Nursery and social work

[Jrs73]

Hi, I've received a call from a social worker as the nursery contacted them after my three-year old claimed her grandfather had hit her on the nose. I am shocked. She has no grandfather, has no bruise or mark on her nose - its obviously just a toddler's imagination. Just the other day one of her carers was telling us what a fertile imagination and great storyteller she was. Is this an appropriate response from the nursery? Should they not have tried to understand the issue first? My immediate reaction is to remove her from nursery as I'm so upset and feel let down.

[Newname4now]

The nursery should have spoken with you first. I think your feelings make sense.

[Apple40]

When it comes to safeguarding, the parents are never spoken too first as in cases where there is abuse going on at home it could give the parents a chance to cover it up. As sadly this does happen and the child goes with out the help they need. ( I am not saying this is you, just giving a reason as to why you were not contacted first)

[insancerre]

It’s entirely appropriate
It’s not the nursery’s job to “understand the issue”
Their job is to pass any concerns on to the appropriate authorities for them to investigate
Which is what they have done

[HeyDuddy]

It’s absolutely not the nursery’s job to investigate, they have done the right thing. It’s difficult when you have to go through it but they are protecting your child. Social services will look into it and see there’s nothing to find, no harm done and at least you know they follow the correct protocol when it comes to child protection.

[missyB1]

Actually in our school nursery our policy would be to ask you first if she had been bumped on the nose and if so how had it happened. We would not disclose to you what the child had said until we heard your story and judged for ourselves how to proceed.
In the circumstances you have outlined we would not have gone immediately to social services - unless there were already concerns about your child.

[jannier]

Working together to safegaurd children says that parents should not be approached in circumstances which would potentially put children at risk. There is no written definition of what this constitutes. The case would be passed to the safeguarding officer who makes the decision no matter what type of setting (a childminder would call mash for advice). Safegaurding is very difficult it is not the safeguarding officers job to investigate or the nursery/childminder/schools its cases where settinhs have decided its not an issue where some children have slipped through the net. So missyB1s statement is not the norm even for schools.