6.1.9 Complaints by Service Users

Parents/caregivers and, on occasion children, may have concerns about which they may wish to make representations or complain, in respect of one or more of the following aspects of the functioning of child protection conferences:

• The process of the conference;
• The outcome, in terms of the fact of and/or the category of primary concern at the time the child became the subject of a child protection plan;
• The decision concerning the imposition or discontinuance of a child protection plan.

Complaints about aspects of the functioning of conferences described above should be addressed to the conference chair. Such complaints should be passed on to Children’s Services.

All parties must be made aware that this complaints process cannot itself change a conference decision and that during the course of a complaints consideration, the decision made by the conference stands.

The outcome of a complaint will be either that a conference is re-convened under a different chair, that a review conference is brought forward or that the status quo is confirmed.

Complaints about individual agencies, their performance and provision (or non-provision) of services should be responded to in accordance with the relevant agency’s own complaints management process.