Advice on Child Protection Conference please

[Sloeginclub]

Any social workers on here who can advise? I have already tried looking online but can't find an answer to this question.
What is the situation re a child attending an Initial Child Protection Conference if they want to but their parents don't want them to? Who has the final say?
This is our first (and hopefully last!) experience of one of these meetings. We don't think our eldest DD should attend (she is 12). Most of the family problems have been around her/me. It’s all well documented in the reports and she has an allocated advocate who IS attending the meeting to make sure DD’s views and feelings are represented. She has met with the advocate to make them aware of how she feels about everything – it was all recorded verbatim. DD is v sensitive and has ASD (high functioning). I don’t want her to listen to all that stuff getting raked over again – some of it was more than 2 years ago. I think it is going to be extremely upsetting for us all and I don’t want to put her through that, I don’t see how it will gain anything other than add more strain to relationships.
She initially said she didn’t want to go to the conference but now says she does – to ‘hear what is said’ . I’ve explained it will be things she already knows about as she was there when they happened. I suspect nosiness is a factor, being centre of attention (which she loves) and the chance of a day off school of course.
What is the situation if we as her parents don’t want her to attend, can SS compel us to bring her?

That's a really interesting question. I've been at many ICPCs, and the children have never been at any of them, even though some of the children concerned have been teenagers.

My gut feel would be that as she has an advocate, then she is not allowed to attend. The advocate attends on her behalf.

I''m afraid I don't know the legal answer though, and suggest that you ring your social worker in the morning.

It will be up to the chair of the meeting (who you are unlikely to meet before the meeting). I would contact the social worker and ask for the chair's details, and then contact the chair directly in advance of the meeting. If the child has been invited, it would be unusual for the social worker/ chair to uninvite them, but you may be able to agree a compromise where your child comes in at the end to hear a summary without having to hear the details of the entire meeting.

I don't think children can go, the conference chair can do a child only conference with DD at another stage. Also If your dd does become subject to a child protection plan these meeting happen every 3-6 months. The social worker will be asked what your DDs views are.

I’ve never known a child to attend a CP conference (though can see that in some cases it would actually be quite sensible). The LA doesn’t have PR so your decision trumps theirs but as a PP suggests I would try and contact the chair first and talk it through before reaching any final decision. Good luck.