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CHILD PROTECTION: THE PROCESSEvery citizen has the responsibility to safeguard children and not just professionals. As a private citizen you may make an anonymous referral to children's services expressing concern for a child; as a professional you cannot be anonymous. As a professional you are expected to have informed the child's parents that you are going to make a referral unless you believe (and can give evidence to this effect) that to inform the parents would place the child in greater danger. Sometimes this is the case. Making a referral to social care is an easy enough albeit serious process. You will be speaking to the Duty social worker at the other end of the telephone. He or she will want to know as much detail as you can possibly manage about the child and its family. The more you can tell the Duty worker the greater the chance of the correct decisions being made. At the very least, we will want to know the child's address and its age (even if approximate) and whether there are siblings. What are your concerns? What have you noticed about the child and when? Are there any marks which cause you suspicion? Did you actually witness a harmful event to the child? What is the child's behaviour like? Has it changed over the time you have known the child? And so on. After taking down your referral, the Duty worker will put it before the team manager for a decision on its status. A decision must be made within 24 hours. In children's social care there are four main identified levels of service provision: Level 1 = universal services
(Health, Education etc) Children at Level 1 do not come to the attention of social care. Every child in the country partakes of level 1 services. At level 2, most children do not come to the attention of children's services except possibly in terms of information as to what is happening but this is not universal. The point of an agency (often the School) organising a CAF is to stop the child reaching Section 17 levels of need. In other words, early provision of help may stop problems later on. Sometimes a social worker is involved with a CAF, although this is uncommon, but it is quite possible that the completion of a CAF will result in uncovering circumstances that require referral to social care regarding level 3 or level 4 assessment. However, if the referral you have just made is deemed to indicate that the child is a Level 1 or 2 case, then social care will not get involved except to possibly refer the case on to the relevant agency. If the case is deemed Section 17 by the manager, then the family will be offered an Initial Assessment (ten working days to complete) to determine the level of child need. Section 17 is voluntary and the family may refuse assessment and services as they may refuse Level 2 CAF assessment or level 1 services (except Education = mandatory and Health, if it puts the child in danger). The key consideration about referral for child maltreatment is to always refer whether you are unsure or doubtful. The duty worker will discuss your concerns with you. For cases believed to be level 3 or 4, Initial Assessment always takes place although, in cases of fairly obvious possible abuse, the Initial Assessment may be of very brief duration. At other times, an Initial Assessment could take the full ten days allowed and then a judgement (see below on Section 47) is made that the child appears to be suffering significant harm or requires a full Section 17 Core Assessment because of complex needs. If the manager thinks that the case you referred may meet the threshold of "significant harm" (see Key Sections of the Children Act 1989); then the manager MUST discuss the matter with the Police and all other significant professionals involved (but has to be at least the Police) to determine whether the subsequent Child Protection Enquiry is to be "joint" (with the Police) or "single agency" (children services acting alone). The Police will most often combine in joint investigation with Children's Services when the case is physical abuse, sexual abuse or serious physical neglect. The Police always call such an Enquiry an "Investigation" - which it is for them as they are investigating crime (significant harm to a child is a crime). However, there are lots of people in social care who should know better also call Section 47 an "Investigation". The title to the Section in the Children Act is "Local Authority's Duty to Investigate" but this always was a reference to the joint Police role. The Government publication: Working Together to Safeguard Children makes it clear which agency has which role. It would be preferable if social care workers actually took the trouble to read the document. Social workers are not Police - our role is not simply safeguarding but also "promoting welfare" and it certainly isn't the social work role to "investigate crime" although we have a duty to assist the Police in the process. The discussion with the Police is called a Strategy discussion. Sometimes it is a full scale meeting. If there is to be a joint investigation / enquiry it is necessary to plan out how it is going to proceed. If it is is agreed with the Police that the case is Section 47 then a Child Protection Enquiry (Investigation for the Police) is launched and immediately social care must start completing what is called a Core Assessment (must be completed in 35 working days). It is possible to "come out" of a Section 47 Enquiry at any time during the early stages if it is discovered that the child is not in any danger. However, if matters progress in terms of the Enquiry and Core Assessment, then an Initial Child Protection Conference (ICPC) must be held within 15 days of the referral. During this time and continuing as necessary, the Police (if involved) will be gathering evidence for a possible prosecution. As a referrer, you should be told what is happening to your referral. If you haven't heard by a week then make contact and find out. You will not be told the detail of what is happening (unless a professional involved with the case) but should be told the broad brushstrokes of what action has been decided. If an ICPC is held then normally the referrer (if a professional) is invited. Parents are always present except in rare cases where their behaviour puts people at serious risk of harm. All professionals involved with the family are invited and it is important that all attend. Sadly this isn't always the case. The purpose of the Case Conference is to listen to what information people have about the child and its family, what the child and parents have to say (the guidance says that the social worker must see the child alone beforehand) and determine whether the child has suffered significant harm and is likely to suffer such harm if things remain as they are. If the decision is that harm has occurred or is likely to occur, it is noted under what category of harm the child has suffered and is likely to suffer. These categories are: Physical Harm; Sexual Harm; Neglect and Emotional Harm (slightly different in Scotland). If significant harm is a future risk then the Conference must elect to make a plan to safeguard and promote the child's welfare. This is known as a Child Protection Plan and the child's name is recorded on it together with the determined category of abuse risk. At the time of the ICPC, the Plan formulated is called "an outline plan" (it usually happens in the last ten minutes of the Conference and can hardly be anything other than an outline plan) and the responsibility of the Core Group (professionals, parents and child) is to take the outline plan and develop it into a working detail plan of interventions and goals (see our page on outcomes) before the first Review Conference three months later. By definition, if the same plan returns to the Review Conference as was hatched at the ICPC, the Core Group isn't working as it should. I have to tell you that sadly the same plan often does return to the first Review. Another feature of Core Groups is that many people do not realise what a serious matter they are and even less that the responsibility to attend is legally required under the terms of the Working Together Guidance which is published under Section 7 of the Local Government Act (1970) and carries legal weight. About the only acceptable excuse for not turning up is a broken leg but people (including professionals) often do not attend when they should. Usually, nothing whatever is done about it which you might think surprising after the hundreds of abuse child deaths that have occurred over the years. In my view, every LSCB should have a reporting structure where non-attendance at Core Groups is recorded and posted to the organisation responsible (for action to be taken) with Government automatically copied in. The Plan is reviewed again at 6 months following and thereafter every 6 months. No child should (normally) remain on a Plan for more than two years. The reasoning for this is that if a child is continually suffering, or is at risk of suffering, "significant harm" for two years or more, then plainly the Plan hasn't worked and something different needs to be tried. During this time, the vast majority of children stay with their parents (see page on Public Care and Contact) which is as it should be. On occasion, a child has to be brought into the public care but except for limited emergency action all such legal matters have to go before the Court. Of those children brought into care on initial Emergency action, most return home very quickly. See also the preceding Page on Child Protection History in the UK on how and why social workers have so little real power - something the Press and general public do not comprehend. See also Key Sections of the Children Act You might also wish to explore our training options on Child Protection
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OSIRIS: Lighting the Way Forward
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