Child Protection Conferences
This webpage explains Child Protection Conferences including information on who is able to attend and what will likely be discussed, as well as information regarding child protection plans and their function.
A Child Protection Conference brings together family members, the child (where appropriate), and professionals involved with the family to make decisions about a child’s future safety, health and development. The Conference is designed to look at all the relevant information and circumstances to determine how best to safeguard the child and promote their welfare.
The meeting is usually attended by family and professionals who know the child and family and can provide relevant information. This could include the child’s health visitor, teacher, doctor, other health and education workers and specialist police officers. There are other people who may be invited to attend because they have specialist information or knowledge relevant to the child.
There will be a discussion about whether or not the child is at risk of “significant harm” and whether the child should become subject to a ‘Child Protection plan’ or a Child In Need plan. If it is decided that a child protection plan is necessary, the child’s name will be placed on the child protection register – please delete this as registers don’t exist anymore.
Guidance on Child Protection Conferences is contained in Working Together to Safeguard Children(Chapter 3).
Multi-agency child protection conference reports – new template and guidance
All professionals are required to produce a report prior to all child protection conferences, which should be shared with the family before the conference. A multi agency report template has been designed to ensure parents are receiving a consistent quality of reports by a variety of agencies, please see below:
A guidance document has also been produced to provide additional support when completing the multi-agency report. This will help guide all partners who are new to writing such reports, so that the reports being produced are addressing all the issues, in a cohesive format:
As of 1st July 2024, the Child Protection Administration team CPConferenceAdmin@oxfordshire.gov.uk will be distributing all agency’s reports to all other professionals ONLY. It remains the responsibility of each agency to share their reports with the family prior to the conference.
Further information on Child Protection Conferences:
- Improving the Child Protection Conference experience and outcomes – guidance on recent changes to the process for family members and agency representatives
- Information for parents, carers and family members on Child Protection Conferences
- Requests for audio files of recorded child protection conferences
- Management of transfer in Case Conference requests from other Local Authorities
- X-rays and scans as part of child protection procedures: Information for parents and carers
A Child Protection Plan should:
- assess the likelihood of the child suffering harm and look at ways that the child can be protected;
- decide upon short and long term aims to reduce the likelihood of harm to the child and to protect the child’s welfare;
- clarify people’s responsibilities and actions to be taken; and
- outline ways of monitoring and evaluating progress.
A child will no longer be under a Plan:
- when it is judged that the child is no longer continuing to or believed to be suffering significant harm;
- where the child and family have moved permanently to another Local Authority area – the new Local Authority should arrange a Child Protection Conference within 15 days of being notified of the move;
- when the child has reached 18 years old – the Local Authority should conduct a review around the time of the child’s 18th birthday when the plan can be ended;
- if the child has died; or
- if the child has permanently left the UK.
Click on Child Protection for further information on child protection planning.