CHILD ABUSE - DO I REPORT THIS

[stressHead1979]

Hi all

over the past 2 weeks a child in my daughters year has confided in her friends and told her that her mum leaves her and her siblings alone whilst she goes out, they have took cook themselves. Always shouting, throwing objects and screaming the place down.
The child has asked her friends on multiple occasions if she can stay over at the friends house and have tea there.

Do you think I need to report this? as I don't want to cause problems etc

How old are they all?

Yes. Report it.

I'd report it. Maybe to the school if nothing else and let them take it from there?

It might well not be true, there is a boy in my sons class that makes up stuff all the time and the school are quite wise to it, but better safe than sorry.

How old is somewhat relevant?

Yes report it. Unless they are all 14+
It must be bad for a young child to speak up to someone they trust

I would. A boy in my childs class was routinely left alone by his mother - him and his brother were 2 and 4 I think - and he was later adopted by a lovely family.

Of course you do !

Yes, I don't think it really matters on the agenda, it doesn't sounds like a good place to be at the moment. Report it to the school

Utterly dependant on age of the oldest child and the age of the youngest child they are supervising….school always have a safeguarding lead so they are a good place to start.

Of course you report it.

If the children are under 14 or so then of course you must report it to the school at least!

Don't want to cause problems for who? If the child is telling the truth she already has a problem

Ages here are vital.

Raise it with school as a safeguarding issue and social services if you feel relevant. It could be true, it could be a load of lies, but it should be looked into.

I would too.

In fact, I was in a not completely different situation myself once. Another Mum and I made an appointment at the school and told them what our DC had told us which was that the girl was turning up at school with injuries, was locked out of her house till early evening, her bedroom had been given to a lodger and various other things.

I've never regretted telling the school we'd heard that from our DC. I couldn't live with the thought that a child was suffering a minute longer because I didn't make the (minimal) effort to speak up.

Throwing objects isn’t good, age is irrelevant. If a woman came on here saying her partner regularly screamed at her and threw objects we would be telling her that he was abusive

Report to Safeguarding Lead at school (detailed will be on school website) and leave it with them to decide on action

Report to the schools safeguarding team, they won't let the parent know who has told them only that the child has been saying this in school (,parent will think the teacher has reported it). If this is true something bad could happen to the child dependant on the age. I reported myself on a child who was suffering neglect and when it came out, the neglect and child was suffering was worse then I could have imagined. My heart broke for that child and they were removed but I always wonder what would have happened if I had stayed silent and the child had to live like this longer.

Is she saying the parents are shouting/throwing objects or that other siblings are when they are left alone?

The girl is 11
Her siblings are 8 and 2. The mother apparently is throwing the objects.

UPDATE

Police have gone into the school, questioned the girl with a supervised teacher there.

The girl has denied all this to the police officers. The police officers then told the school that they have no concerns and this was relayed back to the parent.

You were right to report it. Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility.

Often children who are experiencing harm find it hard to speak out. They also might panic once they've shared and backtrack, just like some children start sharing part of a story and stop.

The police won't be able to take further action if the child doesn't tell them, but what matters is that the child is known and their disclosure is logged for future records if more issues or warning signs emerge.

This is unfortunate as uniformed police can be incredibly intimidating for a young person and make them close up, despite teacher being there. She probably felt ashamed that she had told anyone and scared her mum was in big trouble! I think the school should follow up with social services regardless due to the nature of the accusations, or at the very least keep a close watch on these children’s presentation and behaviours for the foreseeable future. Is the 8 year old at the same school do you know? Such a shame… prayers to those babies🫶

How do you know this?

I worked in school where a mother regularly did this, they were known to SS, she had children with disabilities as well, and it took 4 years for SS to take the children away.

Shocked that the police acted so quickly

It sounds like there was a step missing before escalating to the police. Didn't school safeguarding have a chat with the girl first?

Well they fucked that up. For gods sake

You would not have been told this except possibly by the mother?

Where did you get the information?

Uniformed officer seems unusual for this situation.