Child Protection Conferences

What a Child Protection Conference Is

A child protection conference is a meeting, not a court hearing. The local authority convenes it when enquiries under section 47 of the Children Act 1989 have led it to conclude that your child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm. The statutory guidance, Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026, describes it as bringing family members, their supporters and the practitioners most involved together to analyse the information and plan how best to safeguard the child. It makes recommendations; it does not make orders.

That distinction matters. No conference can remove your child or decide where they live; only a court can make an emergency protection order, an interim care order or a care order. If a social worker asks you to agree to section 20 accommodation, that is a separate decision for you, not for the conference, and our social services involvement page explains what you can decline. A child protection plan does not change your parental responsibility.

The people in the room are the practitioners most involved with your child: typically health, the school or nursery, the police where there is a criminal investigation, and anyone invited for specialist knowledge. You attend as a participant, and the guidance says the family may bring an advocate, friend or supporter. Where the concerns relate to an unborn child, the guidance says consideration should be given to holding the conference before the birth.

The Test the Conference Applies

The question for the conference is the one that runs through child protection law: is the child suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm? Those are the words of section 47, which sets the authority's duty to make enquiries, and of section 31, the threshold a court must be satisfied of before it makes a care or supervision order. Section 31(9) defines harm as ill-treatment or the impairment of health or development, and ill-treatment includes forms that are not physical.

The guidance sets out two outcomes. If the participants decide the child is not suffering and is not likely to suffer significant harm, a plan is agreed with the family without a child protection plan. If they decide the child is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm, the lead practitioner prepares an outline child protection plan and a core group is established.

The conference also appoints a lead statutory body (the authority's children's social care, or the NSPCC) and a lead social worker, identifies the core group, and sets timescales for the plan and its reviews. The outline plan should say how much improvement is needed and by when.

The chair is accountable to the Director of Children's Services and should be independent of operational or line management responsibility for your child. The guidance says the chair should meet you in advance so that you understand the issues, the purpose, the process and the possible outcomes, should answer questions openly, and should ensure everyone present is encouraged to contribute independently.

Reports, Preparation and Common Problems

The lead practitioner prepares a report that sets out and analyses what is known about your child and family and gives the authority's recommendation, and the guidance says the conference information should be shared with the family beforehand where appropriate. Other agencies contribute their own reports and should consider, with the police and the chair, whether and when each can be shared with you. Ask for the reports in good time; if they only arrive on the day, ask for time to read them.

The guidance's principles for working with parents apply throughout: communication should be respectful, non-blaming, clear and jargon free, written material should be translated into your first language where necessary, and a professional interpreter should be provided where needed, including for British Sign Language.

Problems we see most often:

• Factual errors in the report. Wrong dates, incidents attributed to the wrong person or words you did not say should be corrected in writing before the meeting and, if they cannot be resolved, recorded as disputed in the minutes.
• A parallel police investigation. The guidance says a decision not to proceed with a criminal investigation should not determine whether the significant harm threshold is met, so a dropped police case does not end the child protection process. Anything you say at the conference is recorded.
• Minutes that follow the case. Under Practice Direction 12A, a child protection plan is a pre-existing care plan and the authority's key minutes and records are documents to be disclosed on request by any party if care proceedings are later issued.
• Domestic abuse. Many conferences arise where one parent is being abused by the other. In immediate danger call 999; the National Domestic Abuse Helpline is 0808 2000 247. Our domestic abuse injunctions page covers protective orders.

How the Child Protection Process Works

The sequence set out in the statutory guidance runs as follows.

1. Strategy discussion. Where there is reasonable cause to suspect significant harm, the authority, the police and health hold a strategy discussion and consider whether section 47 enquiries should be undertaken.
2. Section 47 enquiries. A social worker leads the assessment, sees your child, interviews you, and should explain the purpose, process and potential outcome of the enquiries.
3. Decision to convene. Where the concerns are substantiated, the initial conference should take place within 15 working days of the strategy discussion, or of the discussion at which the enquiries were started if more than one was held. You should be told who will attend.
4. The conference. Information is shared and analysed, you give your account, and the participants decide whether your child is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm. If so, an outline child protection plan is agreed and a core group is identified.
5. Core group. The core group should meet within 10 working days of the initial conference, turn the outline plan into a detailed plan that says what needs to change, by how much and by when, and agree what each agency will provide.
6. Review conferences. The first review should be held within three months of the initial conference and further reviews at intervals of no more than six months while the plan continues, each asking whether the child is still suffering or likely to suffer significant harm and whether the plan should continue or change.
7. Ending the plan, or escalation. A child should no longer be the subject of a plan when they are judged no longer to be suffering or likely to suffer significant harm, when the family moves permanently to another authority's area, or when the child reaches 18. Where the authority concludes that the threshold for care proceedings is met in principle, it decides whether to begin pre-proceedings, which our Public Law Outline and pre-proceedings page covers.

When Legal Advice Is Especially Important

Take advice before the initial conference rather than after it. What is said and agreed there is minuted, shapes the plan and can be read by a judge later. Advice matters most where:

• you dispute the facts in the social work report
• the police are investigating at the same time
• the authority has mentioned the Public Law Outline, pre-proceedings or a letter before proceedings
• you are being asked to sign a written agreement, or to agree to section 20 accommodation
• a relative or friend is being put forward to care for your child, which can lead to special guardianship
• English is not your first language, or a disability or a mental health condition affects how you take part

A child protection conference is not care proceedings, and the funding rules are different. RakLAW does not offer legal aid and is privately funded. If the authority issues care proceedings, or gives you notice that it is contemplating them, parents are usually entitled to legal aid without a means test; that is not something we can provide, so it comes from a firm with a legal aid contract. Conference advice is not covered by that exemption, so public funding at this stage, where offered at all, is means tested. Our fees for family law page explains how we charge.

If cost is a barrier, Family Rights Group runs a free, independent and confidential advice line for parents, kinship carers, relatives and friends of children involved with children's services in England, on 0808 801 0366, Monday to Friday, 9.30am to 3pm.

How RakLAW Solicitors Can Help

We act for parents, carers and relatives from the first invitation. Before the conference we go through the social work and agency reports with you, help you set out in writing what you accept, what you dispute and what you have already changed, and explain what the chair and the lead practitioner are expected to do. Where local procedures allow a solicitor to attend as your supporter, we attend; where they do not, we prepare you to speak for yourself.

After the conference we check the minutes and the outline plan against what was said, ask for corrections where the record is wrong, and prepare you for the core group and the review. If the authority raises pre-proceedings, we explain what a letter before proceedings means and what follows in care proceedings, including how a care order differs from the plan you are on now. The wider picture is on our care proceedings and social services hub.

RakLAW Solicitors is at 42 Shad Thames in Southwark, a short walk from Tower Bridge, with Tower Hill, London Bridge and Bermondsey stations nearby. We offer a free 15-minute consultation, so you can tell us where you are in the process and we can tell you how we would approach it. Call 0203 345 2000 or use the callback form to Book a Free Consultation.