Agency roles

This section deals with the roles of statutory and voluntary agencies and other associated groups in Salford in relation to child protection and how their duties and functions are organised in order to contribute to inter-agency cooperation for the protection of children.

• Social services
• Police and GMFEPA
• Community mental health support
• Health services
• Education and leisure services
• Housing services
• Youth services
• Children And Family Courts Advisory And Support Service (Cafcass)
• Ofsted and National Care Standards Commission
• Armed forces
• The prison service, probation and high security hospitals
• Voluntary sector services
• Community, social and religious groups and members of the public

Social services

The local authority has a general duty under the Children Act 1989 to safeguard and promote the welfare of children who are in need and, so far as is consistent with that duty, to promote the upbringing of such children by their families. Local authorities are also obliged to ensure that children in their area are protected from significant harm and a child at risk of significant harm is invariably a child in need.

Children's services

Children’s services have the following responsibilities:

• Assess, plan and provide support to children in need, including those suffering or likely to suffer significant harm
• Undertake, in conjunction with the police, enquiries under s.47 of the Children Act 1989 wherever there is reason to suspect that a child in their area is at risk
• Convene and chair child protection conferences
• Maintain a register of all children subject to child protection plans
• Provide a key worker for every child subject to a child protection plan
• Ensure that the agencies who are party to the protection plan coordinate their activities to protect the child
• Undertake a core assessment in relation to each child on the register, ensuring that other agencies contribute as necessary to the assessment
• Convene regular reviews of the child's progress through both core group and child protection review meetings
• Instigate legal proceedings where required

The primary duty of all staff, whatever their nominated role, is to protect children from significant harm.

Emergency Duty Team (EDT)

The EDT provides the out of office hours (4.30pm - 8.30 am), weekend and public holidays social work services. This cover is necessarily limited to dealing with situations that occur out of office hours and cannot wait until office hours. The EDT workers do not have access to case files but they can access the Child Protection Register. When there is concern about alleged/suspected abuse, the EDT should be contacted to consult about the situation. The EDT will check the Child Protection Register to ascertain whether the subject of the concern is already known to the register. The EDT will complete the relevant form for every register check and fax this to the Child Protection Unit the following day. Where there are grounds to initiate the child protection procedures and section 47 enquiries, the EDT will take whatever protective action is necessary. In all cases, the EDT will follow the same policies and procedures contained in these procedures as they apply to their practice out of hours.

Adult Services

Those who work with adults within Social Services must consider the implications of service users’ behaviour for the safety and well being of any dependent children and/or children with whom those adults are in contact. In particular, child protection issues may arise amongst parents or pregnant women who are in receipt of the following:

• Community mental health support
• Substance misuse services
• Learning disability services

Where both adults’ and children’s services are providing services to a family, staff must communicate with each other and coordinate their interventions. Adult services staff who receive referrals about adults who are also parents must always consider how the parent’s situation impacts on them or their children and formally consider whether there is a need to alert children’s services to a child who is ‘in need’ and may be ‘at risk of significant harm’. Once action is taken under child protection procedures (and regardless of whether the work is undertaken jointly or separately) children’s services become responsible for coordination.

This page was last updated on 14 September 2011