Social care reports

[Rosebel]

Today my daughter school phoned and said they'd had a report from social care that she was sending indecent images to multiple strangers on the Internet.
I searched her phone (she's isolating at the moment) without telling her why and couldn't find anything on her images, WhatsApp, Snapchat or Instagram.
Is it usual to contact a school instead of parents? How did they find out what school she was at?
She must have done something for this report to happen but I'm struggling to find evidence and she insists she didn't do anything.
What should I do? I'm so worried

She’s 14, she won’t go into care or prison.
She might have been groomed or co-erced or like many teens sending explicit pics. She’ll get a talking to and you might have to do a course on internet safety etc
If explicit pics were enough to land someone in prison 98% of men on dating sites would be arrested for dick pics

@Rosebel

I have been calm and I'm not going to say that she's fucked her future up. I can say it on here so I don't say it to her. I'm just really confused as to why she'd send something like that, or even when she had a chance to considering she shares a room with her sister, although I suppose she'd find a way if she wanted to. I check her phone regularly and never saw anything worrying but now I'm furious with myself and am really scared about what will happen next. Police? All my children being taken in to care? Criminal record for my daughter?

Why would she get a criminal record? My immediate thought was grooming, with her being the victim

You won’t lose your children nor will she go to prison. You’re catastrophising out of panic. The police will be more interested in finding out whether she’s been groomed. You’ll probably get a chat about internet safety and monitoring her activities but nobody is going to remove your children over this.

The school cannot legally check her phone, if they suspect there are indecent images on it and they go looking, they will be in tons of trouble. Also, I’m surprised the police haven’t been in touch with you.
I would phone school in the morning and ask to speak to the DSL. Ask them what evidence they have, and what the police have said.

I thought SS or police would have been in touch today but perhaps they are waiting to see if school can find anything out (don't know if that's how it works because I have zero experience of this).
I am absolutely terrified and that's why I'm worried about criminal records and my children being removed. I've just never dealt with anything like this.
It's an inset day tomorrow and they don't answer the phone on inset days so will have to wait until Monday.
My assumption is no one at school (staff) have seen the photos or they wouldn't need to check her phone.

I think for a safeguarding issue they will still respond. Email the Safeguarding lead urgently cc. Head. You could also call nspcc asking how to support your dd.

Did you check the Deleted folder in the phone 🌸

Your child will not be sent to prison or removed ... unless there's a whole back story you haven't told us about. She is a minor. She will be treated as such. The police will handle it with care. There may be issues if it was sent to children younger than her and then her motivations will have to be explored.

Please remember she may be telling the truth. Until you have evidence you need to support your child. She needs to trust you. I have dealt with many of these cases at work and all have been the picture sender being exploited by older teens or adults.

Think of your daughter, please.

If school don't answer, and they should. Email the head asking to speak to the DSL. In fact you could do that now and follow it up with a phone call. Stress the need to know the information to safeguard your child over the weekend until you cam maybe meet with school or whoever.

I haven't accused her but have said she needs to think really hard about what she might have said or put on social media and tell me if she thinks of it. She got quite upset as she insists it wasn't her.
I got the impression from the school that they think she just randomly sent them out, she doesn't have a boyfriend or anything so it's not that. Sending random photos just doesn't sound like something she'd do and they did agree it's out of character but still possible.
Just wondering is it a case that school and SS will review and decide whether or not to involve the police? Or will they inform them anyway? Would love to know what to expect

Something isn’t right here - I could understand school contacting social services, but why would social services a) be aware of it and b) contact the school and not you?

Social services will have asked school to deal with it and let them know the outcome. School know the child the best. Police will only being become involved in a criminal way in certain cases - depends on age of recipients, if it's been forwarded on and if she's been groomed.

School can't search her phone as then they would be viewing images classed as 'child abuse' (I don't like the term child pornography'). The phone should've been collected at school when they found this out and locked away for safekeeping until it can be accessed by trained officers. I would suggest you lock the phone away from her until the matter is resolved.

I'm unclear how school have been informed. Could it be just horrid untrue gossip?

School have to inform SS as part of their duty to safeguard your child. I'm surprised they didn't ask you to come to school and discuss but I suppose it's covid times.

It's definitely been handled poorly.

Make sure you've emailed the head this evening.

Sorry just read she's isolating and reminded myself of the full details.

Has she access to any other tech? I would remove and check that too.

I can almost guarantee that she knows who this has come from. Be it the truth or a lie. It sounds to be like a concerned parent has quite righty contacted SS.

I also don’t understand why social services wouldn’t contact you first. Or why they are asking rhe school to look at her phone.

There isn’t a criminal conviction for her for this, they would be concerned for her welfare due to her age.

Unless there is about to be a police investigation as they think someone else is taking the pics of her,

I think you need to be honest with school. Say you've checked her phone and spoken to her. Ask for help. They wont take her away from you. They will probably just talk to her and discuss safety. Take her phone away and access to the internet. It will need to be earned back.

I have told the school this and have removed her phone. She does need the Internet for homework but I'll be monitoring that and turn it off once homework is done.
Not sure what else I can do. I've also emailed the head so will hopefully hear from him tomorrow.

Are you sure it was actually the school calling you? This sounds really off. I’d call the school in on day and ask to speak to the head of year or whoever and work from there.

Yes it was the school. I know because I missed their first call and phoned them back. But I agree something doesn't seem right but I have to assume there's no proof either way at the moment and thats why everything is so up in the air

Firstly, I want to reassure you that your DD hasn’t done anything criminal (by sending photos of herself) and that she would not be removed from your care on the basis of that.

The fact that Children’s Services have contacted the school about indecent images indicates that they have received a report from someone about images of your DD or possibly (I would guess) multiple children at your DDs school - which would explain them speaking to the school before you.

In all honesty, without further concerns, it’s highly unlikely CS are remotely interested in your DD - they don’t get involved with every child that sends images of themselves, imagine the workload! So I would imagine this is tangential to something else.

You say you think it would be really out of character for your DD to do something like this. You know your DD, and of course she will get up to stuff that you don’t know about, she’s a teenager. However, sending out nudes of herself at random is quite unusual behaviour and would be highly unlikely to be the first indication that anything was wrong. The (more likely) scenario is that she has been persuaded by someone in school to send photos and that these have been shared around the school. This is, unfortunately, fairly common, and kids you wouldn’t expect can get tangled up in things like this. So even if it seems out of character, it doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. At the same time, if she is denying it outright then it might be a case of mistaken (purposefully or not) identity.

One possibility, which I sincerely hope is not the case, is that she may have been groomed or exploited by adults. If that is the case, it is more likely that CS will become involved with your family, but it is highly unusual for teenagers to be taken into care, and is always a last resort. (Honestly, it’s not even on the radar at this point.)

In regards to your DD, please be kind to her (it sounds like you are). If she has done this, she will be feeling ashamed, scared, out of control. She has done something stupid, absolutely, but not something wrong. She will need her mum more than ever to help her navigate this. If she hasn’t done this then thank your lucky stars and sign up to an online course with her about internet safety, and have open conversations with her about staying safe online.

I hope this is helpful.

Thanks. Yes that has been helpful. Thanks to all of you for your replies. I wasn't sure what sort of response I'd get posting on here.
I have sent an email to the school and will have another general chat with my daughter tomorrow about keeping safe.
I'll have to wait and see if the school respond. I'm feeling a bit calmer now. I think I was just so thrown by what happened that I began to think worst case scenario (I do have a bit of a tendancy to do this).
Thanks again for the advice and kind words.

Does her dad know? What does he think?

Yes he does know and doesn't know what to think either. He says that we've done what we can and just need to see what the school say and if anyone else contacts us.