Child Protection Enquiries - Section 47 Children Act 1989

1. Duty to Conduct Section 47 Enquiries

A section 47 enquiry is initiated to decide whether, and what type of, action is required to safeguard and promote the welfare of a child who is suspected to be suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm.

Responsibility for undertaking Section 47 enquiries (under section 47 Children Act 1989) lies with the local authority Children's Social Care in whose area the child lives or is found. 'Found' means the physical location where the child suffers the incident of harm or neglect (or is identified as likely to suffer harm or neglect), e.g. nursery or school, boarding school, hospital, one-off event, such as a festival, holiday home or outing or where a privately fostered or looked after child is living with their carers.

The local authority in whose area a child is found in circumstances that require emergency action (the first authority) is responsible for taking emergency action. If the child is looked after by, or the subject of a child protection plan in another authority, the first authority must consult the authority responsible for the child. Only when the second local authority explicitly accepts responsibility (to be followed up in writing) is the first authority relieved of its responsibility to take emergency action.

Local authority social workers have a statutory duty to lead enquiries under Section 47 of the Children Act 1989. The police, health practitioners, teachers and other school staff and other relevant practitioners should support them in undertaking the enquiries.

Each agency has a duty to assist and provide information in support of child protection enquiries. When requested to do so by Children's Social Care, practitioners from other parts of the local authority such as housing, schools and those in health organisations have a duty to cooperate under Section 27 of the Children Act 1989 by assisting the local authority in carrying out its Children's Social Care functions.

See: Information Sharing Procedure.

The Lead Practitioner should always be a social worker for child protection enquiries.

A multi-agency assessment is the means by which Section 47 Enquiries are carried out. The assessment will have commenced at the point of receipt of referral and it must continue whenever the criteria for Section 47 Enquiries are satisfied. The conclusions and recommendations of the Section 47 Enquiry should inform the assessment which must be completed within 45 working days of the date when the referral was received.

The enquiries and assessment should always involve separate interviews with the child and, in the majority of cases, the parents, and the observation of interaction between the parent and child. This will include interviews and observations of parents, any other carers and the partners of the parents. Practitioners should explain to parents or carers the purpose, process and potential outcome of the enquiries and be prepared to answer questions openly, unless to do so would affect the safety and welfare of the child.

2. Immediate Protection

Where there is a risk to the life of a child or the likelihood of serious immediate harm, whether from inside or outside the home, an agency with statutory child protection powers the police including the British Transport Police, Children's Social Care and the NSPCC) should act immediately to secure the immediate safety of the child.

If it is necessary to remove a child from their home, a local authority must, wherever possible and unless a child's safety is otherwise at immediate risk, apply for an Emergency Protection Order (EPO). Police Powers of Protection should only be used in exceptional circumstances where there is insufficient time to seek an EPO or for reasons relating to the immediate safety of the child.

When considering whether emergency action is required, an agency should always consider whether action is also required to safeguard and promote the welfare of other children in the same household (e.g. siblings), the household of an alleged perpetrator, or elsewhere.

See Working Together to Safeguard Children, Flowchart 3: Immediate Protection.

Planned emergency action will normally take place following an immediate strategy discussion/meeting between police, children's social care, health practitioners and other agencies as appropriate.

Social workers, the police or NSPCC should:

Initiate a strategy discussion to discuss planned emergency action. Where a single agency has to act immediately, a strategy discussion should take place as soon as possible after action has been taken;
See the child (this should be done by a practitioner from the agency taking the emergency action) to decide how best to protect them and whether to seek an EPO;
Wherever possible, obtain legal advice before initiating legal action, in particular when an EPO is being sought.

3. Strategy Discussion/Meeting

Whenever there is reasonable cause to suspect that a child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm, there should be a strategy discussion involving local authority children’s social care (including the residential or fostering service, if the child is looked after), the police, health, and other bodies such as the referring agency, education, early help, or other practitioners involved in supporting the child. This might take the form of a multi-agency meeting and more than one discussion may be necessary. A strategy discussion can take place following a referral or at any other time, including during the assessment process and when new information is received on an already open case. Strategy discussions/meetings should be convened as soon as possible bearing in mind the needs of the child.

Purpose

The purpose of a strategy discussion is to determine the child’s welfare and plan rapid future action if there is reasonable cause to suspect the child is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm.

Attendees

A local authority social worker, health practitioners and a police representative should, as a minimum, be involved in the strategy discussion. Other relevant practitioners will depend on the nature of the individual case but may include those who have concerns about the child and/or those involved in the child’s life, for example:

The practitioner or agency which made the referral;
The child’s school/nursery/educational establishment;
Any health or care services the child or family members are receiving;
Youth justice practitioner and/or youth worker
Adult mental health, substance misuse and/or domestic abuse specialist;
British Transport Police representative.

In the case of a pre-birth strategy discussion/meeting this should involve the midwifery services.

All attendees should be sufficiently senior to make decisions on behalf of their organisation and agencies. They should be sufficiently skilled and experienced to prepare for and engage with the strategy discussion and be able to critically assess and challenge their own and others’ input.

In some circumstances, strategy discussions by telephone may be adequate to plan an enquiry and must include the agencies directly involved with the child. For telephone strategy discussions, all agencies should make a record of the outcome of the telephone discussion and actions agreed at the time. The record of the notes and decisions authorised by the Children's Social Care manager should be circulated as soon as practicable to all parties to the discussion.

Some examples of circumstances where a strategy discussion/meeting should be considered:

Any new referrals in respect of a child where there are concerns that a child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm;
When new information on an existing case in Children's Social Care indicates that a child is likely to suffer significant harm;
Any new information that a child may be likely to suffer, or has suffered significant harm including sexual, physical or emotional abuse, neglect or domestic abuse (including controlling or coercive behaviour), exploitation by criminal gangs or organised crime groups, trafficking, online abuse, sexual exploitation, and the influences of extremism which could lead to radicalisation; When an adult or young person assessed as presenting a risk to children has moved into, or is about to move into, the child's household or such a person is regularly visiting or about to have sustained contact with the child;
When the likelihood of significant harm to an unborn child may be such as to indicate the need to develop a Child Protection Plan before birth;
When the death of a child in family, in which abuse or neglect is suspected, is confirmed and there are other children in the household;
When a child lives in, or is born to, a household in which resides another child who is currently the subject of a Child Protection Plan;
When a child who is currently the subject of a Child Protection Plan in another area moves into the area unless the other authority is to retain responsibility for the case;
When a child has sexually assaulted another child or there is a risk of such an assault occurring to another child in the same household or in regular contact with the household (in which circumstances a Child Protection Conference should be held in respect of both children).

(This is not an exhaustive list).

Tasks

A strategy discussion/meeting should be used to:

Share, seek and analyse available information;
Agree the conduct and timing of any criminal investigation;
Decide whether an assessment under Section 47 of the Children Act 1989 (Section 47 Enquiries) should be undertaken.

It is for the local authority to decide whether to make enquiries and the strategy discussion should inform this decision.

Where there are grounds to initiate an enquiry under section 47 of the Children Act 1989, decisions should be made as to:

What further information is needed if an assessment is already underway and how it will be obtained and recorded;
What immediate and short-term action is required to support the child, and who will do what by when;
Whether legal action is required.

Lead practitioners should convene the strategy discussion and make sure they:

Consider the child’s welfare and safety, including through speaking to the child, and identifying whether the child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm;
Decide what information should be shared with the child and family (on the basis that information is not shared if this may jeopardise a police investigation or place the child at risk of harm);
Agree what further action is required, and who will do what by when, where an EPO is in place, or the child is the subject of police powers of protection;
Record agreed decisions in accordance with recording procedures;
Follow up actions to make sure what was agreed gets done.

Health practitioners should:

Advise about the appropriateness or otherwise of medical assessments, and explain the benefits that arise from assessing previously unmanaged health matters that may be further evidence of neglect or maltreatment;
Provide and co-ordinate any specific information from relevant practitioners regarding family health, maternity health, school health mental health, domestic abuse and violence, and substance misuse to assist strategy and decision making;
Secure additional expert advice and support from named and/or designated professionals for more complex cases following preliminary strategy discussions;
Undertake appropriate examinations or observations, and further investigations or tests, to determine how the child’s health or development may be impaired.

The Police should:

Discuss the basis for any criminal investigation, including both reactive (where there is evidence to suggest a crime has been committed) and proactive (where further activity is required to establish if a crime has occurred), and any relevant processes that other organisations and agencies might need to know about, including the timing and methods of evidence-gathering;
Lead the criminal investigation where joint enquiries take place with the local authority children’s social care leading for the section 47 enquires and assessment of the child’s welfare.

If the child is in hospital, decisions should also be made about how to secure the safe discharge of the child.

Outcomes:

The plan made at the strategy discussion/meeting should reflect the requirement to convene an Initial Child Protection Conference within 15 working days of the strategy discussion at which it was decided to initiate the Section 47 Enquiry. When Children's Social Care have concluded that an Initial Child Protection Conference is not required but practitioners in other agencies remain seriously concerned about the safety of a child, these practitioners should seek further discussion with the Lead Practitioner, their manager and/or the designated safeguarding professional lead. The concerns, discussions and any agreements made should be recorded in each agency's files. This should be actioned within a timescale commensurate with the need to safeguard the child and in accordance with the Conflict Resolution Policy.

If the conclusion of the strategy discussion/meeting is that there is no cause to pursue the Section 47 Enquiry then consideration should be given to continuing a multi-agency assessment to meet the needs of the child for any Early Help support services or to provide family support services to them as a child in need.

See Working Together to Safeguard Children, Flowchart 5: Action Following a Strategy Meeting.

For information on electronic and digital recording of meetings see related guidance in the Child Protection Conferences Procedure, Membership of Child Protection Conference.

4. The Section 47 Enquiry

Local authority social workers should lead assessments under section 47 of the Children Act 1989. The police, health practitioners, teachers and school staff and other relevant practitioners should help the local authority in undertaking its enquiries.

The Lead Practitioner for section 47 enquiries should be a social worker.

Practitioners should work collaboratively and proactively with multi-agency practitioners to build an accurate and comprehensive understanding of the daily life of a child and their family to establish the likelihood of significant harm and any ongoing risks.

Lead practitioners should:

Lead the assessment in accordance with the guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children;
Carry out enquiries in a way that minimises distress for the child and family;
See the child who is the subject of concern to ascertain their wishes and feelings, assess their understanding of their situation, assess their relationships and circumstances more broadly, and understand the child’s experiences and interactions with others, especially where there are concerns of extra-familial harm;
Explain to parents or carers the purpose, process and potential outcome of the enquiries and be prepared to answer questions openly, unless to do so would affect the safety and welfare of the child;
Interview parents or carers and determine the wider social and environmental factors that might impact on them and their child, including extra-familial contexts;
Systematically gather information about the child’s and family’s history;
Analyse the findings of the assessment and evidence about what interventions are likely to be most effective with other relevant practitioners;
Determine the child’s needs and the level of risk of harm faced by the child to inform what help should be provided and act to provide that help;
Follow the guidance set out in Achieving Best Evidence in Criminal Proceedings: Guidance on Interviewing Victims and Witnesses and Guidance on Using Special Measures where a decision has been made to undertake a joint interview of the child as part of any criminal investigation.

Health practitioners should:

Provide appropriate specialist assessments, for example, paediatric or forensic medical assessments, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and/or child psychologists may be involved in specific assessments relating to the child’s developmental progress. The lead health practitioner (probably a consultant paediatrician, or possibly the child’s GP) may need to request and co-ordinate these assessments;
Ensure appropriate treatment and follow-up health concerns, such as administering missing vaccines.

The Police should:

Help other organisations and agencies understand the reasons for concerns about the child’s safety and welfare by sharing information and analysis;
Decide whether or not police investigations reveal grounds for instigating criminal proceedings;
Make available to other practitioners any other relevant information gathered or known to inform discussions about the child’s welfare;
Follow the guidance set out in Achieving Best Evidence in Criminal Proceedings: Guidance on Interviewing Victims and Witnesses and Guidance on Using Special Measures where a decision has been made to undertake a joint interview of the child as part of the criminal investigation.

All involved practitioners should:

Contribute to the assessment as required, providing information and analysis about the child and family;
Consider whether a joint enquiry or investigation team may need to speak to a child victim without the knowledge of the parent or carers;
Approach the work with parents and carers in line with the principles in chapter 1 of Working Together to Safeguard Children;
Seek advice and guidance as required and in line with local practice.

The National Multi-agency Practice Standards for Child Protection provide that:

Practitioners should:

Satisfy themselves that conclusions about the likelihood of significant harm give sufficient weight to the views, experiences, and concerns of those who know the child and/or parents well, including relatives who are protective of the child, and other relevant practitioners;
Share their thinking and proposed recommendations with other practitioners who hold relevant information and insight into the child and adults involved with the child;
Comment, challenge, and jointly deliberate, before making a final decision about the likelihood of significant harm;
Together with other agencies, clarify what family help from multiagency partners is necessary to reduce the likelihood of significant harm and maintain reasonable care for the children. They should seek assurance that this resource is available and of sufficient skill and intensity;
Remain alert to changes in circumstances for the child and family and respond as new information comes to light that needs to be reflected in the child protection plan;
Reflect on the proposed protection plan and consider adjustments to strengthen the protection plan. The protection plan should be specific, achievable, and relevant to the likelihood of significant harm and the context in which it is occurring.

The assessment of risk will:

Identify the cause for concern, its seriousness, any recurring events and the vulnerability and resilience of the child;
Evaluate the strengths, including the protective factors, and weaknesses of the family;
Evaluate the risks to the child/ren and the context in which they are living;
Consider the child's needs for protection; from whom and how;
Consider the capacity of the parents and wider family and social networks to safeguard and promote the child's welfare - this should include both parents, any other carers, such as grandparents, and the partners of the parents;
Consider risk factors that may suggest a higher level of vulnerability in the family and risk of significant harm such as parental mental health difficulties, parental substance misuse, and domestic abuse or combinations of these;
Determine the level of intervention required to improve the outcome for the child to be safeguarded in the immediate, interim and longer term.

See Working Together to Safeguard Children, Flowchart 4: Action Taken for an Assessment of a Child under the Children Act 1989.

5. Involving Children, Parents and Other Significant Family Members

You should approach the work with parents and carers in line with the principles of a child-centred approach within a whole family focus set out in Working Together to Safeguard Children.

The Child

Practitioners should take care to ensure that children know what is being discussed about them and their family where this is appropriate. They should ask children what they would like to happen and what they think would help them and their family to reduce the likelihood of significant harm, including where harm is taking place in contexts beyond the family home. Practitioners should listen to what children tell them.

Children who are the subject of Section 47 Enquiries should always be seen and communicated with alone by the social worker. The initial discussions with the child should be conducted in a way that minimises distress to them and maximises the likelihood that they will provide accurate and complete information, avoiding leading or suggestive questions. In addition, all children within the household must be directly communicated with during Section 47 Enquiries by either the police or Children's Social Care or both agencies, so as to enable an assessment of their safety to be made.

The children who are the focus of concern must be seen alone, subject to their age and willingness, preferably with parental permission.

If the child is the subject of ongoing court proceedings, legal advice must be sought about obtaining permission from the court to see the child.

Children's Social Care and the police should ensure that appropriate arrangements are in place to support the child through the Section 47 Enquiry. Specialist help may be needed if:

The child's first language is not English;
The child appears to have a degree of psychological and/or psychiatric disturbance but is deemed competent;
The child has a physical/sensory/learning disability;
Interviewers do not have adequate knowledge and understanding of the child's ethnic, faith and cultural background;
Unusual abuse is suspected, including the use of photography or filming (in which case the method of interviewing the child might need to be revised).

It may be necessary to provide information to the child in stages and this must be taken into account in planning the Section 47 Enquiries.

Explanations given to the child must be brought up to date as the assessment and the enquiry progresses. In no circumstances should the child be left wondering what is happening and why.

If the whereabouts of a child subject to Section 47 Enquiries are unknown and cannot be ascertained by the social worker, the following action must be taken within 24 hours:

A strategy discussion/ meeting with the police;
Agreement reached with the Lead Practitioner or their Children's Social Care manager responsible as to what further action is required to locate and see the child and carry out the enquiry.

If access to a child is refused or obstructed, the Lead Practitioner, in consultation with their manager, should co-ordinate a strategy discussion/meeting including legal representation, to develop a plan to locate or access the child/ren and progress the Section 47 Enquiry.

The Parents and Other Significant Family Members

Practitioners should engage parents and the family network, as appropriate, in the discussions, recognising previous involvement with agencies and services may influence how they engage. Practitioners should encourage parents and families to express what support would help them to reduce significant harm.

Practitioners should thoroughly explore the significance of the adults in contact with the child and their family or individual histories. They should pay particular attention to any serious criminal convictions, previous allegations of child abuse, domestic abuse or impulsive violent behaviour, restrictions on contact with children or involvement with children subject to child protection plans or care proceedings.

Practitioners should explain clearly to parents and the family network the implications of the threshold that has been reached for section 47 enquiries, the initial child protection conference, and any ongoing child protection plan (including that this threshold may lead to pre-proceedings, should the likelihood of significant harm not reduce). Practitioners should do everything they can to ensure that parents and the family network understand and can engage purposefully with the enquiries and any protection plan.

If a parent has a specific communication difficulty or English is not their first language, an interpreter should be provided.

The Lead Practitioner has the main responsibility to engage with parents and other family members to ascertain the facts of the situation causing concern and to assess the capacity of the family to safeguard the child.

Parents should be involved at the earliest opportunity unless to do so would jeopardise a police investigation or place the child at risk of harm. The needs and safety of the child will be paramount when determining at what point parents or carers are given information. Parents must be kept informed throughout about the enquiry, its outcome and any subsequent action unless this would jeopardise a police investigation or place the child at risk of harm.

The assessment should include both parents, any other carers such as grandparents and the partners of the parents, as applicable.

Where a parent lives elsewhere but has contact with the child arrangements should be made for their involvement in the assessment process.

Appropriate checks should be completed on a parent who assumes the care of a child during a Section 47 Enquiry.

An explanation of their rights as parents including the need for support and guidance from an advocate whom they trust should be provided, including advice about the right to seek legal advice.

Any objections or complaints expressed by parents during a Section 47 Enquiry, and the response to these objections or complaints, must be clearly recorded.

6. Medical Assessments

Strategy discussions/meetings must consider, in consultation with the named Doctor/Paediatrician (if not part of the strategy discussion/meeting), the need for and the timing of a medical assessment. Medical assessments should always be considered necessary where there has been a disclosure or there is a suspicion of any form of abuse to a child.

A medical assessment should demonstrate a holistic approach to the child and assess the child's well-being, including mental health, development and cognitive ability.

A medical assessment is necessary to:

Secure forensic evidence;
Obtain medical documentation;
Provide reassurance for the child and parent;
Inform treatment follow-up and review for the child (any injury, infection, new symptoms including psychological).

Only doctors may physically examine the whole child. All other staff should only note any visible marks or injuries on a body map and record, date and sign details in the child's file.

Consent

The following may give consent to a medical assessment:

A child of sufficient age and understanding (Gillick competency/Fraser guidelines);
Any person with parental responsibility, providing they have the capacity to do so;
The local authority when the child is the subject of a care order (though the parent should be informed);
The local authority when the child is accommodated under s20 of the Children Act 1989, and the parent/s have abandoned the child or are assessed as lacking capacity to give such authority;
The High Court when the child is a ward of court;
A family proceedings court as part of a direction attached to an emergency protection order, an interim care order or a child assessment order.

A child of any age who has sufficient understanding (generally to be assessed by the doctor with advice from others as required) to make a fully informed decision can provide lawful consent to all or part of a medical assessment or emergency treatment.

A young person aged 16 or 17 has an explicit right (s8 Family Law Reform Act 1969) to provide consent to surgical, medical or dental treatment and, unless grounds exist for doubting their mental health, no further consent is required.

A child who is of sufficient age and understanding may refuse some or all of the medical assessment, though refusal can potentially be overridden by a court.

Wherever possible the permission of a parent should be sought for children under sixteen prior to any medical assessment and/or other medical treatment.

Where circumstances do not allow permission to be obtained and the child needs emergency medical treatment, the medical practitioner may:

Regard the child to be of an age and level of understanding to give their own consent;
Decide to proceed without consent.

In these circumstances, parents must be informed by the medical practitioner as soon as possible and a full record must be made at the time.

In non-emergency situations, when parental permission is not obtained, the social worker and manager must consider whether it is in the child's best interests to seek a court order.

Arranging the Medical Assessment

In the course of Section 47 Enquiries, appropriately trained and experienced practitioners must undertake all medical assessments.

A report should be provided by the named/designated doctor to the social worker, the GP and where appropriate, the police. The timing of a letter to parents should be determined in consultation with Children's Social Care and the police.

The report should include:

A verbatim record of the carer's and child's accounts of injuries and concerns noting any discrepancies or changes of story;
Documentary findings in both words and diagrams;
Site, size, shape and where possible age of any marks or injuries;
Opinion of whether injury is consistent with explanation;
Date, time and place of examination;
Those present;
Who gave consent and how (child/parent, written/verbal);
Other findings relevant to the child (e.g. squint, learning or speech problems etc.);
Confirmation of the child's developmental progress (especially important in cases of neglect);
The time the examination ended.

All reports and diagrams should be signed and dated by the doctor undertaking the examination.

See The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) Child Protection Service Delivery Standards.

7. Achieving Best Evidence Interviews

Visually recorded interviews must be planned and conducted jointly by trained police officers and social workers in accordance with the Achieving Best Evidence in Criminal Proceedings: Guidance on interviewing victims and witnesses, and guidance on using special measures (Ministry of Justice). All events up to the time of the video interview must be fully recorded. Consideration of the use of video-recorded evidence should take into account situations where the child has been subject to abuse using recording equipment. Achieving Best Evidence (ABE) promotes a strong victim-centred and trauma-informed approach throughout the guidance. It covers the interview process for child and adult victims and witnesses during a criminal investigation, the pre-trial preparation process and the support available to witnesses in court.

Visually recorded interviews serve two primary purposes:

Evidence gathering for criminal proceedings;
Examination in chief of a child witness.

Relevant information from this process can also be used to inform Section 47 Enquiries, subsequent civil childcare proceedings or disciplinary proceedings against adults, where allegations have been made.

8. The Outcome of Section 47 Enquiries

The Lead Practitioner (social worker) is responsible for deciding what action to take and how to proceed following section 47 enquiries. They should make these decisions based on multi-agency discussions informed by the voice of the child.

It is important that they ensure that both immediate risk assessment and long-term risk assessment are considered. Where the child's circumstances are about to change, the risk assessment must include an assessment of the safety of the new environment (e.g. where a child is to be discharged from hospital to home the assessment must have established the safety of the home environment and implemented any support plan required to meet the child's needs).

The outcome of the Section 47 Enquiries may reflect that the original concerns are:

Not substantiated; although consideration should be given to whether the child may need services as a child in need;
Substantiated and the child is judged to be suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm and an initial child protection conference should be called.

Where Concerns of Significant Harm are Not Substantiated

Lead practitioners should:

Discuss the case with the child, parents and other practitioners and be prepared to answer questions openly and be clear on next steps;
Discuss whether support from any services may be helpful and help secure it;
Consider whether the child's health and development should be re-assessed regularly against specific objectives and decide who has responsibility for doing this; and
Discuss with the family whether they wish to be referred to a family group decision-making forum, such as a family group conference, to determine ongoing support for the child and family.

All involved professionals should:

Participate in further discussions as necessary;
Contribute to the development of any plan as appropriate;
Provide services as specified in the plan for the child;
Review the impact of services delivered as agreed in the plan;
Approach the work with parents and carers in line with the principles of a child-centred approach within a whole family focus set out in chapter 1 of Working Together to Safeguard Children;
Seek advice and guidance as required and in line with local practice guidance; and
Consider the plans for ongoing assessment and reviewing the child’s circumstances.

Arrangements should be noted for future referrals, if appropriate.

Where Concerns of Significant Harm are Substantiated and the Child is Judged to be Suffering, or Likely to Suffer, Significant Harm

Lead practitioners should:

Convene an initial child protection conference. The timing of this conference should depend on the urgency of the case and response to the needs of the child and the nature and severity of the harm they may be facing. The initial child protection conference should take place within 15 working days of a strategy discussion, or the strategy discussion at which section 47 enquiries were initiated if more than one has been held;
Consider which practitioners with specialist knowledge or relevant professional disciplines should be invited to participate so that the plan will meet the child’s needs;
Seek to communicate the outcome and rationale to the referring practitioner or agency, and give particular consideration to whether they should be included in the child protection conference;
Ensure that the child and their parents understand the purpose of the conference and who will attend. Parents should be given appropriate information to support their participation in the conference;
Help prepare the child if they are attending or making representations through a third party to the conference;
Give information about advocacy agencies and explain that the family may bring an advocate, friend or supporter.

All involved practitioners should:

Be sufficiently skilled and experienced to prepare for and engage with the child protection conference, and able to critically assess and challenge their own and others’ input;
Contribute to the information their agency provides ahead of the conference, setting out the nature of the agency's involvement with the child and family;
Offer clear analysis based on their perspective;
Consider, in conjunction with the police and the appointed conference Chair, whether the report can and should be shared with the parents and if so when;
Approach the work with parents and carers in line with the principles of a child-centred approach within a whole family focus set out in chapter 1 of Working Together to Safeguard Children;
Attend the conference and take part in decision making when invited;
Seek advice and guidance as required and in line with local practice guidance.

Suitable multi-agency arrangements must be put in place to safeguard the child until such time as the initial child protection conference has taken place. The Lead Practitioner and their manager will coordinate and review such arrangements.

Feedback from Section 47 Enquiries:

The Lead Practitioner is responsible for recording the outcome of the Section 47 Enquiries consistent with the requirements of the recording system. The outcome should be put on the child's electronic record with a clear record of the discussions, authorised by the Children's Social Care manager.

Notification, verbal or written, of the outcome of the enquiries, including an evaluation of the outcome for the child, should be given to all the agencies who have been significantly involved for their information and records.

The parents and children of sufficient age and appropriate level of understanding should be given feedback of the outcome, in particular in advance of any initial child conference that is convened. This information should be conveyed in an appropriate format for younger children and those people whose preferred language is not English. If there are ongoing criminal investigations, the content of the social worker's feedback should be agreed with the police.

Feedback about outcomes should be provided to non-professional referrers in a manner that respects the confidentiality and welfare of the child.

Where the child concerned is living in a residential establishment which is subject to inspection, the relevant inspectorate should be informed.

Where the decision about the outcome of the Section 47 Enquiry is disputed:

If local authority Children’s Social Care decides not to proceed with a child protection conference, then other practitioners involved with the child and family have the right to request that local authority children’s social care convene a conference if they have serious concerns that a child’s welfare may not be adequately safeguarded.

9. Timescales for Section 47 Enquiries

The speed with which an assessment is carried out after a child’s case has been referred into the local authority Children’s Social Care should be determined by the needs of the individual child and the nature and level of any risk of harm they face. This will require judgements to be made by a social work qualified Practice Supervisor or manager on each individual case. Adult assessments, for example, parent carer or non-parent carer assessments, should also be carried out in a timely manner.

The timescale for the assessment to reach a decision on the next steps should be based upon the needs of the individual child, consistent with the local protocol and no longer than 45 working days from the point of referral into the local authority Children’s Social Care. If, in discussion with a child and their family and other practitioners, an assessment exceeds 45 working days, the Lead Practitioner should record the reasons for exceeding the time limit. In some cases, the needs of the child will mean that a quick assessment will be required. In all cases, as practitioners identify needs during the assessment, they do not need to wait until the assessment concludes before providing support or commissioning services to support the child and their family.

The maximum period of an enquiry from the strategy discussion/ meeting to the date of the initial child protection conference is 15 working days. In exceptional circumstances, where more than one strategy discussion/meeting takes place, the timescale remains as 15 working days from the strategy discussion/meeting which initiated the Section 47 Enquiries.

10. Recording

A full written record must be completed by each agency involved in a Section 47 Enquiry, using the required agency proforma, authorised and dated by the staff.

The responsible manager must countersign/authorise Children's Social Care Section 47 recording and forms.

Practitioners should, wherever possible, retain rough notes in line with local retention of record procedures until the completion of anticipated legal proceedings.

At the completion of the enquiry, the Lead Practitioner or the social work manager should ensure that the concerns and outcome have been entered in the recording system including on the child's chronology and that other agencies have been informed.

Children's Social Care recording of enquiries should include:

Agency checks;
Content of contact cross-referenced with any specific forms used;
Strategy discussion/meeting notes;
Details of the enquiry;
Body maps (where applicable);
Assessment including identification of risks and how they may be managed;
Decision-making processes;
Outcome/further action planned.

All agencies involved should ensure that records have been concluded and countersigned in line with agency policies and recording procedures.

All records should be checked for the correct spelling of names and any alias as well as correct dates of birth.

11. National Multi-Agency Practice Standards for Child Protection

Section 3 in Working Together to Safeguard Children sets out national multi-agency practice standards for child protection for all practitioners working in services and settings who come into contact with children who may be suffering or have suffered significant harm within or outside the home.

Local safeguarding partners need to ensure all practitioners are supported to be able to achieve the national multi-agency practice standards for child protection, including through:

An unrelenting focus on protection and the best outcomes for children;
Creating learning cultures in which practitioners stay up to date as new evidence of best practice emerges;
Creating an environment in which it is safe to challenge, including assumptions that relate to ethnicity, sex, disability, and sexuality.

A: Recognising actual or likely significant harm for all practitioners

Practitioners are alert to potential indicators of abuse, neglect, and exploitation, and listen carefully to what a child says, how they behave, and observes how they communicate if non-verbal (due to age, special needs and/or disabilities, or if unwilling to communicate). Practitioners will try to understand the child’s personal experiences and observe and record any concerns;
Practitioners communicate in a way that is appropriate to the child’s age and level of understanding and use evidence-based practice tools for engaging with children, including those with special educational needs and disabilities;
When practitioners have concerns or information about a child that may indicate a child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm, they share them with relevant practitioners and escalate them if necessary, using the referral or escalation procedure in place within their local multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. They update colleagues when they receive relevant new information;
Practitioners never assume that information has already been shared by another professional or family member and always remain open to changing their views about the likelihood of significant harm.

B: Section 47 enquiries, child protection conferences and child protection plans

Practitioners are aware of the limits and strengths of their personal expertise and agency remit. They work collaboratively and proactively with multi-agency practitioners to build an accurate and comprehensive understanding of the daily life of a child and their family to establish the likelihood of significant harm and any ongoing risks. Practitioners respect the opinions, knowledge and skills of multi-agency colleagues and engage constructively in their challenge;
Practitioners have an applied understanding of what constitutes a child suffering actual or likely significant harm. They consider the severity, duration and frequency of any abuse, degree of threat, coercion, or cruelty, the significance of others in the child’s world, including all adults and children in contact with the child (this can include those within the immediate and wider family and those in contexts beyond the family, including online), and the cumulative impact of adverse events; Practitioners take care to ensure that children know what is being discussed about them and their family where this is appropriate. They ask children what they would like to happen and what they think would help them and their family to reduce the likelihood of significant harm, including where harm is taking place in contexts beyond the family home. Practitioners listen to what children tell them;
Practitioners engage parents and the family network, as appropriate, in the discussions, recognising previous involvement with agencies and services may influence how they engage. Practitioners encourage parents and families to express what support would help them to reduce significant harm;
Practitioners thoroughly explore the significance of the adults in contact with the child and their family or individual histories. They should pay particular attention to any serious criminal convictions, previous allegations of child abuse, domestic abuse or impulsive violent behaviour, restrictions on contact with children or involvement with children subject to child protection plans or care proceedings;
Practitioners satisfy themselves that conclusions about the likelihood of significant harm give sufficient weight to the views, experiences, and concerns of those who know the child and/or parents well, including relatives who are protective of the child, and other relevant practitioners;
Practitioners share their thinking and proposed recommendations with other practitioners who hold relevant information and insight into the child and adults involved with the child. Practitioners comment, challenge, and jointly deliberate, before making a final decision about the likelihood of significant harm;
Together with other agencies, practitioners clarify what family help from multi- agency partners is necessary to reduce the likelihood of significant harm and maintain reasonable care for the children. They seek assurance that this resource is available and of sufficient skill and intensity;
Practitioners explain clearly to parents and the family network the implications of the threshold that has been reached for section 47 enquiries, the initial child protection conference, and any ongoing child protection plan (including that this threshold may lead to pre-proceedings, should the likelihood of significant harm not reduce). Practitioners do everything they can to ensure that parents and the family network understand and can engage purposefully with the enquiries and any protection plan;
Practitioners remain alert to changes in circumstances for the child and family and respond as new information comes to light that needs to be reflected in the child protection plan;
Practitioners reflect on the proposed protection plan and consider adjustments to strengthen the protection plan. The protection plan is specific, achievable, and relevant to the likelihood of significant harm and the context in which it is occurring.

C: Discharging the child protection plan

Practitioners work as part of a multi-agency team to create lasting change for families and ensure the child, parents and family network know that further help and support is available if needed or further concerns arise;
Following a decision to discharge a child protection plan, practitioners ensure that appropriate support is in place for the child and family and respond to changing circumstances and new information;
Where a child becomes looked after, practitioners ensure that this is well planned and that the child, parents and family network are appropriately supported. Ongoing need is monitored as part of care planning.

See also: Children's social care: national framework - Statutory guidance which sets out the principles behind children’s social care, its purpose, factors enabling good practice and what it should achieve.

Further Information

Referrals Procedure

Information Sharing Procedure