Concerned About a Child?

Key points

If at any point you believe a child is at risk of significant harm, [WTSC 20101.28-1.31] you should contact children’s social care and discuss the case with them. If you believe that the risk is serious and immediate, you should follow the advice in child’s immediate safety.

There is further guidance in these procedures which may help you in the following circumstances:

It may also help to look at the supplementary guidance contained in these procedures, signs and symptoms of possible child abuse.

If you are concerned about a child, decide first whether you can deal with the situation on your own. You may need to work alongside another worker, perhaps from another agency and/or undertake a common assessment. Make this decision in consultation with your manager or the designated person responsible for child protection in your organisation.

You can also discuss your concerns with senior colleagues in another agency to help you understand the child’s needs and circumstances (it may not be necessary to identify the child in question to do this).

If after discussion your concerns remain, and you think that the child and family would benefit from other services (including those provided by another part of the same agency), you must decide who to make a referral to.

The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) (Children’s Workforce Development Council, 2009) offers a basis for early identification of children’s additional needs, sharing of this information between organisations and co-ordinated service provision. Where it is considered a child may have additional needs, with the consent of the child, young person or parents/carers, practitioners may undertake a common assessment to assess these needs and to decide how best to support them. The findings from the common assessment may however give rise to concerns about a child’s safety and welfare. Practitioners should be particularly concerned regarding children whose parents or caregivers are experiencing difficulties in meeting their needs as a result of domestic violence, substance misuse, mental illness and/or learning disability). All staff members who have or become aware of concerns about the safety or welfare of a child or children should know:

  • who to contact in what circumstances, and how; and
  • when and how to make a referral to local authority children’s social care services or the police.

How to do it

Most children’s needs are met by universal services such as schools or GPs. If you believe that a child’s needs cannot be met by these universal services or additional family support, you should be concerned. You will then need to assess your level of concern, because this will determine how quickly you should make a referral and who to.

Whatever the nature of your concern, it is important that you are open and honest with both the parents and the child. In general, you should discuss matters with them before taking any action, tell them what you plan to do and why, work with them and keep them informed. Sometimes you may think that the risk to the child is so great that it is better to contact children’s social care without informing the child and family. In this case you should discuss the best way forward with children’s social care.

Lessons from research

There are many instances of workers keeping their concerns about a child to themselves and failing to discover that other people were worried too.