Key points
Child protection plans must list what everyone involved with the child should do and why.
How to do it
Their specific objectives are:
- To assess risk.
- To ensure the future protection of the child by eliminating or minimising the risk of abuse or neglect.
- To monitor properly the child’s development and the family’s progress.
- To ensure that the child’s immediate and long term needs are met.
Every child protection plan should have five main elements. These are:
- Specific requirements made of parents and child as to matters such as medical checks, access by social worker, school attendance, nursery attendance, etc.
- Treatment plans, casework objectives, overall plans for case management contact with relevant persons where appropriate.
- Clear statement of what requires to change, and what will happen if changes are not made, who will facilitate the change and how satisfactory change will be measured.
- Clear definitions of who does what with timescales where appropriate.
- Identify members of the core group and agree timescales for core group meetings.
All child protection conferences terminating a child protection plan solely because the child is no longer living with the parent or carer, must make provision within its action plan for an initial child protection conference to be held prior to any consideration of returning the child to that parent or carer’s care.
