Reporting someone to NSPCC

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Posting for traffic but desperately need advice!

im about to report someone very close to me to the NSPCC as I believe their children might be at risk of emotional abuse.

Does anyone have experience with this? How anonymous are the reports? If we give specific examples they will immediately know it was us, which we obviously don’t want them to… so how do the NSPCC deal with this?

any tips or experiences welcome

Oh so they can only search databases by name? Sounds like they have shit databases then. The family have lived there for years. So people can only report safeguarding concerns if they know the children's first and last names and what school they go too? Guess there's no point in anyone ever reporting anything unless they know all the intricate details of an abused child then 🙄 good to know. I won't bother at all in future.

This.

Having been put in a very difficult position due to the close relationship, but absolutely having to report an incident, I can not quite believe the fucking incompetence of social services.

Having been quite clear this was imperative to be an anonymous report, and proceeded to explain (e.g) "I need to report that my partner's cousin...". The absolute imbeciles decided they would read this anonymous report word for word to the person. So they heard "I need to report that my partner's cousin..." and instantly identified my partner and I as the source. We were then attacked.

Fuckwits.

I'm no longer in that relationship, but my ex and the rest of his family didn't see the child again after that incident. And I can assure you, that child being isolated like that is just about the worst result that could have happened.

Social services won’t take an anonymous report very seriously, and that’s by the time it gets to them after the unnecessary step of the nspcc

I always think it’s a bit odd that people claim to be so concerned about children yet won’t even given their name.

I do appreciate that, the reportees need protecting. More so if they actually want people to come forward and raise concerns.
if they cannot do that, they need to tell them.

Consequences and fall outs are why people won’t give names.

You could report to social services who have access to actual records, or the police who can go round and check the property.

did you seriously think the nspcc have some kind of database of names and addresses of all uk properties/ residents?!

I guess then you judge whether the threat is worse to you or the children

NSPCC dont have databases full stop.
Social services can legally only have databases of people they have had referrals for or have worked with, or who another authority are working with (eg say, a child whose is from a London borough and still under that borough, but who is living with granny in Blackpool in a fostering arrangement). They don't have a database of all children who exist in the UK, or access to the electoral register. They don't have anywhere near the legal power to have that information.

I’m so sorry you had the same.
I naively believed it was just a report for them to start the investigation.
i think I could have done more if we’d still had access to the child instead of them being isolated.

for some it’s not just a fall out, it can be much worse and you also lose contact with the child and you could be the only person in their life that cares.

But how could they help if you didn't know the name of the child? They couldn't pass on the details if they didn't have any details?
You would have been much better phoning the police if you had the address

The police have legal powers that social services don't. Including the right to enter homes without consent, the right to take children into their care in an emergency, and routes to acquire information such as copies of documents, CCTV etc.
If you reported a vague, anonymous concern, the only power social services have is to talk to you and to talk to the parent. They can't see the child, or talk to anyone else, eg school, health visitor etc, or gather any other information, without the parents consent.
The only time where social services can over ride that is if there's clear evidence of immediate risk of serious harm, eg a child at school with a black eye saying that mummy hit them and they're scared to go home. In those circumstances the police support to do the investigation. Even then, outside of the immediate response, social services generally need the cooperation of the parent or the support of the police , eg police to attend for a welfare check if a family refuse follow up visits.

The police have much more extensive powers but it's worth pointing out the threshold for them to use them is very high, and vague referrals aren't usually going to be enough for them to step in - it's usually when a child is in clear immediate danger, such as a young child being in the care of an adult who's really drunk/high, or children found to be left home alone. 'My neighbours children cry a lot and I don't think she's coping' type referrals aren't something they'd get involved with.

Good luck. I had absolutely no joy wither nspcc at all. I reported exh for having a sex offender (proven in court)in ds's bedrooms.. they advised me ot was probably move for the dc to have a catch up with said SO..
Reported to Cafcass amd exh told them the dc were lying he was there. They believed exh..

mine wasnt a vague report. That was the issue. They then gave the parents the copy, which meant I could realistically only be the reporter. If I’d known that’s how they work, I either wouldn’t have reported or would have changed enough

I hadn't read the thread to see the identical thing had happened to you too.

It's incredibly deceptive for the social workers to pretend they are taking an anonymous report, knowing full well they're going to read out something that fully identifies you. They should be duty bound to make that clear. In my case, the child in question was in a much worse situation as a result of social services actions.

No, another poster said they did and couldn't search them without a name, so I simply responded to them. Hth.

As I've already said, they had an address. I didn't know the house number when it was happening and it didn't last long enough to warrant a 999 call. I walked round to find the house number the next day (only house with kids on a very small cul de sac) and reported it then. the nspcc say they action all calls. Clearly they don't and I'm not the only one reporting that on this thread. If they cba to action a call with an address because someone doesn't also know what school the child attends or the child's name, they shouldn't be proclaiming to do so and encouraging people to report to them. In fact why do they encourage people to report to them instead of the police or local safeguarding teams if they can't do fuck all anyway?

I’m 99% sure the same for the one I reported. I will forever feel guilty of the fall out for my kids, for their kids, the fact I couldn’t protect them anymore or give them the respite we gave them before. I saw one of the children recently (years on) and the animosity was obvious, I’d hoped in the future they may see someone tried for them.

That’s hindsight though, would I be sitting here having not reported regretting never reporting?
I don’t know.

whats your view on yours?

I didn't mean to imply it was a vague report, I meant if it was converted to a vague report in order to protect the identity of the referrer. The investigating worker would only have the power to speak to the parent, and they have no other powers to investigate, which means the referral would be pretty much pointless, as the parent would shut it down and that's that. No consent, no specifics, no way forward.

I've never worked in a MASH, where initial referrals are dealt with, but I've often had parents or relatives approach me when I've been working with a family because they want advice on another situation (eg they have a worry about another family member, neighbour etc) I always made it explicitly clear before they told me any details what I would have to do with that information and how. The reality is that unless it's something that's happened in public witnessed by many, such as a child being verbally abused at the school gate or in a supermarket, the chances are the pool of people who most referrals could have come from is usually pretty small. If it's something that's been heard through the walls or from the garden it's a couple of neighbours it could have been. If it's something that happened at a particular home, it's who was in the room. If it's multiple examples, it's a person who sees the child regularly. That isn't to say I ever tried to dissuade anyone from sharing a concern with me but I would talk about that reality and what the impact might be and what we could perhaps do, either in terms of thinking how the referrer could be protected, or if for example it would be likely to mean contact with the child would be impacted (common for grandparents reporting concerns about a grandchild and worried a parent would stop access) how we could ensure there were still eyes on that child if that happened.
In the places I've worked the referrals are done online, unless there's a reason the referrer can't use a computer and then they're taken over the phone. I know the online forms set out the limits of anonymity, ie that professionals don't have the right to be anonymous, members of the public can have their details withheld but that the content of the referral could mean that it's identifiable to the parent. I'm sorry if you haven't had something similar.

My view is one of being furious.

Had they told me how inept they were, I have the basic intelligence to have reported only giving details that I knew others had witnessed, or that had happened in public places. One of the (many) issues was that the mother was a drug user. This was partly discovered by the child describing the effects of the drug use. And that child could have told me, a family member, a teacher, a friend, a friends mum...etc etc. And social services could have been told "on xx June, the child reported you, the mother, to have injected yourself and then been unable to wake you". And that would have been anonymous. She'd have had no idea who the child had spoken too. Or at least not known how many people the child had told, who then might have told their neighbour, their best mate etc etc...

As it stands, the fuckwits read out, in effect, "On xx June, my partner's cousins child reported to me that their mother had injected herself..."

A damn toddler could have made that anonymous. Idiots.

And yes, as a result, that child lost all contact with the people who actually looked out for them. Livid is the only way I can describe it. Livid.

What a bloody weird attitude you have

Well all they have here is a "gut feeling" so it would be even more useless

That’s not in fact true. The NSPCC is an authorised person under the Children Act 1989 s31(9)(a)

I did exactly the same. Threw a few curve balls of incidents to try and open up the people it could be. Then they gave them the report and any hope of help for the child withers away as it’s all filled with hate for the reporter.

the only solace you can have is you did something, I’m sorry it didn’t help them.

I did mine over the phone, rang the nspcc for a chat and they took the report. No warning of the level of sharing at all. The only warning I remember was that it was all being passed to child services and was I happy? Which of course I was if it met their threshold