he Government is set to make a Plymouth-born child-safeguarding scheme a statutory requirement of all police forces across England and Wales.
As part of a series of amendments to the Victims and Prisoners Bill which are being tabled by the Government, the Operation Encompass scheme – currently being performed by 43 police forces across the country – will effectively move from being carried out as a voluntary act to a legislated and statutory act.
Operation Encompass was the brainchild of former Devonport police sergeant David Carney-Haworth OBE and his wife, former Torpoint Nursery and Infants School headteacher Elisabeth Carney-Haworth OBE.
The scheme, initially launched in 2011, ensured that information gathered by police at the scene of a domestic incident where children were present, was passed onto that child’s school before 9am the following morning.
Since then the scheme has won praise from education experts, ministers, domestic violence practitioners, child psychologists as well as police and crime commissioners. By 2017 the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary recommended that each police force take up the Plymouth-born scheme, saying it was: “an excellent example of sharing information between agencies to protect vulnerable children, because it involves forces working in collaboration with local authorities and nominated ‘key adults’ or contacts in schools.”
In 2019 Operation Encompass won the overall prize at the very first World Class Policing award at a prestigious ceremony in London. The scheme beat off competition from 54 finalists, drawn from more than 100 outstanding entries from across the globe. Operation Encompass was rolled out in Northern Ireland in 2020 and then in Gibraltar in 2022.
As part of it’s work on the Victims and Prisoners Bill, the Government has said it will bring in additional amendments to bolster the law, including allowing victims of serious crimes committed by those with mental disorders to be given chance to explain in their own words the impact the offence has had on them.
New measures will mean survivors are provided with the opportunity to make a Victim Impact Statement during the Mental Health Tribunal process, which takes places before offenders are released and allows survivors to request release conditions.
In addition the Home Office has announced it will also table an amendment which will make it mandatory for the police to notify schools and colleges when they believe a child may be a victim of domestic abuse, so that they can provide support at the earliest possible opportunity. This builds on the landmark Domestic Abuse Act, which formally recognises children as victims in their own right when they see, hear or experience the effects of domestic abuse.
Both Elisabeth and David Carney-Haworth had been key campaigners to ensure children were recognised as victims in their own right and for their scheme, Operation Encompass, to be a statutory requirement for all police forces, ensuring it was effectively a legal obligation by police rather than a goodwill gesture.
David told PlymouthLive: “This is a landmark moment for all our children. It effectively safeguards Operation Encompass for the future. It’s always been a goodwill gesture by the police forces, from the early days when we had just a handful of schools in Devonport, all the way to all the forces rolling out the scheme.
“If the amendment is successful then we will work with the Home Office, the Department for Education and the National Police Chief’s Council to create a statutory guidance document which will, in effect, formalise the process and support the legislation. and bring it into law.
“In addition, it will support the work of HMICFRS (HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Service) as they inspect forces. It’s a huge step in the life of children who have experienced domestic abuse and one we’ve been working on for years, since the creation of Operation Encompass in Plymouth back in 2011.
“I don’t believe there has ever been another police operation or scheme which originated from the ground up, which has gone into every police force in the country. In that respect, Operation Encompass is a first.”
David admitted that the number of people now involved in ensuring Operation Encompass calls are carried out every day, in police forces across the country and within education establishments, is probably in the thousands.
David said: “We’re quite proud that our free online Operation Encompass training [which details how and why Operation Encompass works, on the effects of of domestic abuse on children and how teachers can support children] has 27,200 engaged people, all created by Lis and myself. That is the impact it’s had. To get to where we are today is phenomenal, but there’s still more to do.
“To get that statutory footing is a mammoth deal in the lives of children enduring domestic abuse.”
In 2022 PlymouthLive reported on the review of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes’s death at the hands of his father and stepmother, which found that that the Operation Encompass scheme was ‘not in operation’ by Solihull police at the start of lockdown, leaving his school unaware of domestic abuse incidents despite national recognition that such information sharing was vital to safeguard children and that Operation Encompass should still be in place whilst schools experienced partial lockdowns.
The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel which carried out the review into the murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, noted that the decision by West Midlands Police to apparently suspend the Operation Encompass scheme shortly after the launch of the lockdown policy, meant that calls to local educations establishments about the attendance of police at a domestic violence incident were not carried out.
The panel’s report specifically cited the Plymouth-borne scheme, stating: “Operation Encompass (the system in which the police notify schools after a recorded domestic abuse incident where a child on the school’s roll was present) was not in operation in Solihull in the weeks immediately following lockdown so the domestic abuse incident on 15th April 2020 was not notified to Arthur’s school.
“The school has reflected that if it had been notified about the incident it would have offered a place to Arthur because of his increased vulnerability.” The report’s findings left the creators of Operation Encompass dismayed at the decision made by West Midlands Police, leaving Elisabeth to tell PlymouthLive: “We were clear about why police still needed to send notifications through to schools [during Covid] – those children experiencing domestic abuse in their homes were even more vulnerable than ever when schools closed during COVID. This was a frightening and dangerous situation for them, but we all had the opportunity to support them as much as possible. That opportunity to save Arthur’s life was missed.
“We encouraged all schools to offer places to all children where they had Operation Encompass notifications under the vulnerable child scheme that the government had in place and in the report the school has said that they would have done this for Arthur if they had only received that Operation Encompass notification.”
In response to the news that the Government was set to table the amendment to put Operation Encompass on a statutory footing, Elisabeth said: “That is what this is all about – that children living with domestic abuse have that safeguard and support.”
Minister for Victims and Safeguarding, Laura Farris said: “Today’s amendments stand as testament to the importance of victims’ voices, transparency and information sharing throughout the criminal justice system.
“We have already legislated to ensure children are recognised as victims of domestic abuse in their own right, but we are now going further and ensuring that the police inform schools when abuse occurs, which will improve protection for vulnerable children.”
Source – Government to make all police carry out Plymouth safeguarding children scheme (msn.com)
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