Children and Young Person Safeguarding Referrals

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Consultation Service
3. Consent
4. Submitting a Request for Support
5. RAG Ratings and Response Time
6. Outcome of Request for Support
   
   Further Information
   
   Amendments to this Chapter

1. Introduction

The Children and Families Hub provides a single point of contact and referral for children, young people and families who require additional support to ensure they are appropriately safeguarded, protected and offered the right help at the right time. All requests are triaged and safeguarding concerns are progressed through to the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) - the safeguarding function that sits behind the Children and Families Hub.

Most issues concerning children will be appropriately managed by a single agency, working in partnership with other agencies when required to meet children’s needs guided by the Jersey’s Children First practice framework. Children and young people, parents, other family members and the wider community can contact the Children and Families Hub if they have a safeguarding concern or require additional support. Practitioners working with children and families can also make requests for support to the Children and Families Hub and must submit a request for support if they have concerns that a child or young person:

• Has suffered or is likely to suffer significant harm;
• Has a disability or developmental need and their development is likely to be further impaired without the provision of services.

For requests that are triaged as requiring a MASH response, where appropriate, the MASH gathers information from a range of partner agencies relevant to each individual case, assesses the information returned to determine the level of actual or potential risk/harm and recommends appropriate action to safeguard the child and/or promote his/her welfare.

If a professional has concerns that a child or young person may be at risk of significant harm, they should first discuss the information with their line manager or designated safeguarding lead for their agency. If the designated person is not immediately available, there should be no delay, as the safety of the child or young person is paramount, and the Children and Families Hub (or the Police in an emergency) should be contacted.

The Children and Families Hub can be contacted by telephone (01534 519000) between 8.30 and 17.00 Monday to Thursday and between 8.30 and 16.30 on Friday. Outside these hours, professionals and members of the public with an urgent concern can call the hospital switchboard (01534 442000) and request to speak to the out of hours children’s social worker.

2. Consultation Service

The Children and Families Hub Triage Team, that includes a MASH Decision Maker, offers a consultation service for professionals who may be unclear on what action they should take or who are in need of support/guidance to make an informed decision. This advice may include information about a range of services including the voluntary and community sector; the need for support and safeguarding provided by Children’s Social Care or guidance about submitting a request for support and how to involve parents.

Professionals contacting the Hub cannot remain anonymous when seeking advice around safeguarding and any children discussed must be identified to ensure accurate and effective advice is provided.

3. Consent

Those persons with Parental Responsibility for the child/young person should be informed that a request for support is being submitted to the Children and Families Hub, unless doing so would increase the risk to the child/young person. Their consent should be sought where appropriate and recorded on the request for support form, remembering that child protection concerns override the need for consent where it is not obtainable or has been refused. Where a professional decides not to seek parental consent, this decision must be recorded in the child or young person’s file with their justification, date and signature.

If the decision is made not to submit a request for support, the professional and line manager or designated safeguarding officer for the agency should plan how the agency will continue to support and monitor the child or young person and family if appropriate. This should include consideration of whether a Child and Family Assessment (see Jersey Children First) would be helpful in identifying the child and family’s needs.

In high risk cases where there may be a resultant Police investigation, the decision of when to inform those with parental responsibility about the concerns/requests for support may be one of the decisions made through any subsequent Strategy Discussion.

The Delivering Effective Support for Children and Families - Understanding the Continuum of Children's Needs Procedure provides guidance about the criteria for submitting a request for support. If you are in doubt please contact the Children and Families Hub for guidance.

Click here to access the Children and Families Hub Request for Support form.

4. Submitting a Request for Support

E-mail information from agencies must be transferred using secure, work based e-mail not from home computers unless there is agreed remote access.

A request for support which reports safeguarding concerns should always identify clearly whether there are concerns about abuse or neglect; the foundation of those concerns; and whether the child or young person may need urgent action to keep them safe from harm. When considering whether emergency action is required to protect a child or young person, professionals must also consider whether action is required to protect other children or young people in the same household, in the household of an alleged perpetrator or elsewhere. This information must also be included in the request for support. The Referrer will have the opportunity to discuss their concerns with a member of the Children and Families Hub Triage Team.

The request for support form asks for information about the following:

• Details of all child/ren or young people in the household (full names (including aliases/known as and spelling variations), date of birth, gender, disabilities, medical diagnoses, ethnicity and religion);
• Family address;
• Details of other family and household members, including their relationship to the child and those with Parental Responsibility;
• Details of significant people not living in the household, including their relationship to the child and those with parental responsibility;
• Agencies involved with the child and family including early years setting or school and GP;
• Communication needs;
• What are you worried about;
• What is going well for the family and want resources / services are already in place;
• What are the views of the children and family; and
• What needs to change and what support is needed.

Some information may not be available at the time of making the request for support. There should not be a delay in order to collect information if the child or young person is at risk of significant harm.

What happens to your request for support

When the Hub received the request for support, the team will check whether the child or young person is known to Children’s Social Care and whether they currently have an allocated social worker. the request for support information will be passed directly to the child’s allocated social worker with no further action from the Children and Families Hub or MASH. If the child is known to Children’s Service with case closure within the last three months, MASH will consider whether the request for support should be shared with the last allocated Team Manager for consideration of any intervention, with no further action from the MASH.

If there is no current intervention from Children’s Social Care and the Children and Family Hub’s Triage Team determines the request for support meets threshold to be processed within MASH (see Delivering Effective Support for Children and Families - Understanding the Continuum of Children's Needs Procedure), the MASH Decision Maker will task specific partner agencies for any relevant, chronological information they hold about the child/young person and associated adults. The Decision Maker will apply a RAG rating (see Section 5, RAG Ratings and Response Time) to the request for support which will determine the level of concern and the timeframe in which agencies are required to return their information. The RAG rating may be changed as new information is received.

Multi-Agency Research Standards and Guidance for Partners

All physical partners in MASH have produced their own tasking forms that they send out to their own agencies. It is the responsibility of the MASH Agency representative to gather this information and support the professional to adhere to the following guidelines:

The following is practice guidance for conducting this research:

Overarching principles:

• Information should be evidenced based and focus on the needs and risks to the child;
• Be cautious about over focussing on the parent;
• The information must be recorded in a non judgemental and anti oppressive way;
• Avoid the use of jargon and abbreviations;
• Be clear in what you are saying – “Say it how it is not how it isn’t”;
• Be explicit about the level and nature of the harm that the child has or is likely to suffer e.g. what is the nature, intensity and duration of this harm? Is it significant?
• Identify and analyse risk to the child;
• Be outcome focussed – consider, review and record the impact of your work on improving the outcomes for children. What do we want to achieve for this child and how will we achieve this?
• The information to be provided in a timely manner in line with the RAG rating.

Areas to Cover:

• Child’s views about their situation (e.g. home life, school life);
• Child’s feelings about and responses to recent incidents;
• Comment on the child’s every day experiences;
• Agencies to explain the reason for their involvement and the risks they have been dealing with;
• Comment on the actions and interventions taken by the agency and whether this has or has not made a difference to the life of the child;
• Whilst gathering the child’s views about their situation and any recent incidents is important, professionals need to be careful not to ‘question’ a child about issues which may later be covered in a formal investigation by Police and/or Children’s Social Care.

5. RAG Ratings and Response Time

RED Rating – applied to Enquiries where there appears to be urgent or high risk safeguarding concerns which may require immediate action to ensure the child/young person’s safety. Partner agencies are required to return their information within a timescale that allows a decision to be made within four hours of being tasked. Where an immediate response is required, the Police Public Protection Unit (PPU) and relevant Children’s Social Care Team will be advised immediately that a ‘Red’ Ragged referral has been received. The details of the request for support will be shared and the MASH research will be collated simultaneously to any active Police/Children’s Social Care response. Any subsequent information gathered will be shared within the four hour period.

AMBER Rating – applied to requests for support where there are significant concerns for a child/young person’s welfare but immediate action is not required to ensure their safety. Partner agencies are required to return their information within one working day (24 hours from being tasked).

GREEN Rating – applied to requests for support where needs can be managed through formal support through a ‘team around the child/family’ plan or by a single agency. Requests for Support considered to be Green will not be progressed through MASH.

The MASH Decision Maker will review the multi-agency information to determine the most proportionate response to the child or young person’s needs. They will consider how the information fits with the Multi-agency Delivering Effective Support for Children and Families - Understanding the Continuum of Children's Needs Guidance.

• If the request for support is ragged ‘Red’ and there is an immediate concern for the child’s welfare (Child in Need of Protection) (See Delivering Effective Support for Children and Families - Understanding the Continuum of Children's Needs Procedure) MASH will refer immediately to the Children’s Social Care Assessment and Support Team and a Strategy Discussion will be held between a Social work Manager and Police to determine the most appropriate response;
• If the Decision Maker concludes that there are considerable or complex needs which require further social work exploration (see Delivering Effective Support for Children and Families - Understanding the Continuum of Children's Needs Procedure) a referral will be made to the Children’s Social Care for consideration of undertaking an Assessment (see Assessment Procedure).

In either of these cases, the child or young person must be seen by a social worker as soon as possible (and within a minimum of 5 working days from the MASH Enquiry or 1 day if under 3 years); the child or young person’s needs and safety remain paramount at all times.

If an e-mail enquirer has not received an automated response immediately, they should contact the Children and Families Hub to ensure receipt. Receipt of requests for support from the public that are made by telephone will be confirmed by e-mail or telephone as appropriate.

6. Outcome of Request for Support

For requests that are triaged to MASH. The referrer will receive a confirmation of receipt of the request for support and feedback about the initial decision within 24 hours.

Requests for support may lead to the following outcomes:

• No additional support needs identified;
• Signposting, advice and guidance;
• Direct family work allocated to a Family Partnership Worker / Family Mentor;
• Recommendation of single agency support;
• Recommendation of multi-agency Early Help with a partner agency lead worker;
• Recommendation of multi-agency Early Help with a Family & Community Support lead worker;
• Referral to Children’s Social Care for assessment;
• Support declined by family;

The Referrer will receive feedback on the outcome of their request for support by e-mail, telephone or letter as appropriate. If there is professional disagreement about the outcome decision the SPB Resolving Professional Differences/Escalation Policy may be considered.

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Further Information Jersey’s Children First Delivering Effective Support for Children and Families - Understanding the Continuum of Children's Needs Procedure Amendments to this Chapter In October 2022, this chapter was updated throughout.

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