Numerous child safeguarding practice reviews have highlighted the importance of professionals recording their concerns about a young person possibly experiencing sexual abuse, so that a cumulative picture of concerns could be built up. Whilst this would be expected as standard practice where there were any child protection concerns, it is particularly important to draw practitioners’ attention to this given the many barriers there are to identifying sexual abuse.
Practice tip
You can use the Signs and Indicators tool to record your concerns. If you are unsure about what you can record and raise as a concern, please discuss this with your line manager in supervision. As a professional, it is vital that you consider ‘what if I am right’ rather than ‘what if I am wrong’ & often we have to ‘think the unthinkable’. If you have a legitimate concern – based on your observations or empirical evidence – that a child is being sexually abused, then this can and should be recorded. The Data Protection Act (2018) permits for safeguarding concerns to be shared and recorded.
Lawful and effective information sharing lies at the heart of multi-agency safeguarding work. There is helpful guidance on when and how to share safeguarding information at Information sharing: advice for practitioners (publishing.service.gov.uk)