Safeguarding Practice Reviews

Safeguarding practice reviews provide valuable lessons about how organisations are working together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

Child R – Serious Case Review

This serious case review was undertaken in order to learn lessons about the way that agencies work together to safeguard children in Rotherham. The conclusion of this review is that there was a failure to protect Child R from suffering harm while he was in hospital.

The reasons for this include:

• Enquiries under Section 47 (Children Act 1989) were not initiated in a timely way when concerns were first identified.
• Opportunities to assess his parents' care of him and to minimise any risk he continued to be exposed to were not taken.
• Lack of clarity about the process to be followed and the respective roles and responsibilities of social workers and Police Officers when conducting joint enquiries under s47.
• The uncertainty about whether Child R's symptoms (and the reason he was in hospital) were, at least partially, the result of having been non-accidentally injured.
• A failure to recognise that undertaking s47 enquiries is as important when there is uncertainty about whether a child has suffered significant harm as it is when the cause of the harm is obvious.

Read the Child R overview report

Child S – Serious Case Review

In 2012, Rotherham Local Safeguarding Children Board published its serious case review into the case of the 17-year-old, known as Child S, who was found murdered in October 2010. An 18-year-old was sentenced to 17 years in prison after admitting her killing.

The review highlights a number of issues where services could have been improved and has made recommendations, which have already been acted on by agencies across Rotherham. It also makes clear that although there are elements of services which need to improve, there is no suggestion any individual or agency failings led to Child S's death.

The full report and executive summary are available to download:

• Read the Child S summary
• Read the Child S overview report

NSPCC National Reviews

The NSPCC publishes a collection of National Case Reviews which can be viewed on their website:

National Case Review Collection: a repository of published reports | NSPCC Learning

Safeguarding Practice Review Guidance

See the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel guidance from Gov.uk.