The local authority and partners have been working together to establish a Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) in Southwark.

The MASH brings together a team of multi disciplinary professionals from partner agencies into the same room to deal with all safeguarding concerns, where someone is concerned about the safety or well being of a child.

Within MASH, information from partner agencies is collated to assess risk and decide what action to take. As a result, the agencies will be able to act quickly, in a coordinated and consistent way, ensuring that vulnerable children and families are kept safe from harm.

The MASH will replace a range of existing referral points and allow agencies to build upon the work that’s already been taking place in working more closely together.

The MASH Leaflet for Professionals provides an overview of MASH.

The MASH leaflet for parents / carers will be available soon.

Contact us

If you need information or have any questions, contact us:

• 020 7525 1921
• 020 7525 5000 (out of hours)
• email: mash@southwark.gov.uk

MASH Team
Sumner House
Sumner Road
London
SE15 5QS

How the MASH process works

On receipt of a CAF, the MASH contact is screened. Decisions from screening include:

• CAF’S without consent, that aren’t a safeguarding concern, will be returned to referrer for this to be completed
• Duty Managers may pass to relevant agencies for appropriate level of action and outcome feedback back to the referrer.
• MASH Team Manager decision to RAG rate the contact for joint information sharing and risk assessment

The RAG rating (RED / AMBER / GREEN) by the MASH Team Manager is to ensure that the most urgent cases are dealt with first. These ratings may change at any time during the MASH process as new information comes to light.

Staff from every agency then gather and share information confidentially and securely to enable an informed decision to be made.

The MASH Manager will use the collected information to decide the most appropriate intervention for the child’s identified needs. The MASH manager decision may be:

• Children Social Care assessment
• other agencies – Early Help, Specialist Family Focus, Health
• close the case – no further action required

All decisions will be fed back to the referrer.