ABSTRACT
So what exactly happens if there is concern about a child who may have been abused or is seriously at risk? How are decisions made about how to respond and who is involved? The guidance, Safeguarding Children: What to Do if You’re Worried a Child Is Being Abused (DoH et al. 2003), sets out the procedure you might expect to find in any local authority. (At least a copy of the summary should have been circulated to all key professionals, including designated teachers.) This document is helpful to teachers in that it describes what social workers and others should be doing, though some would argue that what it says is either obvious, unrealistic (if, for example, there are staff shortages as there nearly always are) or already set out elsewhere in local procedures. I have tried not to simply repeat the same information again, but to examine the process in a more analytical way. What really happens and why? This should assist the reader in understanding both what other agencies should be doing and why they sometimes don’t do what you might expect!
