How do professionals protect children?

Professionals - such as, teachers, doctors, and social workers - all work together to make sure children and young people are safe.

One of the ways that they do this is by talking to each other and letting each other know if they have worries about a child - because of something they have seen, heard or noticed.

When social workers are told someone is worried about a child, they may visit the child's family home to check that everything is all right. Social workers may need to know more to make sure a child is safe - so they may start a child protection investigation (also known as a 'Section 47' after Section 47 of the Children Act 1989 - external link).

The police will be consulted at this point to see whether they need to get involved. This investigation will lead to a child protection conference where parents and carers will be able to hear all of the worries that professionals have about their child and will be asked for their views.

Social workers will try to keep families together during this child protection process wherever possible. Only in the more serious cases are children taken into care.