Val Cross, Health and Wellbeing Strategic Manager, Shropshire Council  

The Board received the report of the Health and Wellbeing Strategic Manager – copy attached to the signed Minutes – which described what Adverse Childhood Experiences and trauma were and the potential damaging effects on learning, behaviour and health throughout a person’s life and explained, as a system, what could be done about it.

The Health and Wellbeing Strategic Manager introduced and amplified the report.  She also gave a presentation – copy of slides attached to the signed Minutes – which touched on the kinds of experiences that were adverse, the physical effect on people’s bodies including higher healthcare use and the effects on Mental Health etc, examples of national practice, trauma informed connection to local plans, trauma informed approach, what was already happening in Scotland / Wales / Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin. 

The Health and Wellbeing Strategic Manager drew attention to the film ‘Resilience - the Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope’ and the facilitated workshops that had been held along with the feedback received from staff.  She went on to highlight the next steps which had been agreed by the Trauma Informed Steering Group.

The Portfolio Holder for Children and Education, who chaired the Multi-Agency Trauma Informed Steering Group, informed the meeting that, as a veteran herself, she was shocked that the brain activity of a child that had experienced this trauma was the same as a soldier that had experienced severe PTSD.  She thanked the Health and Wellbeing Strategic Manager for her driving force and commitment in getting to this stage so that in every area of work people were aware of, and understood, how trauma could affect children.  She was excited by the level of training and the offer which would benefit residents and families of Shropshire. The Board echoed these sentiments.

In response to a query, the Health and Wellbeing Strategic Manager explained the next steps in terms of staff training for 2023/24.  She reported that the film and workshops would continue to be shown as an introduction to Adverse Childhood experience.  It was hoped to have a training offer in place once this had been costed out, to include an in-house online resource to be used as part of induction training and/or as part of annual training.  She explained that more work was required to ensure commitment throughout the system from senior management.

A brief discussion ensued and the Head of Service – Joint Partnerships stressed the importance of having a trauma package specifically for staff who see a lot of trauma, to enable them to be supported, as well as knowing how to support other people in this way.  However, the system was not quite there with this.

The Chair reported that this item had been presented to the ICB meeting and it had generated a significant amount of conversation and he felt that a piece on residents’ stories should be presented at the start of every ICB meeting and he committed to doing so.

In response to a query, the Health and Wellbeing Strategic Manager confirmed that an ‘all-age’ approach was being taken by Shropshire, including Telford & Wrekin, so it was a whole-system approach.

It was requested that this item come back to the HWBB with a really clear resource plan and commitment from partners about how to resource this going forward.

RESOLVED:

·         to support a recommendation to make Board Members’ workforces Trauma Informed in principle

·         to focus on Early Years and Primary Education; working with partners to develop support for a ‘Miss Kendra’ approach in early years and primary school, where children feel valued and safe

·         to produce a simple resource, that provides ‘how to’ information for different parts of the system (Public Sector, Voluntary sector, all services) with key trauma informed messages and tips

·         to continue to work to develop a consistent training offer for the system (including evidence of implementation) which consists of:

o   Induction Tier - mandatory online training module developed as soon as possible, available to all across the Integrated Care System (ICS)

o   Awareness and Universal tier (Practitioner level)

o   Advanced and specialist tier (Train the trainer) Delivering the practitioner level for sustainability

·         to work with system leadership and commissioners to determine how to embed trauma approaches in commissioning and service delivery.

·         to bring back to the HWBB a proposal in terms of next steps and how this gets developed and the commitment required.

·         to present residents’ stories at the start of each ICB meeting.