AIBU to inform the school safeguarding lead after this?

[rebectable]

Daughters friend, 8 years old, turned up at our house at 10pm at night. Walked around 10 mins to our house, and was outside our front door for 12 minutes. Didn't press video doorbell, but hubby noticed it on phone, app notification from sensor. Took her home, parents were in bed. Told mother this morning, who messaged back, apologised, showed some contrition - but hardly loads. Girl sneaked out, took keys, and locked door. Turned up with teddy and pyjamas for "sleepover". My daughter was asleep upstairs. Some kind of sleepover game at school, but nothing arranged. Do I report to school safeguarding lead?

It might hurt.

The school might think the op and her dh are irresponsible for leaving the child without making sure there was an adult.

And it might be discovered that there was a plan to get this girl to sneak out for a sleepover that the OP’s dd was involved in.

But yes, she should definitely tell the school.

What the fuck? You find someone's child outside your house alone at night, you let them know. How can you seriously be talking about telling the safeguarding lead when you didn't even tell her parents? Unbelievable.

Presumably she was waiting for the OP’s dd to let her into the sleepover. Someone must have told her that that was the plan. Poor kid.

Here's who you contact before the school:

Police, 999, at the time.
The NSPCC
Social Services

Why does everyone think it's the school about an incident at 10pm on a weekend night.

Very odd.

Did your husband just sit and watch her on his phone for 12 minutes after he got the notification?

I know you’ll argue that the school need to know everything about their children but I think saying you want to inform the school safeguarding lead is a reflection of how uncertain you are, how you don’t know whether or not this is an issue and basically want to push the responsibility onto someone else.

this doesn’t impact school and didn’t take place in school hours. The appropriate body to report to if you are concerned about safeguarding is social services but I suspect you don’t want to do this as it seems too serious, and informing school allows you to feel like you’ve done something whilst simultaneously pushing extra / all the work onto the school.

@rebectable Ask your dd about the game! What are they up to? Was this child actually expecting a sleepover? What does your dd say? Have you looked at her phone? is this child suggestable? Not able to see that this wasn’t for real? I’d want to delve more deeply,

Plus I would have insisted that she was returned to a parent! Now you want to take the nuclear action! I’d find out a lot more before I did this. Was your dd playing a game for example? Was she coerced into coming round to your house?

She was outside your house in her pjs for 12 minutes before you did anything? She said she was there for a sleepover - what did your daughter say? Was she invited? Is she vulnerable and teased/bullied/tricked into turning up so late? I also can’t quite believe you just left her without talking to her parents

I’d say it’s you who needs safe guarding to speak to you.

If the parents were asleep and unaware of what had happened how could they deal with it. She isn’t going to be saying much to you over text is she?? She will be dealing with it.

I cannot understand why you didn’t ring at the time or when you got to the house tell the older daughter you wanted to speak to the parents right then.

You need to speak to school but more so to flag this ‘sleepover game’ in case it is something that is going round school. You can mention the rest for context and in case there are any other concerns about this girl/her family. But yes agree you should have asked the teen to wake parents up under the circumstances.

But confused why you didn't ask to speak to parents

If your dd did the same wouldn’t you want to know there and then?

For this little girl to show up at your door, wait for something, not ring the bell and be expecting a sleepover it seems to me that this sleepover was talked about at school and I think your daughter is more at fault here than you think.

What has she said about it? Was this an adventurous plan or was this a cruel prank? Is this a close friend of your daughter's?

Why did you not speak to the parents? I'm sorry OP and I'm not sure you will believe this but I think this is a result of a cruel prank from your daughter. I think you know this too, if you were really worried about safeguarding you'd have spoken to her parents.

Quite.

Any member of the public can raise a safeguarding concern, it doesn't have to be the school. You can type in your local authority and safeguarding in google and you'll be directed to the right place for example newcastle safeguarding.

I wouldn't say this is a school issue as happened out of school hours, although perhaps it is considering you mentioned it being a 'game' at school, but hard to tell what that means, could you elaborate on that? That changes whether school needs to be involved or not really but your first poiny of contact should be raising the SG concern yourself. The incident didnt happen at school and didnt involve any school staff so expecting them to raide the concern wouldnt be the best as theyre getting 3rd party information from you. Raise the SG concern, detail everything in it and should SG need to speak to school they will.

Exactly!! Like school’s haven’t got enough on their plate without reporting third party information to social care.

Wow. You didn't even deliver her to her parents and ask to speak with them then and there? Didn't call the police for a welfare check? But now wondering if the school should know? School might care, then again, they might not.

The girl in question may have special needs, as may her family, but school won't care about that or her needs. Maybe the police would if there's any abuse, etc going on, which a welfare check would've raised straightaway!

Your safeguarding is shocking!

You did not do the right thing op.
I dont have kids and even i no what to do.

Friend or not i would have called the police, a little kid late at night at my door.
Yeah 999 would have hear from me as i would be thinking alsorts.
Take the kid home not wake parents what if they where hurt, the what ifs would not stop in my head until i saw blue lights.

You need to talk to your DD and find out why this girl had the idea of a sleepover.

I would not blame the parents but definitely tell them what happened. My DD snuck out in the middle of the night at 8 years old, I had no idea because I was fast asleep. She had a friend round for a sleepover who wanted to go home and they thought it would be better to just walk back to hers rather than wake anyone up. Thankfully someone driving past saw them and called the police who found DD and brought her home.

I really don’t see what it’s got to do with the school. Report it social services if you wish, although they won’t do anything about it as they don’t have the time unless it’s very major unfortunately. Personal experiences through work.

This was not a 999 incident ! The girl was fine and it’s not an emergency. The op didn’t deal with it well despite knowing the child was there and didn’t return her to a parent. Neither had she investigated the game about sleepovers. I’d bet this child was coerced into coming round and that’s why the op dodged the parents!

Those saying "it's nothing to do with school" are incorrect. A schools responsibility to identify and respond to safeguarding concerns doesn't stop at the school gates. Safeguarding legislation makes very clear that if a child is at risk of harm, whether that's in school, online, in the home or their local community, it is very much the schools business. It is entirely appropriate for OP to inform the school safeguarding lead if she has concerns about the welfare of a child. The school may also have pertinent information or a history of concerns about this child that OP is unaware of.
If this is linked to some sort of game kids are playing at school (which isn't entirely clear) then the school need to be aware so they can address it before other children start trying to sneak out late at night.
OP, you can contact your local Multi-agency Safeguarding Hub directly to share your concerns but I would advise speaking to the school anyway. As a school safeguarding lead, I would want to know about it if one of my 8 year old pupils was wandering the streets alone at night.

I can't believe your first thought wasn't to ring the girls parents, they could have been walking the streets looking for her. I know they weren't but my first thoughts at finding a child I knew at my door would be to ring their parents.

Imagine waking up to that. And having no idea what state your child was in when it all happened, whether she was sleep walking, scared, just being bold or what.

Did your husband just sit and watch her on his phone for 12 minutes after he got the notification?

Some people aren’t wedded to their phones! It’s perfectly possible not to read a notification until 12mins after you’ve received it. Phone may have been on silent, he might have been in the loo, loading the dishwasher etc…

You are the weirdest part of this story OP! My friend did similar in year 7, but cycled 8 miles down country roads to mine. I was full onboard with her plan!!! Your daughter was in on it! Xxx