This service ensures that children in Waltham Forest who are in care or subject of a Child Protection Plan have a Care or Child Protection Plan with clear outcomes and identified timescales to ensure their safety and protection. This is to make sure that children & young people receive the right care and protection. We do this by chairing all the Child Protection Conferences and Child in Care Reviews on young people.

There are two distinct teams of staff who undertake this work within the Child Protection & Safeguarding Service. Independent Reviewing Officers (IRO’s) chair reviews for children & young people who are in care, & Child Protection Co-ordinators who chair Child Protection Conferences.

This means that the Child Protection and Safeguarding Service has an overview of all the children & young people who are the subject of a Child Protection Plan and those that are in care. The service has a role in scrutinising standards of practice and outcomes for children. Due to these roles IRO’s & Child Protection Co-ordinators are in a position to monitor and identify trends in the areas of Child Protection and Children in Care.

Independent Reviewing Officers undertake this work by:

  • chairing all reviews for children & young people in care
  • monitoring the attendance at reviews
  • ensuring that children & young people fully participate in their reviews
  • following up any concerns about the progress of the plan for the child or young person between Reviews
  • The administration of Reviews (this is undertaken by administrative staff in the team).

Child Protection Co-ordinators undertake this work by:

  • chairing Child Protection conferences
  • monitoring the attendance, participation of children and parents and quality of input at all Child Protection conferences
  • maintaining the list of children who are the subject of a Child Protection Plan
    • Administration of Child Protection conferences (this is undertaken by administrative staff in the team)
    • chairing complex Strategy Meetings
    • offering consultation on complex child protection cases.

Children the subject of a Child Protection Conference and a Child Protection Plan

To view the following information leaflets in PDF format click on the relevant link:

Agency Report to a Child Protection Conference template

Non-social worker multi-agency report template for child protection conferences. This template should be used by ALL non-social worker staff from across all agencies for their reports for child protection conferences.

Download the agency report to a child protection conference template (55KB Word file)

Some of these documents are in PDF format. To view them you may need to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Contact us

Call Waltham Forest Direct on 020 8496 3000 and ask for the Child Protection and Safeguarding Service