To ask a schools safeguarding policy

[BUILDABIGBURGER]

Exactly what the thread says, if a primary school had concerns over a child, what would their plan of action be?

If I were you OP, I'd be encouraging your friend to talk with the GP about the child's medical and care needs being met. I'd ask the
School to clarify why the letter was sent. Ask to meet with the school to discuss their concerns and how to constructively move forward.

For a relationship between school and parent to have reached the stage of solicitors appointments when the child is so young, the parent should be considering whether they have faith in the school or whether a move would be better. But I imagine the school would escalate if they have these concerns and the parents reaction is to move school - it could be seen as running away or covering tracks.

Can the parent try to find a way to work with the school for the child's benefit?

Having said all of that, I'm not sure you have all of the details OP. There may be much more going on than you know of. The parents seems resistant to engaging with the school and seems to have a confrontational approach which could be interpreted as defensive. It would be unusual for this situation to have arisen without merit.

All schools must work to the DFE Keeping children safe in education statutory guidance. That is the minimum 'must do's' for any school. I would have a read of that to see if you can identify any relevant guidance that the school might have been following. Schools might share concerns with a child's GP if , for example, they felt a child's health needs were not being met. That is part of working together to support children and is allowed under GDPR. It would slow he recorded on the school's systems. Any parent can ask to see what data the school holds on their child.

I'm sorry but you're just wrong. Social services can't just get involved with families without parental consent unless the threshold is met. It's extremely rare to visit children without gaining consent from the parents first. If there is a risk of immediate significant harm then it would be proportionate to refer without discussing with the parent but in every other case the school absolutely SHOULD discuss all referrals with parents.

@1AngelicFruitCake I suppose GP's words of unreasonable were In regards to schools concerns surrounding things that the school were aware was already being treated medically by the GP.

As safeguarding concern would usually be made regarding something that could show early signs of neglect/abuse.

However a medical condition that is and has been treated for quite some time i suppose the GP didn't find that necessary to be listed as a concern that the school had.

@BlindurErBóklausMaður

Yes, and that is how I assumed this would've worked. But it didn't. School didn't use the school nurse, and instead went straight to GP. I assumed school nurse would've communicated with GP if they had any concerns.

But the head teacher went to GP. Not the school nurse.

@Gazelda

No I don't think personally there is any faith in the school, At least from parents side. They feel like the school could of most definitely of been better in terms of communication, and has received 2 threatening phone calls from the DHT.

Had spoken to the HT prior and made HT aware they was considering other schools and had a long conversation in regards to incidents that had already happened at school ( no violence from parental ms like previously mentioned ) where HT said they'd no concerns and child's future looked " promising "

This was before GP Referral.

Once again, I can only say what was written down in front of me on a piece of paper.

No I can't take it as 100% gospel, but I assume friend wouldn't be so stupid as to openly lie when going to a solicitor.

Where do you think your friend will go from here OP?

@Gazelda

I do not know, in my opinion I don't think you can take matters like this very far. As the school have done what they should've done in regards to policies.

However I do feel like some of the claims friend has made are quite worrying, and I'm unsure if they also go in with regular policy procedure.

I can only be here as a friend to support, and all I have tried to do is get a little knowledge under my belt in regards to all of this.

Schools are not the highest body when it comes to safeguarding. We have a duty of care, like other forward facing sectors to report concerns to social services. In my role (where I make these referrals) I often call MASH for advice who will say yes this is something we need to know about or no, we don’t think this meets our threshold for something ‘concerning enough.’

If your friend feels the referral was unnecessary she can explain that to SS, they will agree and there will be no further action with the family. Even if they decide that the school didn’t need to refer, they haven’t technically done anything for a solicitor to get involved with.

I can completely understand why this may have been upsetting for your friend but Its always better that schools act on the side of caution. If they are penalised for passing on concerns that are found to be nothing, what impact do you think that will have on those of us whose duty it is to pass information on?

There was a child at my school whose mother was making him pretend to be in a wheelchair to get a new house. His GP called us directly to find out how he presented in school. If she had not done this, we wouldn’t have joined up the dots. All serious case reviews of harmed children usually point to there not being joined up thinking from professionals.

@Bex5490

There has been no information in regards to SS, as there are currently no concerns listed in child's report.

Thank you for such a detailed answer.

After speaking to my friend this morning, it seems the reason they have gone to a solicitor because of a concern the school made based on physical appearance. Not because of the school sending a report to GP.

It’s really not a nice experience to go through for your friend.

All you can do is be there for and help her go through the motions with the GP etc.

I would encourage her to ask for a meeting with the safeguarding lead at the school to find out from them what exactly their concerns were and why they made the GP referral without consulting her.

@RowanMayfair
I'd have been removed from my role in my school a long while ago if I hadn't known the rules.

The first thing we do is seek consent. Unless it's at the threshold of joint investigation and potential arrest of parents we don't go ahead without at the least contacting parents. Even under s47 best practice is to seek consent. So if your school is routinely making referrals without previously discussing with parents all you're doing is undermining your relationship and trust with parents.

@RowanMayfair Which act is this under please if you don't mind my asking

The children act.
section 17 is voluntary support and social workers cannot usually obtain information from agencies about a child without parental consent.
section 47 is child protection and social workers can obtain information without parental consent but should not visit children without consent unless there is an immediate risk of harm. If we suspect immediate risk we would seek urgent advice from police and would then likely carry out a joint visit at which the police would decide what to do next - they might arrest a potential perpetrator and take the children into police protection or hand the immediate safety planning over to social care (at which point we would talk to the parents)
As you can see there are only a small number of opportunities for intervention without involving parents. So schools who have policies to refer concerns without discussing with parents are misguided.

@RowanMayfair Do you know if the headteacher approaching the GP without permission is acceptable?

Teachers are taught to think the worst and then work backwards.

If your friend could work with the school and treat the headlice (maybe with the shampoo now if a less harsh method hasn’t worked) and appreciate that they are noticing things that might help children who are at risk then it’ll probably be much easier for her.

In my opinion, going to the solicitor just seems more suspicious and that’s she’s not helping herself here.

It's really weird. But I don't work in a school so I don't know if it's unusual. As long as the school isn't asking for information back from the GP then they haven't done anything to breach confidentiality (and please remember that it may be permissible to share information without parental consent for the purpose of child safeguarding but only when the appropriate threshold is met)
I just can't imagine why a school would write to a GP before talking to the parent.

The school didn’t make a referral to SS. Only contacted the GP - which is definitely weird, but not against statutory guidelines.

I’ve read back over your posts and actually it does sound very strange.

A school can’t make a referral/appointment for a child to see GP. If they concerned for a child’s welfare they must (after notifying parents under most circumstances) make a referral to SS.

This comment though indicates that there has been some discussion with mum about the headlice. Like they have raised concerns or said you need to treat this and mum has said ‘I’m not willing to use harsh treatments.’

If this was an ongoing issue and they were SO concerned then they should have explained to mum why they were going to do an SS referral based on perceived neglect. Not report to GP. It is strange…

In my experience a safeguarding team would bypass the parents if they suspected parental neglect/abuse. Going to the parents can often make the situation worse for the child and it gives parents time to concoct a story and get their ducks in a row. Something like headlice would warrant action if there had been repeated conversations with parents about dealing with it and the issue had not been resolved. Children’s Services would not be interested in this though as it wouldn’t meet their threshold on its own. In that scenario I can see why a referral to a GP would be made so that pressure to provide medical care could be applied to the parents from different directions.

It would also be information sharing with the GP as a lot of safeguarding is about pulling together lots of small puzzle pieces. For example, the school might spot nits being unaddressed and the GP might have spotted missed routine appointments and hygiene problems. Not saying this is the case here, just using your scenario.

Writing a letter to the GP about 'social development' sounds like they suspect SEN? In our area the GP needs to refer for this. So could be developmental concerns rather than safeguarding? Not sure how headlice fits in but maybe they wanted the parent to get advice?

Yes exactly. Either it's a health issue, in which case it's the parents' responsibility to get health treatment, or it's a neglect issue, in which case it warrants a referral to social care :/