It's important that you talk to the parents, carers or young person about your referral and get their consent to make it before completing the referral form.
All children have a right to be protected from abuse and neglect. Protecting a child from harm takes priority over protecting privacy.
You should engage with the child, young person and parents or carers, and tell them that you're making a referral to First Response.
You should do this unless you have reason to believe:
- that doing so may put the child at increased risk of harm (for example, because their carer may harm them)
- the person may react violently to anyone seeking to intervene
- the child might withhold information or withdraw from services
In these circumstances, First Response will discuss your concerns with you, and how and when you should inform the parents or carers. Depending on the individual circumstances, we may advise you that you'll need to inform the parents or carers before they are able to take the referral.
Professionals working with families are not able to remain anonymous. The family will need to be made aware of who made the referral and what information was shared.
If you cannot contact the parents, carers or young people to tell them you're making a referral, you will need to show that you have made all possible efforts to do so. First Response will then consider the attempts made and advise whether they're able to take the referral or if further steps need to be taken.
You should discuss information sharing with parents, carers or older young people, and advise them that Children's Social Care may need to seek and share information with partner agencies.
This may include:
- education
- health
- police
- housing
- probation
- other agencies working with their family
Agencies do not need consent to share information about concerns that a child is, or may be, at risk of harm, but it's important to tell First Response about any objections to information sharing. We will consider this in making decisions about who and what information is shared with.
You can find more guidance on information sharing for safeguarding practictioners on GOV.UK.
You must have agreement from the parent or carer to make the request for support, and seek the views of children or young people on whether they want support. You should consider completing the request with the parent as they must be aware of all the information you are sharing.
Make sure you have fully discussed information sharing with parents. Level 3 support is a multi-disciplinary Team Around the Family, with services working together, so sharing information between agencies is essential.
If parents or carers do not agree to sharing information across agencies, you will not be able to make a referral for targeted support.
If they object to sharing information with a specific agency or agencies, whether they would still be able to get targeted support will depend on which agencies and their reasons for this. In this case, you may need to seek advice before making a request for targeted support.