Joint Area Management Meetings (JAMM)

The purpose of the JAM meeting is to ensure teams across Children Services and Harrogate and District Foundation Trust work together in the best interest of children, young people and families to provide a seamless service regardless of their level of need.

The group members will be responsible for ensuring effective service delivery through the development and implementation of quality improvement plans across all teams and will provide local management oversight to the implementation of Signs of Safety.

All partners will work together to empower families and communities using the minimum necessary statutory intervention. We will work to avoid need by offering effective preventative services, identify need early and offering practical support. Where a child's wellbeing or safety is compromised, we will act swiftly to ensure safeguards are in place, including use of legal powers where unavoidable.

1. Ensure the Child's journey and their voice remains central;
2. Provide help at the earliest opportunity which supports and promotes community resilience through the provision of locally delivered services in local communities which make sense to families and partners;
3. Deliver evidence based interventions at all levels of need, with a focus on safe escalation and de-escalation of cases supporting staff to be able to safely and confidently manage risk whilst maintaining the confidence of families and partners;
4. Create the conditions for effective work with children and families;
5. Ensure high quality evidence based practice which supports good outcomes for children and families;
6. Develop a practice system which minimises drift and delay for children and is clearly focussed upon permanency planning;
7. Manageable caseloads for Social Workers, Key Workers and Early Help Practitioners;
8. Manageable spans of control for Team Managers;
9. Decisions are taken at a level where there is the best knowledge of the child;
10. Continuity of worker for children;
11. Deliver a coherent model of practice across the Service;
12. Ensure regulatory and statutory compliance;
13. Develop approaches to support families at the pre-birth stage (linked to early permanence planning) and also those who are on the "edge of care" (particularly young people and teenagers);
14. The service will support mobile and flexible working to respond effectively to the needs of families.

This section is to follow.

The locality JAMM will be held on a bi monthly basis, with dates agreed annually. They will be held for approximately 2 hours.

1. Families First and One Point Operations managers alternate the chair;
2. The Operations Manager chairing the meeting is responsible for development and dissemination of the agenda 7 days before planned meeting;
3. The meeting cannot take place without representatives from the quorum members;
4. A standardised agenda will provide a framework for the meeting, this can be added to depending on locality needs;
5. A record of the meeting and agreed actions will be captured by a group member ( in rotation) and circulated within 7 days of the meeting being held;
6. Any disagreements regarding a decision made by the group should be reported to the Chair and escalated through each services management structures until a resolution is agreed upon;
7. Escalation of any presenting issues which are not able to be resolved by the JAMM will be escalated by the appropriate Operations Manager:
   • Where it is a single service issue to the strategic manager;
   • Where it is a whole service issue to Head of Service.

8. Welcome and apologies;
9. Previous notes and matters arising/ actions;
10. Updates in each team/service (service/ staff/ practice);
11. Workflow (allocation, escalation/de-escalation processes);
12. Interface between teams and services;
13. Stronger Families programme- achievement of outcomes for children and families;
14. Review Quality Improvement Plans;
15. Signs of Safety Implementation Plan;
16. External Partnership working (schools, etc);
17. Case presentations;
18. Any other business;
19. Date and time of next meeting.

The purpose, frequency and standardised agenda will be reviewed annually by members of the group and Strategic Managers across Children Services.