23 October 2020
Public: coronavirus (COVID-19) advice for Devon on our website
Please pass this onto district, borough, parish and town councillors as appropriate. The bulletin can be shared as a link by clicking the 'View it as a Web page' link at the top.
Do it for Devon
Stick with us and keep following the guidance to keep everyone safe and well.
We need the support of local residents and visitors to keep following the guidelines with social distancing, washing hands and hand sanitising, wearing a face covering in enclosed spaces, avoiding busy places and keeping gatherings to groups of up to six people.
"Coronavirus doesn’t take a break – please respect and protect local communities"
This is the joint message from Council Leaders across the region in a new social media campaign, aimed at anyone thinking of coming to or travelling in and around the south west this half-term.
Leader of Devon County Council and Chair of the Devon Local Outbreak Engagement Board, Councillor John Hart, says:
"Now is the time to be extra careful.
“People may well be considering taking a break this half-term but unfortunately coronavirus won’t be taking a holiday.
“Clearly, our top priority is to keep our residents safe.
“I urge everyone who is thinking of going away or even travelling within the area to think carefully about where they might be going and to continue to follow the rules."
The targeted campaign will be seen by people coming into the region from more than 125 miles away, plus anyone visiting any of our tourist hot spots and will run for three weeks.
Exeter cases 'broadly' back to national average
Steve Brown, the Deputy Director for Public Health Devon has confirmed that Exeter case numbers are now back to 'broadly' the national average.
Listen to his report:
Click to view Steve Brown (on YouTube)
Travel advice for the half-term holidays
With the school half-term holidays ahead, some of us may be thinking of a few days in or out of the county, to unwind and relax. But how do the new tier COVID alert levels factor in your plans?
Ask a minister a question about coronavirus
The Government is inviting people to submit questions about coronavirus to be put to a minster.
If your question is chosen, the minister will answer it during an event broadcast to the public. An independent polling organisation chooses the questions. The minister will not see the question in advance. The Government is not involved in choosing questions.
Devon’s Director of Public Health, Dr Virginia Pearson, awarded the Faculty of Public Health President’s Medal
Dr Virginia Pearson, our Director of Public Health, has been awarded the President’s Medal from the Faculty of Public Health (FPH), for an outstanding career in public health.
 Acceptable language guide
Occasionally, Members ask about appropriate words and phrases - for example, should we use BME, BAME or minority ethnic people/communities? Sometimes it can be confusing, particularly for generations who may have been brought up to use a particular word that has since fallen out of use. Languages evolve – there is no way of stopping that.
Sometimes referred to as “political correctness” or “PC”, using words appropriately is founded on courtesy and demonstrates professional competence and a respect for the communities we serve. Refer to our Inside Devon guide.
Monitoring Visit
Following the outcome of the inspection of Children's Services in January 2020, Ofsted commenced its first Monitoring Visit at the end of September. The Monitoring Visit took place virtually and went smoothly; Ofsted has seen progress in areas it had previously raised as major concerns. Read the letter from the monitoring visit here.
Commissioner's slides
Eleanor Brazil has completed her assignment as Devon Children’s Services Commissioner. Eleanor is recommending to the minister that, in the context of changed leadership in Children’s Services, she continue to provide support for the next six months. Refer to her slides outlining her findings and recommendations here. Eleanor has shared these with Children’s Scrutiny Committee. Her full report will be made available once it has been agreed by the minister.
Recruitment for Chief Officer for Children's Services and Head of Childrens Social Work roles
Recruitment is underway for the Chief Officer for Children's Services role. The first round of recruitment was unsuccessful, and we are now advertising the post and using an executive search which will hopefully prove successful; the final interviews are expected to take place mid-late November 2020.
We have delayed the recruitment of Head of Children's Social Work until we have recruited to the Chief Officer role. Rachel Gillott continues to act-up into this role and is doing a sterling job!
School attendance and overall cases
Between the 1 September and 16 October there were a total of 59 positive COVID-19 cases across 47 schools. Despite low numbers at the start of the month, we have seen a rapid rise in confirmed cases over the past 10 days (up to 22 October).
There are currently 26 schools that, following Public Health England advice, have individual pupils, year groups or bubbles self-isolating. This means there are approximately 2033 daily COVID-related pupil absences at this time. Approximately 277 teachers are also unable to be in school for COVID-related reasons. Despite this, the overall attendance rate in Devon schools remains at 93% compared to the national average of 90%. Our Director of Public Health, Dr Virginia Pearson, is repeatedly reminding everyone that the core public health messages, social distancing, handwashing and face coverings must be adhered to.
Department for Education 'wellbeing for education return' grant
The return to school for some young people has not been easy and so funding was allocated to local authorities to better equip schools and colleges (through training) to promote children and young people’s wellbeing, resilience and recovery in response to COVID-19. Devon has been allocated a 'wellbeing for education return' grant of £128,000 to undertake this work.
A Devon version of the national training programme is being developed and to date 93 schools have signed up and the number is increasing daily. Training of nominated school staff will be delivered shortly after half-term and clinical supervision for staff will be ongoing until the end of March 2021.
The programme will support many pupils to remain in school but there are a small group of children who have more complex additional needs who have struggled on their return. The Education Wellbeing Team has seen an increase in the number of children referred by schools and other partners, from an average of around 30 per month to 67 in September.
The key identifying needs tend to be high anxiety, depression, dysmorphia or chronic fatigue etc. In anticipation of a rise in cases DCC had increased the number of places available at Torland Academy and through commissioning with DCC Hospital School. Additional COVID-funding was also secured to ensure swift support, diagnosis and intervention.
Public Health Nursing update
We have been working collaboratively with other services; Midwifery, Early Help, Children's Centres and Education to identify and co-ordinate the service offer to vulnerable children and families and escalate any risks/pressures emerging for multi-agency resolution.
We have now reinstated face-to-face contacts for all new births and the most vulnerable families. Parents are sent information emails following the antenatal, new birth and maternal mental health review. This allows parents to have easier digital access to key topic areas that are relevant for their baby’s stage of life.
We have reached out to the 1,575 babies that were born in lockdown between 1 March 2020 and 31 May 2020 and have sent a screening letter to the parents when their babies turn 3-4 months. This is an opportunity for us to reconnect with these parents that we have not seen face-to-face, to offer additional support, so that we can respond to any hidden harm that may not have been visible during this COVID-19 period.
Our family focus drop-ins have been amended and are now available as a virtual offer instead of being delivered as a community face-to-face offer. We have also produced videos that can be emailed and shared at the virtual family focus sessions, and eventually will be available on our website that include health promotion topics such as: early feeding; responsive parenting; starting solids, sleep from six-months plus, play, understanding my baby, transition to school and toilet training.
School Nurses continued to provide packages of support to children, young people and families referred into the service (predominantly via remote methods). Additional resources were developed and resourced to aid remote delivery including working with Young Devon and CAMHS to develop core consistent resources/signposting for mental health support.
The Public Health Nursing (PHN) service has now developed a bespoke service user feedback tool which was developed in consultation with practitioners, commissioners and service users and is sent by email to parents and secondary school children after they have received a PHN intervention.
Parents have told us that they found our practitioners:
“incredibly kind, wise and super supportive” “gave much needed help and support” “I really appreciated being listened to, having my concerns and observations validated and support offered in a compassionate and understanding way”
Early Help
Early Help has recently launched new Early Help connector roles into localities to focus on supporting partners in 'Rights for Children' and helping to manage the unforeseen demand across the system since COVID-19. Initial feedback on these roles has been warmly welcomed as the compliment from an education partner highlights below…
"They have been an incredible help to me regarding using the Rights for Children system. They have responded to emails promptly, called me offering advice and even been to my setting to go through training videos together. Thanks to her I now feel confident to use the system and run a Team Around the Family (TAF) meetings. I understand that she is relatively new to her role, and so I really wanted to feedback to say what a great job I think she is doing."
The return to school has coincided with a second wave of growing COVID cases across the country. Early Help area managers are playing a critical role in facilitating support from across the partnership and social care. When vulnerable children are sent home to self-isolate, their risks can rise both with regards to concerns to their safeguarding, whether that is appropriate supervision and having basic care needs met or the impact to their mental health as they are disconnected from their families and friends. Where possible, it is recommended that where a child is known to a service and is self-isolating, practitioners engage the family to explore their needs and check on the child’s welfare.
Where Early Help support needs are identified, please refer to the website information.
SaFest
SaFest is a virtual safeguarding festival which is taking place this week (19-25 October) placing a spotlight on safeguarding and celebrating adolescence during these challenging times. The conference is a multi-agency learning and development event designed to facilitate professional networking, the sharing of good practice and current research on working with young people in any safeguarding capacity.
This free of charge event was borne out of our commitment and enthusiasm for Devon’s young people and is a response to the impact of COVID-19 and the importance of maintaining and re-establishing professional relationships that help us do our jobs effectively. We are fortunate to have keynote addresses from very eminent national and international professional leads and researchers, as well as workshops facilitated by experienced colleagues across the professional spectrum.
The festival conference is facilitated by the Devon Children & Families Partnership, via Microsoft Team. This approach enables the sessions to be accessed virtually and ‘festival goers’ are able to participate and ask questions.
Students studying for 2021 exams will have a little longer to prepare
Most AS, A levels and GCSEs will be held three weeks later than normal next summer, to help address the disruption caused by the pandemic, the Government has said.
New funds available to help carers take a break
Carers are missing out on things that most people take for granted, even more so during the coronavirus pandemic.
Recent research suggests that nearly two-thirds of unpaid carers have not been able to take any breaks at all in the last six months because they’re too busy caring for someone else. And four in every five carers are currently providing more care than before lockdown, with three quarters saying that the needs of the person they’re caring for have increased recently.
It means carers are missing or overlooking their own health complaints because they’re too busy to go the doctors or deal with their own issues. Many carers are not working, when they’d like to be, because they haven’t got time beyond their hours of caring. Or they’re missing out on educational opportunities, to develop or enhance their own personal lives.
So we've joined forces with NHS Devon to make grants of between £1,000 and £15,000 available to care providers, personal assistants, and carers themselves who can develop and provide innovative opportunities that will give other carers a break, during COVID-19 and beyond.
Details about the Replacement Care Innovation Fund are available on our website. To register your interest in applying for funding, email carefund@devon.gov.uk.
Members, please note:
Time is of the essence, applications close on Friday 6 November 2020 and decisions are needed by Friday 27 November at the latest.
Cllr Andrew Leadbetter has agreed that there is not time to inform Councillors a month in advance of any local grant being made in their area, so we have committed to let local Members know about proposals in their own area.
It will be a tight turn round for any representations from Members, so please look out for notifications. We need projects to start as close to the end of November as possible if we are to get any learning in the available timescale.
New advice to people identified as being clinically extremely vulnerable
The Government has published new advice and guidance to support people who are clinically extremely vulnerable.
People who are in this group will previously have received a letter from the NHS or from their GP explaining this.
Job Support Scheme expanded to firms forced to close due to restrictions
From next month, a new Job Support Scheme from the Government will replace the current furlough arrangements.
Under the new scheme, employees will receive ‘at least 67 per cent’ of their pay from the Government, up to a maximum of £2,100 a month, for each employee.
New hotline launched to report COVID fraudsters
A minority of people have been claiming support illegally from the various COVID support schemes, that were set up to help those who are struggling financially.
A new hotline has been launched to report COVID fraudsters.
Friends Against Scams Week
This week (19 – 23 October) is Friends Against Scams week and this year Trading Standards is celebrating the 4th anniversary of the initiative which aims to educate people about scams and how to spot the signs. This is more important than ever during the coronavirus outbreak and our Trading Standards Service is encouraging everyone to get involved to help protect yourself and others.
October is Cyber Security Awareness Month
Now in its 17th year, the National Cyber Security Awareness month for 2020 is underway.
Our Data Protection and Cyber Security Team has put together a timely reminder to us all on staying cyber safe this autumn, as the weather turns colder and we may be spending more time indoors using online services.
It’s important that we stay vigilant whenever we’re online, whether that’s at work or at home. By taking a few sensible precautions we can help to keep ourselves safe and secure, keeping the cybercriminals at bay.
Clocks go back and Halloween is coming...
Don't forget the clocks go back one hour this Sunday (25 October).
Please be safe, be seen!
We are issuing our annual reminder to everyone to take extra care on Devon’s roads at this time of year, particularly in poor weather conditions when visibility may be reduced.
 Don't turn Halloween into a nightmare on your street
The Halloween season is fast approaching, and families may be wondering whether trick or treating is worth the risk this year.
There are plenty of ways to enjoy Halloween safely at home, from spooky window dressings to ghostly film nights.
This year public health teams in Devon are asking families to forget the usual trick or treat plans and instead celebrate safely indoors.
We've got some 'low risk' celebration ideas on our website, along with a list of things to avoid doing this Halloween.
Devon residents are being urged to slash food waste this Halloween by eating the pumpkins they carve up.
The Big Neighbourhood Pumpkin Trail!
This year's pumpkin-spotting trail is a COVID-secure activity for Halloween instead of trick or treating, but you're still actively going out into your local community.
The Facebook group has more than 68k members who are all keen to make 2020's trick or treating event the best one yet.
|
By pulling together across the Council, with our partners and our communities, we are doing everything we can to help us all through this incredibly difficult time. Thank you to you and your community and stay safe and well.
|
