4.Getting help

There are lots of people you can speak to if you are worried or have questions about what is happening.

You may feel you can speak to your teacher, social worker, youth worker or any other adult that you know and trust. If they don’t know the answer to a question you ask them, they can find the answer for you.

If there are serious concerns or worries about you and your safety, a special meeting can be held. Even when concerns are raised about a child’s safety, sometimes when this is explored further a meeting isn’t felt to be needed but when there are serious concerns a meeting may be arranged to discuss support. Your school, social workers or other adults whose job it is to keep children safe will decide whether to have the meeting. 

This meeting is called a Child Protection Planning Meeting. 

It is important that the people who know you are at the meeting. This is a meeting about you and keeping you safe. The people you live with will be asked to be there. 

This meeting looks at all the information that people know about you and whether you are safe or not.

You can go to the meeting if you would like to and are able to understand and take part in some of the meeting.

It can sometimes help if before the meeting you write something down to say how you are feeling and what you would like the meeting to talk about. Your teacher, social worker or another person you trust can help you with this. 

It is important that everyone at the meeting knows what you think and how you are feeling in case you cannot go to the meeting or don’t feel able to go to the meeting. There are different ways you can do this. You can write down how you are feeling, draw a picture, or tell someone you trust who can then tell the meeting.

If the adults at the meeting decide you are not safe, they agree actions to help keep you safe and make a plan.

It is important that these meetings have people who know you there and people who are responsible for keeping you safe. 

This can include:

• the people you live with, your parents or carers
• social workers who have to say how safe you are, what actions have been taken and how things are going 
• police officers who will say how safe you are and identify any risks to you or the people you live with
• people who work at your school like your headteacher who will say how you are doing at school
• people who know also about your health and wellbeing. This might be a health visitor if the meeting is about a young child or a school nurse if it’s about and older child. Sometimes your GP or another doctor you see at a hospital might also go to the meeting
• people who know you and the people you live with at home and are helping you or about to start helping you

Adults who go to the meeting and adults who know you well will help and support you to take part.  

You can think about who you might want to sit next to at the meeting. You should be asked this and given a choice. This might be the person you live with, your teacher or your social worker. 

Some of the things being spoken about at the meeting will be things adults need to think about and do. Children might need some help to understand what these are. 

There is a person who will run the meeting. They are called the Chair and they should also help to explain things in the meeting in a way that you can understand. 

It may help if you meet with some of the people who will be at the meeting before the meeting happens. You can ask for this to happen if this isn’t suggested to you. You can ask an adult you trust to ask for you. 

Sometimes there are also people who have a special job called an advocate who support you at meetings. Their job is to speak to children, ask their views and what they want to happen and give your views at meetings. If you would feel more comfortable or there isn’t an advocate you can ask an adult you trust to support you at meetings. 

If anyone gets upset at the meeting a short break can happen to help everyone. 

Before the meeting, you can agree that you will let your advocate, person you live with, or your social worker, or adult you trust who is supporting you, know that you need a break in the meeting if you need one. 

The meeting is all about you and keeping you safe. 

It is important that everyone at the meeting knows what you think and how you are feeling in case you cannot go to the meeting or don’t feel able to go to the meeting. There are different ways you can communicate to the people at the meeting so that they can listen to what you think. You can write down how you are feeling, draw a picture, or you can tell someone you trust who can then tell the meeting.

You can talk to the people who you live with who know you best and can speak for you or your teacher or social worker who you know well.

Or there might be a person with a special job called an advocate who can speak for you at meetings. Their job is to speak to children, ask their views and what they want to happen and give your views at meetings. 

If the people at the meeting think you are not safe or might come to harm or have already been seriously harmed they will:

• decide who needs to take action to help protect you and keep you safe. A plan will be written to say what actions should be taken and who will take the action 
• think about whether the kind of support you need to keep you safe requires some help from the Children’s Hearings System
• make people who need to know that you have a plan to keep you safe aware by adding your name to a special list called the child protection register

If it is decided that there needs to be a plan in place to keep you safe, a Child Protection Plan will be written. The actions in the plan must:

• include you and the people you live with and listen to your views
• be about what you need to keep you safe and well
• say who is going to do what 
• have a plan of what to do if things go wrong and the actions have to change
• include any extra legal protection that is needed to keep you safe 

You and the people you live with have a right to disagree with what is decided at the meeting.

You can write a letter to say that you don’t agree and your social worker or advocate can help you with that. 

Someone who was not part of the meeting will look at your letter and the decisions made by the meeting. You will then be told if anything is going to be changed. 

You can also raise any worries or concerns, if you think the meeting has not treated you fairly. You should let the social worker or your advocate know that you do not feel that you have been treated fairly and why.