6.The Child Protection Planning Meeting

If there are significant concerns that a child has been harmed or is at risk of harm, people responsible for protecting children from harm will need to come together and make a plan to protect that child and support them and their family. 

This meeting is called a child protection planning meeting.

This will involve social workers, the police, health professionals, education staff and any other agencies who know the child and their family or are already working to support the child and their family. 

The meeting will share and consider all the relevant information that agencies know about the child’s circumstances and whether the concerns about their safety are significant or not. They will look at any actions that have already been taken, whether these are making a difference and if anything else needs to happen to keep the child safe.

If the meeting decides that the concerns are significant they plan and agree actions to help keep the child safe.

It is important that the meeting knows what the child and their parents or carers think. Children and parents and carers need to be supported to prepare for the meeting and to take part. 

If the child is able to take part and wants to, they can attend the meeting and should be supported to be there. If they are not able to go to the meeting, for example if they are very young, or they don’t want to, they can tell people at the meeting how they feel and what they want in another way. They can write down what they think or draw a picture and this can be shared, or they can tell an adult who can speak for them at the meeting. 

Parents or carers with parental responsibilities should be invited to the meeting. They know their children best, have responsibilities for keeping their child safe, and rights to a family life. Parents and carers are entitled to advocacy support to help represent their views. Parents and carers can bring someone along to speak on their behalf, for example, an advocate or a solicitor, and the meeting chair should make sure that parents and carers attending the meeting understand everything that is happening. 

Before the meeting, a social worker will plan with the parents or carers how they want to be involved and will discuss what kind of advocacy or support they might want or need. Taking part is voluntary, parents and carers can choose if they want to attend the meeting or not. 

Social workers who are responsible for supporting the child and their family will be at the meeting and the police, who are responsible for protecting the child from harm. 

Health professionals who have an understanding of the child’s health and wellbeing, and education staff who know the child and are also responsible for keeping them safe, for example, their school headteacher, will also be asked to be at the meeting.

Any members of the family who also care for the child and foster carers already caring for the child will also be invited. 

Before a Child Protection Planning Meeting happens, information about how the meetings work should be made available to children and parents or carers and in a way that is most helpful to the child or adult. 

Parents and carers with parental responsibilities need time and support before, during, and after the meeting to consider and understand the information being shared and discussed, the concerns being raised, and any decisions being made. This includes having the time to read reports or help to understand what the reports used in the meeting say. 

The meeting is managed by a chair who will be a person who has significant experience in child protection. The chair will usually be a social work manager. 

The chair should talk to the parents or carers before the meeting begins to explain how the meeting will work and answer any questions they may have.

In exceptional circumstances, a parent or carer might not be allowed to attend the meeting. The chair would make this decision and must explain this to the parent or carer. This would happen, for example, where under the law a person is not allowed to contact another person or if there are concerns that the adult presents a significant risk to others attending the meeting, including to the child.

These meetings can be quite complicated. They can feel frightening for parents and carers who can feel anxious and worried. 

The chair can pause the meeting for a break if that would help the child or the parents or carers.

The purpose of the meeting is to decide how to keep a child safe. 

If a child has been harmed or is at risk of being harmed, it will be agreed that a Child Protection Plan is needed. This will require people responsible for protecting children and the child’s parents or carers to take actions to keep the child safe. 

For parents and carers, taking part in this is voluntary. They do not have to agree to the plan, but the plan will be put in place to protect the child. 

To support the development of the plan, a child protection core group will be established. It will meet within two weeks and bring people together to develop the detail of the plan with the parents or carers and organisations who will be supporting the child.  

The people at the meeting will also consider what else might be needed to help keep the child safe. For example, the meeting might decide to make a referral to the Children’s Reporter for the Children’s Hearing System if it is believed that additional legal powers may be required to keep the child safe. This will happen when a parent or carer isn’t able to give their support to the actions in the plan voluntarily or doesn’t want to. 

In circumstances where the risk of harm to a child is felt to be severe and urgent, the action following the meeting will be for the local authority to apply for a child protection order through the court. If this order is granted, the child will be supported to live in a place of safety away from their parent or carer, and the Children’s Hearings System would start to support the child and their family to understand how to keep the child safe in the long-term. 

If a Child Protection Plan is put in place then it will be necessary to add the child’s name to the local authority’s child protection register so that people responsible for keeping children safe know that this child might be at risk and that they and their family need some support. 

The meeting could decide that there doesn’t need to be a Child Protection Plan and the child’s name does not need to be on the child protection register but that to support the child and their parents or carers, having a plan might be helpful. In those circumstances they will recommend a plan of action for support from services, sometimes called a Getting It Right For Every Child’s Plan.

If there is no overall agreement by the people at the meeting on the actions to take, the chair will make the final decision. They will consider all the information raised in the meeting.

If the meeting decides that a Child Protection Plan is needed and that the child’s name should be added to the child protection register, and parents or carers don’t agree with this, they have the right to complain against decisions. If there is no complaint, the Child Protection Plan and registration begins and is reviewed within six months of being made. 

The register is a list held by the local authority, usually the social work children’s services, so that people responsible for keeping children safe know that this child might be at risk and that they and their family needs some support. It lets them know there is a Child Protection Plan in place. 

It does not give the local authority or anyone else any legal powers over the child. 

It is confidential and is only shared with those staff that need to know. It is kept securely. 

When it is decided that there is much less risk of harm, the child’s name is removed from the register. A child protection meeting called a review makes that decision. 

If a child whose name is on the child protection register moves from one local authority area to another local authority area, the original local authority will notify the new local authority who will put the child’s name on the register in their area.