Child Protection

Child Protection refers to a range of processes involved in considering, assessing, planning, and taking necessary action to protect a child from abuse or neglect. Child protection processes start when a concern about harm or risk of harm from abuse or neglect to a child has been raised, and police or social work have been notified. The route of child protection processes is summarised in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Children included in child protection statistics

Concern about harm or risk of harm reported may lead to an investigation (when the risk is deemed to be significant) between social work, police and health services (as well as any other relevant agencies). This may in turn lead to a Case Conference. A Case Conference may lead to a registration on the Child Protection Register and may also lead to a referral to the Reporter. If a registration takes place, there will be regular reviews by relevant agencies of the child’s place on the Register until de-registration. More information on these processes is provided in the sections below and the background notes.