is more likely to be greater than Option 2, as it searches the content of every document in the Durham Resource Library. However, this option may also result in a greater number of irrelevant hits. 

Click on the document, once located, in order to open it. On occasion, opening a document may require multiple attempts or there may be short delay in the document appearing on screen.

Option 2: 'Ctrl' and 'F' 

Click on a heading to reveal links to the documents. Press and hold the 'Ctrl' and 'F' keys. This will bring up the Find box (in the top left of your screen). Type in a word / words relevant to the document you are searching for. Documents containing the word / words you have entered will be highlighted. Click on 'Next' until the document is located.

Click on the document, once located, in order to open it. On occasion, opening a document may require multiple attempts or there may be short delay in the document appearing on screen.

Note: references in these procedures to ‘Operations Managers’ should be read as referring to ‘Service Managers’. The terminology will be updated throughout the procedures at the next update.