SECTION 6 - CHILD PROTECTION IN SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES
Missing Children & Young People & Pregnant Women Where a child/young person is missing from a Local Authority placement, the Safeguarding & Specialist Services/Police guidance ‘Responding to Children and Young People who are Missing from Placement’ is to be followed instead. Recognition & Referral/Notification Practitioners should refer to Safeguarding & Specialist Services in any of the following circumstances:
As a result of daily registration, schools are particularly well placed to notice when a child/young person has gone missing. Head Teachers should inform the Education Welfare Officer (EWO) about any child/young person who has not attended school for ten days without provision of reasonable explanation. The EWO should make reasonable enquiries, such as home visit, liaison with Safeguarding & Specialist Services or Housing and notify the school if it appears that the child/young person has moved out of the area. The EWO should contact the School Nurse for information and should inform her if it appears the child/young person has moved out of the area. Head Teachers should inform the EWO and Safeguarding & Specialist Services immediately if a child/young person who fits one of the categories listed above appears to be missing. Where a Health professional has concerns regarding a child/young person/unborn baby’s welfare and the child/young person/family/pregnant woman is missing, reasonable enquiries should be made with the GP/Health Visitor/School Nurse to ascertain their whereabouts. Discussions should take place with a Manager and/or Health Child Protection Adviser. If the child/young person remains untraced, consideration should be given to making a referral to Safeguarding & Specialist Services for Initial Assessment of need and, if necessary, child protection enquiries. Every case of a missing child/young person/pregnant woman must be considered for referral to Safeguarding & Specialist Services for Initial Assessment of need and, if necessary, child protection enquiries. On all occasions, the Police PROtect/PNC systems should be checked for previous involvement. Safeguarding & Specialist Services Where notified of a child in any of the circumstances listed above, Safeguarding & Specialist Services must inform the relevant Police and Police Vulnerability Unit without delay. The Custodian of the Child Protection List must be informed if the child/young person or unborn baby is subject to a Child Protection Plan. If the child/young person is the subject of court proceedings or a court order, Corporate & Legal Services must be informed. Safeguarding & Specialist Services must contact all local agencies/professionals, including Education and Health, who are involved with the child/young person to inform them of the situation and to seek any information that may assist in the search. The Designated Nurse Child Protection should be informed about the missing child/young person or pregnant woman. S/he will inform the Senior Nurses Child Protection for the PCT(s) and NHS Trust(s) in the area. The Senior Nurses Child Protection will inform key professionals within their Trusts. Education Child Protection Officers (or equivalent) should be informed and are to ensure liaison with relevant Education colleagues. Existing records in all agencies must be checked to obtain any information which may help to trace the missing child, for example details of friends and relatives. This information is to be passed to the Police Officer undertaking the missing person enquiry. If, following the above, the missing child/young person or pregnant woman has not been traced, a Strategy Meeting should be convened within two working days of Safeguarding & Specialist Services being notified that the child/young person/family or pregnant woman is missing. The Strategy Meeting must include representatives from Safeguarding & Specialist Services, Police, Health, Education (if a school-age child) and any other agency that has current or recent involvement with the child/young person/family or pregnant woman. Members of the meeting must:
Follow-Up Safeguarding & Specialist Services Action If the Strategy Meeting agreed that the details of the child/young person/family or pregnant woman are to be circulated to other Local Authorities/agencies, the Keyworker/Social Worker should draft a letter giving details of:
The letter should be sent to the Custodian of the Child Protection List for distribution to the other Child Protection List Custodians in the specified areas, who in turn should circulate within Safeguarding & Specialist Services and to local agencies. The Custodian should inform the Head of Safeguarding & Specialist Services. Where a missing child is subject to a Child Protection Plan and is not found within 20 working days (of initial notification to Safeguarding & Specialist Services) the Review Child Protection Conference must be brought forward to consider whether any other action should be taken. When the Child/Young Person or Pregnant Woman is Found When the child/young person or pregnant woman is found, Safeguarding & Specialist Services in the Home authority should hold a Strategy Meeting/Discussion within the working day to consider:
If the child/young person or pregnant woman has been found outside of the home authority area and is not likely to return, representatives from the host authority must be involved in the Strategy Meeting/Discussion and the transfer of the case must be discussed. Interviewing the Child/Young Person When a missing child/young person is found, an interview should take place. This should happen regardless of whether s/he is believed to have experienced, or be at risk of significant harm. A Social Worker and/or a Police Officer should undertake this interview. If the child/young person indicates a wish to be interviewed by an alternative professional, all reasonable efforts must be made to accommodate their wishes. The interview should provide a safe opportunity for the child/young person to discuss any concerns regarding their care, including if they chose to run away from an abusive situation. Whoever undertakes the interview should endeavour to ensure that it takes place without parents or carers present or in close proximity. If the parents/carers do not agree to the child/young person being interviewed in private, the Social Worker should discuss the circumstances of the case with his/her Manager and, if thought necessary, legal advice sought. Following any child protection (s47) enquiry, there must be inter-agency liaison to agree the next steps. This must include consideration of whether it is necessary to hold an Initial Child Protection Conference or, in the case of a child subject to a Child Protection Plan, to bring forward the Review Child Protection Conference. Children Missing from Other Local Authority Areas Safeguarding & Specialist Services must ensure that there is a system for keeping and referring to the notifications of children and/or pregnant women who are missing and that duty/intake staff are kept informed. More than One Incident of a Child/Young Person Missing from Home Safeguarding & Specialist Services must ensure that there is a system for centrally collating relevant information relating to all incidents of a child/young person going missing from home, in order to develop a multi-agency co-ordinated response. Depending on the circumstances, practitioners should refer to the following regional inter-agency documents: Children from all cultures are subject to abuse and neglect. All children have a right to grow up safe from harm. In order to make sensitive and informed professional judgments about a child's needs, and parents' capacity to respond to their child's needs, it is important that professionals are sensitive to differing family patterns and lifestyles and to child rearing patterns that vary across different racial, ethnic and cultural groups. At the same time they must be clear that child abuse cannot be condoned for religious or cultural reasons. Professionals should also be aware of the broader social factors that serve to discriminate against black and minority ethnic people. Working in a multi-racial and multi-cultural society requires professionals and organisations to be committed to equality in meeting the needs of all children and families, and to understand the effects of racial harassment, racial discrimination and institutional racism, as well as cultural misunderstanding or misinterpretation. The assessment process should maintain a focus on the needs of the individual child. It should always include consideration of the way religious beliefs and cultural traditions in different racial, ethnic and cultural groups influence their values, attitudes and behaviour, and the way in which family and community life is structured and organised. Cultural and religious factors should not be regarded as acceptable explanations for child abuse or neglect, and are not acceptable grounds for inaction when a child at risk of significant harm. Professionals should be aware of and work with the strengths and support systems available within families, ethnic groups and communities, which can be built upon to help safeguard children and promote their welfare. Professionals should guard against myths and stereotypes - both positive and negative - of black and minority ethnic families. Anxiety about being accused of racist practice should not prevent the necessary action being taken to safeguard and promote a child's welfare. Careful assessment - based on evidence - of a child's needs, and a family's strengths and difficulties, understood in the context of the wider social environment, will help to avoid any distorting effect of these influences on professional judgments. All children whatever their religious or cultural background must receive the same care and safeguards with regard to abuse and neglect. The experience of racism is likely to affect the responses of a child and family to the assessment and enquiry processes and failure to consider the effects of racism will undermine the efforts to protect children from other forms of significant harm. The effects of racism differ between communities and individuals and should not be assumed to be uniform. The specific needs of mixed parentage and refugee children should be given attention, in particular the need for neutral, high quality, gender appropriate translation or interpretation services for children and families whose preferred language is not English. Children living in Temporary Accommodation Placement in temporary accommodation, often at a distance from previous support networks or involving frequent moves, can lead to individuals and families falling through the net and becoming disengaged from health, education, social care and welfare support systems. Children who come to the attention of statutory and voluntary agencies may need to have their needs assessed as a result of a transient lifestyle. Some families who have experienced homelessness and are placed in temporary accommodation by Local Authorities under the main homeless duty can have very transient lifestyles. It is important that effective systems are in place to ensure that the children from homeless families receive services from health and education as well as any other specific types of services because these families move regularly and may be at risk of becoming disengaged from services. Statutory guidance on making arrangements under Section 11 of the Children Act 2004 to safeguard and promote the welfare of children sets out the Local Authority responsibilities for homeless families. The Department of Health (1995 Chief Inspector letter CI (95) 12 defines a young carer as: “A young person (under age 18) who is carrying out significant caring tasks and assuming a level of responsibility for another person which would usually be taken by an adult”. Many children and young people who live with parents with difficulties, such as mental ill health, or substance misuse, take on caring and domestic responsibilities for the parent and/or siblings/other family members. These may include personal care, administering medication, checking up on or taking out the carer, domestic chores, and paperwork. Young carers are often not identified as such and they, or their parents, may be reluctant to seek help or advice because of issues of stigma or fears of family break up if services become aware of their circumstances. They may not be aware of what help is available. Caring responsibilities may lead to greater or lesser degrees of developmental problems, such as:
Under the Carers (Recognition and Service) Act 1995, both adult and child carers have a right to an assessment of their needs as carers. The preferred intervention should be the provision of services and support to enable the child/young person to remain in the family home with adequate opportunities for their own development activity, unless it is clear from the assessment that this is not possible without causing significant harm to the child. Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC) A UASC is an asylum-seeking child under the age of 18 who is not living with their parent, relative or guardian in the UK. Safeguarding & Specialist Services should carry out an Initial Assessment and, where appropriate, a care assessment of needs for every child referred to them by Immigration Services, regardless of their immigration status. Based on this assessment, under the Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families (2000), Safeguarding & Specialist Services have a duty to provide appropriate support and services to all UASC, as these children should be provided with the same quality of individual assessment and related services as any other child presenting as being ‘in need’. In the majority of cases, this assessment leads to them being accommodated. Once UASC become accommodated children under s20of the Children Act 1989, they are required to be the subject of a care plan (pathway plan at 16+). The plan must be based on this comprehensive assessment of their needs, taking account of the following dimensions:
The responsible Safeguarding & Specialist Services should provide services for the UASC on the basis of the above assessment, irrespective of their immigration status. |