NHS public protection accountability and assurance framework

Annex B: National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland 2021 – Intended Outcomes and Key Changes

The intended outcomes of the National Child Protection Guidance in Scotland 2021 are to:

• Support a reduction in the incidence of significant harm and child death in Scotland
• Improve professional inter-agency practice, supervision, management, training, and development
• Promote a shared, rights-based inter-agency ethos and philosophy of care and protection, as experienced by children, families, and communities

This guidance integrates child protection within the GIRFEC continuum. It uses GIRFEC language and core components to frame identification and proportionate responses to child protection concerns within the national practice model.

There are tonal changes including a focus on engagement and collaboration with families, on building resilience, strengthening relationships, and ensuring a learning culture in workforce supervision, training, and development, as well as a focus throughout on children's rights.

Standards and principles are augmented with, for example, new guidance on assessment, interviewing, and planning; trauma informed practice; chronologies; timescales; and complex investigations. General principles also underpin the consideration and conduct of investigative activities in relation to children who may be harmed and those who may cause harm to others.

Other key changes in the 2021 National Child Protection Guidance include revisions to core requirements including, for example, new guidance on information sharing and focus on children's rights throughout.

There is additional detail on essential processes such as Inter-agency Referral Discussions (IRDs). Whereas the 2014 National Child Protection Guidance referred only to social work and the police, the 2021 guidance sets out that:

"Where information is received by Police, Health or Social Work that a child may have been abused or neglected and/or is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm, an IRD must be convened as soon as reasonably practicable."

In relation to core professionals the guidance states that:

"Practitioners in police, social work and health must participate in the IRD; and Education/ELC may have an essential contribution. Information gathering should involve Education/ELC; and other services working together to ensure child safety, as appropriate. IRD participants must be sufficiently senior to assess and discuss available information and make decisions on behalf of their agencies. They must have access to agency guidance, training and supervision in relation to this role."

Within the guidance the term 'child' is taken to mean a child up to 18 years of age (it also considers the protection of unborn babies). Where a child is aged between 16 and 18 and requires support and protection, the guidance sets out the need for multi-agency professional judgement and assessment to consider which legal framework best fits the child's needs and circumstances.

The guidance strengthens the role of adult services and underlines their responsibility to consider the needs of children and their parents where vulnerability and protection needs are identified.

The guidance notes the crucial roles that ambulance crews and NHS 24 staff have in the recognition and timely response to public protection concerns in relation to unborn babies and children.

The guidance also emphasises the requirement for services to work together to ensure the best protection of children at key transition points. This includes transitions between placements; schools; child and adult services (including transition between child and adult protection processes); stages of recovery; and phases of relationships when vulnerabilities may present. There is additional information on child protection in transitions to adult life and services for disabled children.

Child Protection Case Conferences (CPCCs) have been renamed as Child Protection Planning Meetings (CPPMs), allowing families to clearly understand the purpose of the meeting. This change is to terminology alone; these meetings still operate as multi-disciplinary meetings and have the same importance and purpose as a CPCC. The CPPM continues to require paediatricians' input, particularly in the cases where medical evidence is crucial to decision making for the child and family.

Other changes have been made to sections relating to child protection assessment and planning including pre-birth Child Protection Planning Meetings, Joint Investigative Interviews, and health assessment and medical examination. There is also a new section added on multi-agency child protection assessment.

Part 4 of the guidance covering specific support needs and concerns has been re-written and includes many new sections/text on areas including sexual abuse; disabled children; parents with learning disabilities; domestic abuse; Fabricated or Induced Illness (FII); Sudden Unexpected Death in Infants and children (SUDI); transitional phases; when obesity is a cause for escalating concerns about risk of harm; mental ill health in adults and children; and children and families affected by alcohol and drug use.