The ERSCB is involved in three broad areas of activity:

• Preventative work to ensure children are growing up in circumstances consistent with safe and effective care;

• Proactive work that targets particular groups;

• Responsive work to protect children who are suffering or at risk of suffering harm.

In order to achieve those aims the ERSCB:

• Develops policies and procedures for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in the area;

• Communicates to persons and bodies in the area of the authority the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, raising the awareness of how this can best be done and encouraging them to do so;

• Participates in the local planning and commissioning of children's services to ensure that they take safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children into account;

• Collects and analyses information about the deaths of all children in the area in order to identify any areas of concern regarding the safety & welfare of children including any case giving rise to the need for a serious case review, any general public health or safety concern arising from child deaths and ensuring procedures are in place so that there is a co-ordinated response by LSCB partners and relevant others to an unexpected child death;

• Undertaking serious case reviews where abuse or neglect of a child is known or suspected and either a child has died; or a child has been seriously harmed and there is cause for concern to the way in which the authority, their Board partners or other relevant persons have worked to safeguard the child.

Please note that the ERSCB Forms incorporated in Volume 2 are available on the LSCB Forms folder.