Child protection plan - Devastated

[SENSummer]

Posting for traffic as SEN board is quiet.

We have a high needs AUADHD non verbal DS. Specialist school, learning disabilities and challenging behaviour. Lovely but hard work and disregulates in school holidays. His home carer recently quit due to his violence and not feeling safe which they put in writing and I shared with SS.

I gave up work (both professionals) and became DS carer (also has a younger sibling) and have absolutely advocated for him every step of the way.
We kept asking for additional support and being denied at panel. DS is almost 6 but huge, 9-10 clothes. We reached breaking point this Christmas. We felt we couldn’t keep him or ourselves safe in the home and were really at the end of our tether. I rang social services and recounted how uncomfortable we were with the events of Christmas, said we wanted to consider section 20 or residential school if they wouldn’t help us further. They had a meeting this week and put both kids on child protection plans. Said DS is staying with us as we are what’s best for him.

Im just completely devastated. Barely stopped crying for 24 hours.

There were quite a few inaccuracies told in the meeting that compiled made us look really negative. There’s also things like DS having a safety gate over his room which everyone (including SS and OT) has known about all along and never raised issue with but now it’s a massive issue.
I can evidence most of these things but I’m terrified to even try. They have all clearly decided we are now the problem. Apparently the police who were in the meeting (never had police involvement in our lives) heard all of this and were very unhappy.

No one has ever had an issue with our parenting if anything I’ve always been commended for my perseverance with DS. I honestly wish I’d never said anything, we just really needed help.

Hi Op, social worker here.

To simplify things, the process is usually:
Strategy meeting>Section 47 (child protection investigation> ICPC (initial child protection conference)

You have to be invited to the conference. You do not need a solicitor for the conference as they would not be allowed to attend.

At the conference there will be: Chair, social worker and manager, police, teachers, health professionals and any one else involved eg. Housing worker etc.

You will be able to see a copy of the social workers report beforehand and any reports other professionals have compiled ahead of the conference.

The outcome of the conference will most likely be either child in need plan or child protection plan. Child protection plan can be under several categories such as emotional or physical abuse, sexual abuse or neglect.

You will be able to speak at conference and a plan will be created if your children are made subject to cp plan.

It is really important to think about what you would like to say and what help would help to sustain you caring for your children. Detail all of the times you have asked for help and the risk of you not having support, eg. Unable to keep your child safe due to their needs, home placement breakdown and the impact on their siblings. Use this as a chance to push for support. The chair ultimately makes the decision and often is very fair and will highlight where social services could have done more or support you should be getting.

They cannot and will not remove your children at this point and the threshold for removal is very high. To place a disabled child would be incredibly costly and not something they would consider lightly.

Make a list of things you need and highlight risk if this does not happen. These could be around home adaptations, respite etc
There are no guarantees you will get all of these but at cp they are much more likely to consider additional support.

I feel for you. It is a very invasive process and as part of section 47 they will review you and your husbands criminal records and medical history and will have access to GP records etc.

They will also have access to your children's records which will hopefully support all of his additional needs and highlight support needs for your family.

This is one of those threads on Mumsnet where I learn so much and am in awe of what many parents have been through and how they have supported and advocated for their children to the detriment of their own health.

I sincerely hope the OP has got some ideas or hope from some of the suggestions on this thread.

We were either still on it or it closed very recently.

Id asked for it over the summer due to really challenging behaviours. We asked for increase support but got nothing, panel said no.

Then that's why they are already sharing information. I'd reiterate that you should call tomorrow and ask for a proper explanation with timeline. They can 'step up' to Child Protection from Child In Need but you would still need to be invited to an Initial Child Protection Conference before any plan can actually be put in place. It's likely that the professionals are also viewing that the CIN plan hasn't progressed properly or met needed outcomes

I assume your experience is different to the OP, a legal rep wouldn't be allowed to speak in a CP conference. The chair may allow them in if the parent wanted them with them, but they cannot represent and they would not be allowed to give an opinion as to whether threshold was met for a CP plan. It isn't a question of how skilled they are.

I’m going to DM you if that’s possibly ok? Just to ask a question that could be quite outing on here.

That's fine. Happy to help if I can.

It's incredibly unfair but as a pp said could backfire. You just don't know. You have to show that you're willing to work with them, make the changes that they ask you to make even if that's unfair, keep your head down. This allows them to show a reduction in risk. I would worry that having a solicitor could be taken as an unwillingness to cooperative/accept the narrative.

The other thing is that there's an attitude of 'if they can afford solicitors then why should we fund any care'. Obviously this isn't the case for everyone.

Unfortunately ss are very good at putting the parents as the ones who are negative if I was you and a cpp plan has happened I would document absolutely everything or they will actually twist things and make you out to be the bad one's

They do remove disabled children unfortunately I have seen it happen you should definitely be careful about what they say and do

Lots of talk about legal advice /representation here. I'm a family lawyer specialising in this area. If things escalate to the next level up from a Child Protection Plan, ie. the local authority start "pre-proceedings" (known as PLO), you would automatically be entitled to free Legal Aid at that point (regardless of your income) which would include representation at "PLO" meetings and ongoing advice. If court proceedings start, again both parents get their own lawyers covered by Legal Aid automatically. The value of getting legal advice at this stage may be limited and may not be worth the cost (although you may be able to get a free appointment- use https://find-legal-advice.justice.gov.uk/ to find legal aid lawyers in your area- you'll need one who does public law proceedings not just private law).

Most likely the gist of any early advice will be to continue to work openly and honestly with the social work team. As previous posters have said, the threshold for removing children (or starting PLO) is high. At this stage on the info available it seems unlikely you are at this stage. The social work team should (and likely will) do all they can to support you as family as the cost of residential/foster care for a child with severe needs is huge.

I'm a school DSL so regularly attend Strategy Mettings and CP conferences.

I think the majority of people would be surprised how high the threshold for children to be placed on a CP plan is nowadays. Children we have recently been told don't meet the threshold for CP include children who have disclosed physical abuse by their parents on multiple occasions, children whose parents have repeatedly been found to be too intoxicated to care for them, and children who persistently come to school filthy, smelly and hungry. There is a huge push from Children's Services to keep families at Early Help or Child in Need level, which is voluntary so parents can choose not to engage or can withdraw consent at any time. In the past, if families did not engage at CIN level and there were still concerns this would have likely meant escalation to CP, but nowadays it's much more common for us to be told "parents don't want to engage so we're closing the case".
The only cases I have seen progress to CP in recent years are those where there is a great deal of evidence, provided by multiple agencies, of serious abuse or neglect and this has often being going on for a long time. Even when children are placed on a CP plan, IME Children's Services seem very keen to 'step it down' to Child In Need as soon as possible, potentially at the first Review Conference.

So, OP if you highlight all the times you have asked for support and make it clear that you and your DH are willing to work with Children's Services on a voluntary basis then IME it is unlikely your children will be placed on a CP plan. However, it may depend what the catalyst for the Strategy Meeting was. In my experience, sadly, a parent ringing Children's Services and asking for their child with SEND to be taken into care is not unusual (which tells you something about how hard it is for parents in your situation to get the right support), I work with parents who do this regularly. I've not known this trigger a Strat meeting before, let alone section 47 enquiry so there must be other concerns, and without knowing what they are it's very hard to predict an ICPC outcome. You will have the opportunity to read reports prior to conference though, so at that point you will be fully aware of why professionals involved with your DC are worried and how they determined that the threshold for 47 was met.

Sorry, I have not had a chance to read all the comments. But sounds like they are considering a CP conference. I think you are under Section 47 CP enquiries, and the conference will happen soon. Good luck.

@neverbeenskiing exactly this. It's so hard and very frustrating! I think in this case the reason for the s47 is because they are worried that OP is going to leave with her other child and they want to keep her as primary carer. This means she can't do that. I suspect they don't think that her DH would manage. They don't really care about things like stair gates, it's probably to justify S47 (& they won't want to say they'd failed to support as doesn't look good on paper). Residential care is extortionate and often out of area (plus they really don't want a 6 year old in residential).

As @bobandbrenda says they'll use it to avoid the costs of residential via additional resources etc but also more coordination.

So they came today.

We went through the S47 and SW was satisfied with everything.
There was even more misinformation from the meeting. They’d said we were locking DS in his room behind his door not a gate. We obviously showed them the gate and the fact DS doesn’t have a lock on his door. A few other things too.

It was completely obtuse the amount of misinformation had been going on in the meeting. No wonder they thought we were abusive. Luckily it’s all quite easy to clear up.

SW said because it was 3 triggers at the meeting even though it’s been cleared up now they are very likely to still put both kids on a plan. I was frustrated as said those triggers only triggered due to significant misinformation. SW Admitted they don’t even know what to put on our other child’s plan. Which seems ridiculous to me but hey ho.

I'm rooting for you @SENSummer sorry I can't be more useful! Wishing you a wonderful 2026.

Thanks for your update @SENSummer .
Hope you feel a bit better for having a face to face and clearing things up a bit. Fingers crossed for you all.

I haven't read all the posts, but just occasionally it can be a positive thing, although it feels awful and invasive and scary right now. A family I worked with had been begging for a residential placement for years, kept getting turned down. The SW said she had to prove risk to the child, and this was via a CP plan - I know, a completly ridiculous system. 3 CP case conferences later, the situation wasn't improving and the child was moved to an outstanding residential placement where the mum tells me she is thriving. Their other children have remained with them and are also doing much better and stepped down the CP plan.

No, this is simply not true, there are very many hundreds of adoptive parents who have been put through CP and legal proceedings because we have persevered living in the most extreme circumstances for many years. When we cannot go on, because our lives, careers and physical and mental health are destroyed, then we are punished further by the system. The system cannot afford to accommodate our children, as is our legal right under s.20 of the Children Act, so the system seeks to punish us and blackmail us into keeping our children at home.

@SENSummer please remember that whilst the social worker (along with their manager) request a child protection conference, the actual decision as to whether the children meet threshold for a child protection plan is not down to the social worker. All the professionals in the meeting will be asked to give their view whether a plan is needed, and they all have equal weight, it's by vote essentially. The conference chair will guide them as to the criteria for making that decision also.
You should be given the chance to meet the chair before the meeting (usually on the day, before the meeting starts) and I would recommend that you bring up with them that you're concerned the reason for the s47 was based on misinformation. Strategy meetings and s47 enquiries by their nature have to be done quickly, and is based on what information they have at the time, but it can be the case that by the time conference comes round the picture is a little different. I do hope whatever happens that your need for support will be taken seriously.

The good thing is that your SW has actually informed you about what was discussed at the meetings. Often parents are told nothing, professionals who they know will vote no aren't invited etc.

It's scary when a game of Chinese Whispers takes hold and a narrative can form very quickly. When everything you say can get taken out of context and becomes part of that narrative. So it's a good sign that they are open with you so you can correct that.

If your children are put on a plan (and it sounds like they've made their mind up already) use it strategically to push for extra resources. Be prepared for everything you do and say to be put under the microscope. It's incredibly intrusive. Make it all about your children, attend every meeting, jump through the hoops, don't put in complaints etc as things can get tricky. Present a united front, that's very important. As difficult as it is try not to take it personally and remember that this is an extremely common experience for parents of children with highly complex needs, it's just how the system works.

Good luck, hope it goes well, the ICPC often isn't as bad as you think it is and there are some very nice and independent chairs out there.

So this is where I get a bit confused.
At the end of the section 47 meeting yesterday the SW said that was basically it.
It wouldn’t proceed to a conference.
They would write it up and take it to their area manager who would likely agree with SW that the concerns had been addressed. But both kids would almost certainly end up on a plan because of all the triggers in the strat meeting.

@SENSummer children can only be put on a child protection plan from an initial child protection conference. There's no other route to do it, so if it's not going to ICPC I would check with the social worker what they mean about 'triggers in the strat'.

If it isn't proceeding to a conference they can't put your children on child protection plans. The legal position is very clear on this one under the Children's Act (1989). It's like they are saying we don't think it meets the threshold, don't want to commit resources, don't want you to walk away but we want to monitor you anyway and give them leverage for escalation. Does your SW mean CIN?

You'll have to clarify this with the SW in writing as if they are saying they are putting your children on a child protection plan this is unlawful practice. Ask them what support they are legally committing to provide under this 'plan'. Be specific about what you need in order to reduce risk to the children. Attach any evidence to support your requests. Ask how the 'plan' will be reviewed and closed.

Use a risk reduction narrative for everything.

Correct any misunderstandings in writing and request that this is attached to your file.

Highlight everything you have put in place to show protective parenting, any safety adaptations you've made that have been recommended by professionals etc. That you've advocated every step of the way. You've given up work to become the primary carer and to ensure consistency and supervision, maintained routines, implemented recommended strategies. You document incidents and work with professionals.

Sorry you're going through this, I'm afraid it doesn't surprise me though if it isn't just a case of poor communication.

This is what I was confused about. I asked multiple times and very directly about the process. SW said there would not be a conference.

They had an initial meeting. That meeting triggered the strat meeting. The strat meeting triggered the section 47. The SW came to our house and typed up the section 47. They said this will now be sent to the area manager and if everyone is satisfied (which they seemed to be) the children will be placed onto CPP and nothing further will happen. No conferences etc.

I do worry if I push this matter they may become less satisfied that everything was actually misunderstood and make things much harder for us. So I’m nervous about questioning it tbh. We have a strong case about all the miscommunication and how many relevant professionals were not in the Strat meeting etc but at the same time I’ve now witnessed first hand how spectacularly out of hand things get when you’re under a microscope having to defend a lot of in factual things.