Rapid review of child protection procedures in Wales published

A rapid review of child protection procedures across Wales has found that, overall, children’s names are appropriately added to, or removed from, the child protection register.

The Welsh Government asked Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) to lead a multi-agency rapid review of child protection decision making in October last year.

The focus of the review was to determine to what extent the current structures and processes in Wales ensure children’s names are appropriately placed on, and removed from, the child protection register when it is safe to do so.

CIW published the interim findings in June 2023, working alongside Healthcare Inspectorate Wales and Estyn to share learning and promote best practice at the earliest possible opportunity.

The full report, including recommendations for all agencies involved in child protection, has now been published.

It identifies many areas of excellent practice. However, there are also areas for improvement and consistency across Wales.

The report found that information sharing between agencies needs improving and that vacancy gaps across a range of organisations involved in child protection can lead to instability for children and their families, especially changes in social workers.

It was also revealed that regular multi-agency training is needed to ensure there is a consistent approach and shared vision on safeguarding procedures across Wales.

Gillian Baranski, Chief Inspector at CIW said: “There were 3,670 children placed on the child protection register in Wales during 2021/22. Ensuring there is a robust and consistent approach to child protection is imperative to keeping children safe."

“Multi-agency practitioners involved in safeguarding children work incredibly hard and are committed to ensuring children’s safety. Their commitment must be applauded."

"However, it is impossible to ignore the significant challenges they are facing in providing care and support for children in Wales. These workforce challenges, alongside the increasingly complex needs of children and their families means they may not always receive the care and support they need when they need it most."

“It was encouraging to see so many examples of excellent practice in this area of safeguarding... We now need to work together to ensure excellent practice becomes the ‘norm’ across Wales."

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