6.1 Managing Individual Cases

The initial child protection conference brings together family members, the child where appropriate, supporters/advocates and those practitioners most involved with the child and family following a s47 enquiry. Its purpose is to:

• Share and analyse, in an inter-agency setting, the information which has been obtained about the child’s developmental needs, and the parents’ capacity to respond to these needs to ensure the child’s safety and promote the child’s health and development within the context of their wider family and environment;
• Consider the evidence presented to the conference, make judgements about the likelihood of a child suffering significant harm in future and decide whether the child is at continuing risk of significant harm;
• Decide what future action is required e.g. whether a child protection plan is needed, to safeguard and promote the welfare of the child, how that action will be taken forward, and with what intended outcomes;
• Allocate a key worker for each child who requires a child protection plan. The key worker is responsible for ensuring that the child protection plan is developed, co-ordinated and fully implemented to timescale;
• Identify a multi-agency Core Group to develop and monitor implementation of the child protection plan.