5.11 Information for a Conferenc

The Child Protection Conference report should include:

• A chronology of significant events, agency and professional contact
• Information on the child's current and past state of developmental needs
• The dates when the child was seen by the Lead Social Worker during the Section 47 Enquiry, if the child was seen alone and, if not, who was present and for what reason.
• Information on the capacity of the parents and other family members to ensure the child is kept safe from harm, and to respond to the child's developmental needs within their wider family and environmental context
• Information on the family history and both the current and past family functioning
• The expressed views, wishes and  feelings of the child, parents, and other family members
• An analysis of the  information gathered and recorded using the Assessment Framework dimensions to reach a judgment on whether the child is suffering, or is likely to suffer Significant Harm and consider how best to meet  his or her developmental needs. This analysis should address:
  • How the child's strengths and difficulties are impacting on each other;
  • How the parenting strengths and difficulties are affecting each other
  • How the family and environmental factors are affecting each other
  • How the parenting that is provided  for the child is affecting the child's health and development both in terms of resilience and protective factors, and vulnerability and risk factors; and
  • How the family and environmental factors are impacting on parenting and/or the child directly; and
• The local authority's recommendation to the conference

The report should be provided to parents and older children (to the extent that it is believed to be in their interests) at least three working days in advance of Initial Conferences, and five working days before Review Conferences, to enable any factual inaccuracies to be identified, amended, and areas of disagreement noted. Where necessary, the reports should be translated into the relevant language or medium.

The report should be provided to the chair at least three days prior to the Initial Conference and five working days in advance of the Review Conference.

All reports must make it clear which children are the subjects of the conference (previously decided by the social worker and her/his manager). Even if not the subject of the conference, all children in the household need to be considered at the Initial Conference and information must be provided on each of them in the record.

The report will be sent out after the conference (with the conference record) to those invited but who did not attend the conference.

It is the responsibility of all the agencies who have participated in the Section 47 Enquiry, or who have relevant information, to make this available to the conference. Contributors should, wherever possible, provide in advance a written report to the conference that should be made available to those attending.

Where any agency representatives are unable to attend the conference they must ensure that a written report is made available to the conference, through the chair and, if possible, that a well-briefed colleague attend in their place.

For agencies in contact with the family, the reports should be shared with the child and parents before the conference, (three working days before an Initial Conference and five working days before a Review Conference) and where necessary, should be translated into the appropriate language or medium.

Where the agency has information to share but is unable to share such information in the presence of a parent or family member, then discussion should take place with the conference chair prior to the conference regarding how this will best be managed within the conference arena - see Exclusion of Family Members from a Conference Procedure.

All written reports will be attached to the chair's report for circulation or incorporated into the conference record.

Children and family members should be helped in advance to consider what they wish to convey to the conference, how they wish to do so and what help and support they will require e.g. they may choose to communicate in writing, by tape or with the help of an advocate. Families may benefit from advice on the length of their submission, to enable proper consideration within the time constraints of the conference.