​​The Jersey Child Protection Committee (JCPC) is the multi-disciplinary body charged with advising the States of Jersey on child protection issues with particular respect to inter-agency and inter-professional roles. It ensures that robust arrangements are in place for services and professionals to work together effectively to provide accessible, seamless services and prompt appropriate response to child abuse. Within the scope of its delegated roles and tasks, the JCPC is the body which agrees and publicises strategies for multi-agency child protection processes and develops policies and procedures based on best practice. It provides training to raise awareness and support best practice. The JCPC is not a statutory body and this guidance should be considered as best practice against which service delivery will be evaluated.

The prime purpose of a Serious Case Review (SCR) is for agencies and individuals to learn lessons to improve the way in which they work both individually and collectively to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

The purposes of SCRs carried out under this guidance are to:

• establish what lessons are to be learned from the case about the way in which local professionals and organisations work individually and together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children
• identify clearly what those lessons are both within and between agencies, how and within what timescales they will be acted on, and what is expected to change as a result; and
• improve intra- and inter-agency working and better safeguard and promote the welfare of children.