By Andrew Jarret

BELLEVUE House in Arbroath, the joint facility for agencies involved in child protection work in Angus, was opened yesterday.

The building is an important facility for the agencies working to offer more integrated services to benefit and protect vulnerable children and their families in Angus.

The 28 staff based at Bellevue include those from the council’s specialist child protection team, the police’s family protection team, including the domestic violence service, and NHS Tayside’s senior nurse child protection.

Also on site is the social work team responsible for monitoring the care plans of children and running the child protection case conference system.

Nationally, findings of inquiries into child tragedies and deaths have often highlighted shortcomings in the work between key agencies, particularly in relation to inter-agency communication.

Opening the new premises, Angus Council’s social work and health convener Glennis Middleton said Tayside had led the way in inter-agency child protection work.

“Back in 1986, Tayside pioneered a joint approach to child protection with social work, police and health entering into a formal agreement for joint working,” she explained.

“Since then, joint working and training have been the norm rather than exception locally.

“The opening of Bellevue House is another significant step in the evolution of these local child protection services.

“Bringing staff from the various agencies together under one roof will further improve the inter-agency partnership working already well established in Angus.

“In addition to providing a comfortable space in which to work with often troubled and traumatised families and children, Bellevue House provides tailor-made premises for the excellent staff based here.”

Councillor Middleton concluded by saying, “The vision for this building has been around for a number of years so I am delighted that resources were finally found to bring it to reality.”

Representatives from all the key agencies in the field of child protection were at the opening event, including police, NHS Tayside, Angus social work and health, bodies in the voluntary sector and the local Children’s Panel.