A POLICE officer is working with Blaenau Gwent council staff in a bid to bring down the number of referrals that social workers are unable to deal with.

At a meeting of the council’s Joint Education, Learning and Social Services scrutiny committee on Wednesday, July 14, councillors looked at the authority’s safeguarding perfomance infomation for the 2020/21 financial year.

The report contained details of how many referrals Bleanau Gwent County Borough Council’s Social Services had received.

Data shows that, out of 5,136 for the year, 1,907 came from police officers.

This is 37 per cent of the total and more than twice as many than the council received from the health service.

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Cllr John Hill, said: “Police referrals are the highest again, which we’ve grown to expect.

“We had a discussion before on the number of referrals that come from the police, and whether or not it’s too easy for them to refer to social services?"

Director of social services, Damien McCann, said: “We now have a police officer as part of the information advice and assistance service, and they are supporting and going to police officers when those referrals are not appropriate.

“We’re trying to educate as to what is really a referral and actually what is something that social services are not able to deal with.

“That is working really well at the moment.”

Cllr John Morgan wanted to drill down into the figures to find our what is causing “youngsters to misbehave.”

Cllr Morgan said: “What gives me concern these figures are not coming down they are staying level, we’re told how quickly they are dealt with but we’re having the same number of problems year after year.

“What are we doing that’s successful?

Mr McCann said: “In terms of safeguarding we are moving in a different direction and that will take a bit of time.

“We’re moving towards contextual safeguarding, it has always concentrated on the child, individual and family, but there is much more to look at around them .”

Mr McCann explained that these would be the school their friends and peer group as well as the neighbourhood they live in.

Mr McCann said: “There are other areas where the child becomes vulnerable outside of the home environment and we need to look at that much more than we’ve done in the past.”

He said that this change of emphasis was being introduced across the “Gwent region”.

Mr McCann explained that a park where people meet regularly could be a problem area that needs sorting out.

Mr McCann said: “We need to tackle that environment to make it safer rather than the child and family themselves.”

“That’s some of the work were doing currently and will try and progress in the next year or two.”

The committee approved the approach and details in the report which will go on to discussed by the council’s executive committee.