Reporting someone to NSPCC

[abouttodropthebomb]

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

Sorry that happened. Tbh I don't really understand why NSPCC still act as a middle man for referrals, all it does is muddy the waters. Maybe someone else will come on to explain the benefit but it seems like a hangover from when they used to have a different purpose, ie before social services had the statutory functions they do now. Like the 'authorised person' status, which wouldn't make any sense to use, and I can't imagine when it was last used.

I know it wouldn't change the outcome, but did the NSPCC ask you if you were wanting to remain anonymous, and if so, did you challenge social services about how your information was used? Stating the obvious but if it's an anonymous referral then the relationship of the referrer to the parent shouldn't be disclosed. It's like saying 'we got an anonymous referral from your ex husband'.

Recently I send ss an extremely detailed email of 'complaint'.
They printed it off and sent it by post to the family.
With my name at the bottom.
Nearly blew up my life..

They did ask and I firmly replied yes I wanted to remain anonymous.
I went with the nspcc for two reasons,

1. because I wasn’t sure it would meet a threshold being emotional not physical abuse.
2. to try and distance myself, and for added anonymity (the irony)

I didn’t challenge ss, like I say the whole thing blew up and I had to deal with the fall out and implications from it. I went firmly into deny it was me. Although I’m unsure that was the best course either, so being in contact with them would have made it worse.

For fucks sake. I’m sorry
you think your doing the right thing, you think your helping.

I don't know what they are likely to do, but the NSPCC is the only charity that does have statutory powers.

This thread seems to have gone off on a tangent from the original post.
OP, best to email the local social work department with your concerns. I have done this about a child that I was concerned about, in fact I contacted social work department twice about the same child. Although I signed the emails, my name was not mentioned to the family and the child was already known to them. Things seem to have improved for the little soul but lots of people knew about the situation and did nothing, due to fear of recriminations. The more evidence and contact from concerned adults, the more likely that social services will intervene in a situation.
Please do what you can to try and help, doing something might help both the child/children and also your conscience.

Yes they do, but I don't know of any occasion in recent history where they have exercised them. Off to Google...

They really shouldn’t need a wealth of evidence to act.

Legally they do.

That doesn’t make sense. One person reports something appalling, but they ignore it because there is only one report? It can’t possibly be the case. I hope it isn’t.

Unfortunately this is the case. Social services are overwhelmed and they prioritise the worst life threatening cases. This means that some families who need help don't get it because they are "not bad enough". In the case I referred to the child was clean and well fed, but was emotionally abused in a complicated situation. Social services did latterly get involved but not as soon as they should have.
Another case I know of, the school and GP had alerted the authorities about neglect and family drug use but nothing was done till a third party reported an incident and the child was permanently removed from one parent.
The more people who report their worries the better.

Not the NSPCC but I have reported another mum to my local social services. I was given the option of it being an anonymous call, I didn’t want to do that because I wanted them to be able to contact me in the future for anymore information, evidence.
I know it’s not easy but this is about the children and it’s really important that you report.

Just to add my reporting resulted in these children being moved from their mum to their dad, supervised visits and no contact at all with the mums boyfriend.
Along with reporting to social services I also phoned the police and told them I believed the mum and boyfriend were taking class A drugs around their baby and young children.
Must have been right because they were removed very quickly, thank God.

It isn't the number of people, but how credible the evidence is. If there's more than one source then it's usually more credible (assuming there isn't any obvious concern about malicious allegations)
So if there's reports from school that a child is struggling, but also people in the neighbourhood have reported seeing young children out on their own in the evening causing trouble, a social worker has more grounds to say it's a parenting issue and there needs to be involvement, rather than a parent passing it off as the school being unsupportive.

I appreciate you did that, though just to be aware you should be given the option of being kept anonymous to the family, but to leave details that the professional can contact you to discuss (at least that's the case with referrals to social services I couldn't say for NSPCC)

Again, social workers aren't police. We work with consent. All we can do at the beginning is review limited partner information and speak to the parents. If no concerning partner information is provided and the only evidence is a single report from an individual, if the parent denies it and declines further involvement there is absolutely nothing we can do.

It's not about being overwhelmed and prioritising. It's about legal threshold for intervention in people's private family lives. We cannot force people to work with us, unless there is clear evidence of significant harm. The bar for state intervention in people's private lives is very high.

Not forgetting that we need the parents consent to even contact partner agencies.

Not within the MASH. That's why I referred to reviewing limited partner information.

Ah I think it might vary depending on the structure in different authorities then, as that's not always been the case where I've worked, it's depended on how it's triaged.