Help with Child Protection UK

BASIC EXPLANATION

A Child Protection investigation starts with a meeting to check up on you. This might happen casually, with a Social Worker "popping in to chat" or it might be by appointment in your home. This meeting is written up on a record that goes permanently on file about you and your child/ren.

This meeting happens because Social Services get a "referral" about you. That means someone, perhaps someone you know, or it could be a stranger, or else an employee of one of the public services like a Health Visitor or teacher, has told the Social Services they feel worried about your child. When anyone tells Social Services this Social Services must decides whether or not they should to check up on you. If the answer is yes, a Social Worker, or two, is told to visit you.

The result of this meeting with you can be "No action taken." You are unlikely to get an apology or thanks, and you need to check that the file that stays with Social Services is accurate as it can affect your child's future.

Matters can go further and Social Services decide to hold a bigger Core Assessment meeting where they can command you to do various things as a parent, and the child/ren may be put on the "At Risk" Register. Further down the line your authority over your children may be shared with Social Services or removed all together. Your child may be removed and adopted into another family.

Right at the start as this process starts up the more you have information so you know what is happening the better. If you learn how it all works you can do YOUR key job as a parent of protecting yout children, and ensure that other people who get involved do their job properly as well. There ARE some rules to protect you as you are investigated, but you do need to know what they are. There is also a procedure that lets you inspect your file for mistakes and you also need to know about that.

The information provided here is carefully detailed and long, but please try to go through it thoroughly. You may need to read it in a series of chunks so if you like you can DOWNLOAD it as an .rtf file. That means you can read it in any Microsoft word processor (Word, Wordpad etc) and print it out if you prefer to read it that way. When you click the link DOWNLOAD the whole document should open in your usual word processor. You might need to look at the bottom of your screen as it could open in a little minimised box down there. Or it could just open up fully on the screen right away.

faso is a voluntary organisation dedicated to supporting anyone affected by a false allegation of abuse