DV disclosure by 2,5 year old, what do I do now?

[Mypopcornface]

Hi, today the 2,5 old mindee was role playing with dolls - one male and one female, I was watching. He made the male doll slap the female doll and than made the female doll cry. Mindee than stared the wall with a sad face. I asked: are you ok? He said 'no', than lied on the floor and said very sadly 'dad hit mummy' and made a crying noise but wasn't actually crying...so I asked him to say again but he didn't repeat it, I didn't ask any questions and offered a hug. Than he decided to move on to another toy. Do I write it down? What concerns me is that mindee is short tempered and always been aggressive to others, at the nursery, everywhere and no behaviour management techniques seem to work...

Write it down in your concerns book, date, time, factual details, and speak to your development worker. Best place to go to in my opinion as they can point you in the right direction. I feel it is a safeguarding issue which needs to be addressed in some way, just not sure what I would do, so I would seek advice

In my area, we have to log what we're told, exactly as the child told us, along with anything we have said to the child and then report any concerns like this straight to the Family Services (Social Services) Helpdesk.

They'd probably then say to log it as an incident, and they would just do the same. If this is the only thing then it's probably nothing to worry about and I do know that some 2.5 year olds (I have one of my own atm!) are very good storytellers however the Social Services team might also have other information about this child which you are not privy to, and this helps them to build up a picture.

I think if you feel that you are concerned then there's no harm in calling your social services team for advice.

Totally agree..this child has disclosed something that has worried you
Write it down 'word for word', look up any info you have on child protection and act
His behaviour maybe the result of what he has seen...act responsibly...what you have said is evidence enough..get support straight away

So I would have to tell SS details aboiut this family? Although I never had any concerns about the parents I don't think the child was lying because he was role playing it. Do I need to talk to the parents??

Hi popcorn, I recently went through a similar scenario with a young child making a disclosure. I rang the NCMA for advice and they were very good, they have a safeguarding team who can help you with this kind of thing. In my case they advised me to speak to SS.

Ultimately it's not up to us to decide whether a child is lying as we're not qualified or informed enough to work that out. I wouldn't speak to the parents - you could be putting the child (or his mother) in danger. Be aware though that if you report this as a childminder and SS decide to investigate they are obliged to tell the parents that it came from you - it's not like an anonymous report from a member of the public.

Good luck OP, it's a crappy situation to be in but you really just have to focus on what is the best thing to do for the child and try and not worry about anything else.

Mypopcornface Yes, that's my understanding of it. I did a safeguarding refresher a couple of weeks ago, so it's all still fresh in my mind.

Bear in mind that it was the unregistered "childminder" of Victoria Climbie who eventually spoke to SS about her concerns (unfortunately too late) - now I am not suggesting this child is in any sort of similar scenario at all, but you might have been given a very important piece of information today, and it is your duty to record and report it, and allow the professionals to decide what to do with that information.

Crap. Sometimes I wish I had no money but wouldn't be so onvolved with other peoples children like this.

If they have had no other reports they will take a very gentle approach. If they have 4 other people who have voiced concerns, they will take it more seriously. You are protecting the child and if their parents are innocent they should thank you for it (but they probably won't).

You definitely need to write down precisely what the child did and said and talk to social services. Bear in mind, however, that he may simply have been acting out an episode of EastEnders or something.

you def need to write it down and ring social services for advice - all domestic violence disclosures esp when a child was present should be reported to social care its not for you to investigate or to decide whether it happened or not, this has had an emotional impact on this child.

All those involved with children or vulnerable adults have to report disclosures or concerns to social services. In my experience this rarely goes further than a thankyou for informing us we have no other logged concerns about this family but will record the incident. It does mean that if police are called to domestic violence incident and log it and sibling at school also discloses violence social services are in a better place to protect the children. We are all small cogs in a big wheel to keep children safe. In victoria's case agencies did not share information. Thankfully normally it's nothing but best let others with more info make that call. You could quietly speak to mum when alone without dad she may want to disclose herself.