This summary guide is aimed primarily at practitioners who are part of the ‘core group’ developing, implementing and reviewing a child protection plan (in England) or care and support protection plan (in Wales) in cases where there are concerns of child sexual abuse (possibly alongside other forms of abuse or neglect). It explains how the core group can maintain a focus on the child’s needs and on addressing the sexual abuse concerns.
It can also help other practitioners working with the child, by explaining what the core group does and how a child protection plan or care and support protection plan is drawn up.
What does it mean to be supported through a child protection plan?
If a child protection enquiry finds that a child is suffering or is at risk of significant harm, a child protection conference is convened to share information and assess the risk to the child, the needs of the child and their family, and the non-abusing parent(s)’ capacity to ensure the child’s safety and wellbeing.
The conference decides whether the child should be subject to a child protection plan (in England) or a care and support protection plan (in Wales) under a specific category or categories of harm. If this happens, an outline plan is discussed at the conference and a core group – a multi-agency forum involving practitioners responsible for delivering specific aspects of the plan – is convened.
The protection plan will be further developed and implemented by the core group at its first meeting, within 10 days of the conference. The core group then meets every six weeks to review the plan.
The social worker allocated to the child will lead the core group, whose membership may change over time. If the child has support from an independent sexual violence adviser (ISVA) or a child and young person’s sexual violence advocate (CYPSVA), they will be part of the core group.
Depending on their age and capacity, the child may attend the core group meetings if they wish. Their non-abusing parent(s) will also attend.
Even if the child is made the subject of a plan under a different category of harm, the plan should still address any sexual abuse concerns, with clear actions/interventions specifically addressing this concern and allocated to a named person.
How may the child be feeling?
A child is likely to feel a complex range of emotions when they are on a protection plan. Once they understand the plan, they may feel safer and hopeful for a new or better life. However, they may feel distressed by changes to their living or contact arrangements and by frequent interactions with social workers, which can disrupt their daily life and cause frustration. They may worry about being bullied, stigmatised, or ostracised by peers. They may also feel guilty, believing they have done something wrong and caused distress or disruption in their family.
The protection plan should clarify who the child can talk to about these worries, and address situations where parents blame the child.
“It’s a plan of your life, like what happens in it and how they are going to help you, like a meeting, appointments and stuff.”
“It gives you a bit of priority and gives you, it compensates the fact that, whatever happens at home, it compensates the outside stuff like you can live a normal life.”
“[When you’re on a child protection plan, social workers] help you but in some other ways they don’t because like if you’re on the plan you like, you gotta ask, you gotta tell them like if you want to go stay at your friends, you’ve gotta tell them the name and they’ve got to be checked out by the police… They’re a lot more lenient [if you're on a] child in need [plan].”
“I just think it’s absolutely stupid that… [the social workers are] always coming round and it’s like we have to revolve all that we do around them and I just don’t like it. It’s horrible.”
For the sources of the quotations above, please download our full guide to this stage of the Response Pathway.
- Involve the child and their non-abusing parent(s) in developing the plan, bearing in mind that some or all of them may resent your presence in their lives. Think about how they can be supported to participate, and how to keep the child informed and involved if they do not wish to be part of the core group.
- Consider how the personal characteristics of the child and their family might increase their vulnerability, and might shape their response to child sexual abuse and agencies’ involvement in protecting the child.
- As part of the protection plan, draw up a safety plan with the child and family, covering issues such as sexual boundaries, rules regarding bedrooms and bathrooms, and safe internet access. The family must feel involved in writing the safety plan, and it must feel meaningful to them. Ensuring and promoting safety within the family will be a priority, especially when sexual abuse has happened in the family environment. If there is a risk of abuse outside the family home, a robust safety plan will also be needed to safeguard and protect them across potentially a range of contexts and multiple persons of concern.
- Consider what support each family member might need, including the parents and siblings, and what they might need together, especially where sexual abuse happened within the family environment.
The protection plan should:
- focus on the child’s safety and needs, and be influenced by what they say they want and need for themselves and their family
- ensure the concerns about sexual abuse are made clear and central to the plan, even in situations where police investigations have concluded with no further police action at this time.
It should set out actions to:
- address any known impact of the sexual abuse on the child
- address the impact of the sexual abuse on family relationships
- provide ongoing opportunities for the child to talk with a safe and trusted adult
- support the child while any police investigation or court proceedings are in progress
- support the child to be formally interviewed by the police and a social worker, if this is in the plan
- implement a safety plan
- address the needs of the child’s non-abusing parent(s), including supporting them to understand the child's needs and the process of sexual abuse.
- address other concerns of harm, such as neglect and emotional abuse.
The plan should be tailored to the context of the sexual abuse. There will be different considerations and responses (which may intersect) if, for example:
- there are concerns about intra-familial child sexual abuse by an adult
- there are concerns about harmful sexual behaviour by a sibling
- there are concerns that the child has been sexually abused (or is at risk of sexual abuse) outside the home environment or online
- the child has engaged in sexually harmful behaviour.
All core group members should share information about the progress of any support or therapeutic interventions they are providing, and how these are making a difference to the wellbeing of the child and their family.
The social worker should check in with the child regularly to ensure that they feel safe and supported – discuss any adjustments that need to be made.
At core group meetings:
- Review the plan’s progress and the provision of the support it sets out, assessing the effectiveness of that support and addressing any delay in its provision
- Check, in situations where an adult of concern remains living in the home, that the protection plan is not giving them opportunities for grooming or placing them in a position of privilege.
- Consider whether the child is being supported to share any further information they may have about sexual abuse.
- Ensure that concerns about child sexual abuse continue to be addressed alongside any other harms.
- Consider whether any new child sexual abuse concerns have emerged and whether a police response is needed, or review the progress of ongoing police action.
Any decision to end the protection plan and cease support from children’s social care will be made at a child protection conference.
External links
- Find an ISVA [The Survivors Trust]
- Family Rights Group website – information about how the safeguarding system works and definitions of commonly used terms
- Global Centre for Contextual Safeguarding website
- Child exploitation disruption toolkit [Home Office] – contains information on civil orders