All children have a right to grow up in a caring and safe environment and all adults have a responsibility to protect children and most children grow up in families where they are properly taken care of and kept safe, however for some children, this is not the case.
Children and young people are vulnerable and they depend on adults to support and care for them. When this is not happening, the child or young person depends on someone noticing this and doing something about it.
Children and young people rarely say if they are being abused, however, there may be signs that a child isn’t safe.
The child may:
Some children and young people live in stressful situations, where:
Any or all of these factors may be present and could be indicators that the child isn’t safe.
Children in these situations are the ones who need your help.
We know it can be difficult to get involved in the situations described above and that you might worry about interfering or making a mistake or worry about what will happen to a family if they report a concern. It is important to remember that children can’t always get help for themselves. They might need you to get it for them.
If you are concerned or unsure about a child’s safety and protection, please speak to someone. This might be a health visitor, nursery staff, teacher, GP, social worker, police officer or children’s reporter.
If the child is in immediate danger, you should always contact the police on 999.
Make sure you:
No. However, remaining anonymous can make it more difficult to establish whether or not a child is at risk. All information received will be treated with discretion. Any details received, including your name, will not be revealed unless the child’s safety requires this.
The first priority for everyone is making sure that the child is safe. If extra help is needed to support a family in looking after their child safely, staff from agencies like health, education and social work services will all work together and plan out how best to provide this.
