This summary guide is aimed principally at social workers in children’s social care – perhaps part of a multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH) or the local integrated front door (IFD) – who receive and respond to referrals relating to child sexual abuse. It explains how you can best help the child when considering your response.
It is also relevant to other practitioners involved in protecting children, including the person who made the referral, to help them understand what will happen at this stage.
This guide uses the terms ‘referral’ and ‘front door,’ acknowledging that local areas may use different names for the initial receipt of referrals where there are concerns about a child's welfare.
If you are considering making a referral because of concerns about the sexual abuse of a child, see our practice guide Making a referral to children’s social care or a report to the police.
What happens when a referral is received?
If a child tells a practitioner they are being or have been sexually abused, or if a practitioner has concerns that a child has been or is being sexually abused, a referral to children’s social care must be made.
Receipt and initial review
Once children’s social care receive a referral or the police receive a report, they must decide on the next steps. At this stage, they check the information against local threshold criteria to see if it meets the legal standard for help.
The outcome
Children’s social care, often working with multi-agency partners like the police or health services, will decide on one of several pathways within 24 hours:
- Whenever there is reasonable cause to suspect that a child is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm, a multi-agency strategy discussion is held to plan the next steps and decide whether a formal child protection investigation is needed.
- If there are possible indications of sexual abuse, a multi-agency assessment (section 17) is started to establish the facts so that the child and family’s needs can be met.
- If the concerns do not meet the legal threshold for social work intervention but the family still needs support, they may be referred to local early help or Family Help services.
- It may be decided that the child and family do not need support from children’s social care. Sometimes, the agency decides there is not enough evidence or information to take statutory action. This is often called "no further action".
How may the child be feeling?
A child who knows that a referral has been made to children’s social services may:
- fear being blamed for the abuse
- fear having to navigate the situation alone while at home
- worry about the stigma of children’s social care involvement
- be anxious and uncertain about what children’s social care might do
- feel scared about what will happen to them and their family, especially if they have been threatened by the person abusing them
- feel relieved that someone knows and responsibility can be handed to adults
- have conflicted loyalties and a heavy sense of responsibility for the situation
- feel hopeful that something will be done to help them.
Many of these emotions may contribute to a sense of panic and fear, potentially greater than they were feeling before the concerns were raised.
On the other hand, the child may not be aware that a referral has been made if it’s due to immediate safety concerns.
Contact from children’s social care can be a shock, especially if abuse has been discovered through images. Children who are sexually exploited or groomed online may not recognise themselves as victims of sexual abuse, but it’s important that you do.
“It just got to the point where I just couldn’t really take any more and at that point I kind of had the courage to fight, fight against it and tell my mum.”
“I was scared [when someone said they were going to contact social services] ’cause like so many people try so hard like to keep it quiet then you just get scared by what will happen … It kind of panicked me more what would happen, than like the situation that it was at the time.”
For the sources of the quotations above, please download our full practice guide to this stage of the Response Pathway.
How can you best help the child?
As the social worker receiving the referral, you may not have ever come into contact with the child or their family – or, if you have worked with them, it is unlikely to have been in the context of child sexual abuse. When you receive the referral, it’s important that you:
- have all the information you need
- carry out background checks, including on the known history of the child or family, making good use of existing chronologies and seeking appropriate background checks from other agencies.
- decide what action, from the options listed earlier, is in the best interests of the child.
Once you have made your decision:
- inform the referrer of the decision, the reason for it and the next steps (if any) to be taken; if they disagree, they may respond to you with further information or clarify the level of their concerns
- check that they understand what will happen next and the implications, so that they can communicate this to the child, and – provided this would not put the child at risk of harm – the parents.