Social workers arrange a child protection conference or a Public Law Outline (PLO) meeting if they are worried that a child may not be safe or well cared for or if they believe a child is at risk of harm or neglect.

A child protection conference is a multi-agency meeting organised by Children’s Service, which brings you and your child (if they are old enough) together with all the professionals already involved with your child (for example, your child’s social worker, GP, health visitor and teacher) to look at your child’s situation. Sometimes other professionals are invited for example, the police or a pediatrician.

The purpose of the conference is to look at all the relevant information provided by everyone at the meeting and decide what should happen next:

Child Protection Plan:

If those at the meeting think your child is or might be at risk of harm in the future, they must make a child protection plan. This plan will state what needs to be done and by whom, to make sure your child is safe and well cared for in future.

Core Group Meetings:

This will be followed up by smaller meetings called core group meetings which will add more information to the plan about what you and your family must do to improve the care of your child and what the social worker and other professionals will do to help you and your child. The plan should explain how professionals will know that things are getting better for your child. The plan will be reviewed after 3 months and then again after six months to see if things are improving for your child.

Child in Need Plan

If those at the meeting think that your child is not at risk of harm but that they still need extra support, professionals at the meeting may suggest that a child in need plan or other support services are put in place.

It is really important you go to the child protection conference and that you prepare some notes beforehand to help you say what you think is best for your child and what help you need to look after your child. You can normally take someone with you to the conference – either a supporter or a solicitor – to help you remember what you want to say and also to remember what was said at the meeting afterwards.

Please note: the child protection conference cannot remove your child from your care. This can only happen if you agree, or if the court makes an order stating that your child can be removed. But if Children’s Services are concerned that your child’s situation is not improving and your child continues to be at risk, they might hold a legal planning meeting to decide if they should ask the court to remove your child from your care. If they do this they will normally write to you to tell you and you should see a solicitor immediately.

In this situation, it is very common to be worried that your new baby could be removed (even if your circumstances have changed) and to avoid contact with professionals until some way into the pregnancy. But this is not a good idea.

The best thing to do is to:

• stay in regular touch with health professionals to make sure you get the ante-natal care that you and your baby need;
• work with the social worker to make a safe plan for your child for when they are born. This may include:
  • understanding and overcoming the problems which led to your previous children being removed from your care and establish what support you need with your new baby;

The social worker will visit you and they will assess whether they think you can look after your baby. In some case if they are worried your baby may be at risk, they might arrange a child protection conference with other professionals can discuss this further. In such instances:

• See a solicitor straight away. They can advise you and help you discuss plans with the social worker, even before your baby is born; and
• Discuss with your (and the baby’s father’s) wider family if there is anyone who could care for your baby safely after the birth if you are not allowed to. If there is, ask those family members to contact the social worker and ask to be assessed as soon as possible.

If your child’s social worker is worried that your child is being neglected, it is likely that they have received some information, perhaps from a professional who knows your child or a member of the public, that this is the case. When this happens social workers are required by law to make enquiries about the child’s circumstances to see if they are at risk or not. This includes carrying out an assessment of your child’s situation.

Even though you don’t agree with the social worker’s view, it is really important that you co-operate with this assessment. This is your chance to tell the social worker about your child and any help you may need to look after your child. Also if you don’t co-operate the social worker may think that you want to hide something about your child’s situation and might become even more concerned.

It is really important that the child protection plan is followed to make sure your child is safe.

A child protection plan is drawn up when a child protection conference has decided that your child is at risk and needs a plan in order to be kept safe and well cared for. The plan is drawn up on the basis of the recommendations made by those people who attended the conference. The Chair of the conference should also ask you what you think would help you and your children.

The outline of the plan will be drawn up at the conference, but it will then be developed into a full child protection plan after the conference by a social worker and at regular core group meetings. The plan should be clear about what is expected of you and what you can expect of other people to help your child’s situation get better. If you are confused or you don’t know what you need to change or do differently, ask the social worker to explain it to you in writing after the conference and then get independent legal advice.

If you are unhappy that your child now has a child protection plan, you cannot normally appeal unless you can show that there are grounds for judicial review – this is usually when Children’s Services have not complied with the law or they have been totally unreasonable, given the evidence available. But such cases are only successful in very exceptional cases, so it is probably better to make a complaint. How you complain depends on what you are complaining about:

• If you want to complain about the behaviour of the social worker, any other person working for Children’s Services or the child protection investigation or assessment itself, then you should complain directly to Children’s Services. Ask them for details of their complaints procedure; – If you want to complain about the work or behaviour of other professionals (e.g. from health or education) at the conference, then you should contact the agency concerned and use its own complaints procedures.
• If you want to complain about the conference process, it may be best to first contact the Chair and ask if there is a complaints procedure for conferences. If you are not able to resolve matters, then contact Children’s Services Complaints department and they will advise you what to do next.

Note: A complaint cannot change the decision of the original conference, but it could result in a new conference being held (with a new Chair) so a different decision could then be made, but this is very unusual.

If you have been through the Children’s Services complaints process and you are not satisfied with the outcome, you may contact the Local Government Ombudsman about your complaint.