Members of Public – Making a Referral

If you have a concern about a child or an adult and wish to make a safeguarding referral, you will need to use the relevant online Safeguarding Referral Form (child or adult).

When making a referral it is important that:

• All basic details are completed on the referral form (correct names and spellings, family members, date of birth, addresses, ethnicity, first language, disabilities etc). You will not be able to move forward to the next section of a form until all the mandatory fields are completed and you will not be able to save an incomplete form and complete it later.
• Consent should always be sought from the family before passing information about them to Social Care, unless seeking consent would place them at increased risk of immediate and significant harm or may lead to the loss of evidence for example destroying evidence of a crime or influencing about a disclosure made. If someone is at immediate risk of significant harm, a referral to Social Care should not be delayed whilst consent is sought.
• The referral must clearly identify the concerns and the impact on the child/adult at risk as well as what support has been provided previously to help address these concerns and what strengths/resilience is within the family.
• Referrals should set out what the referrer wants to see happen as a result of the referral, and should include the views of the family and, where appropriate, the child or young person.
• The more information that is provided, the easier it is for the MASH to make a decision about the best course of action to take.

How to make an online referral

Members of the public should use the online referral form to submit safeguarding concerns to Children’s Services. This is a much more secure and efficient way of submitting a referral and will also give you a reference number on submission. The online form should be used instead of Word or PDF versions of the form.

Saving a copy

If you wish to save a PDF copy of the form you must do it by clicking the button on the acknowledgement page. Once you leave the acknowledgement page you will not be able to return to it to print a copy of your form.