Right to information on case

[Iloveautumn]

Hi,
My family is currently under a CIN plan for I think about 6 months now. The Social Worker says the only issue to resolve are minor issues relating to my property (there are no safeguarding issues). However I believe Social Services are withholding information from me about other concerns and are stringing me along until they can legitimise these concerns (although I am not sure on what basis). How do I get them to disclose their concerns to me? What are my legal rights to information regarding concerns? I have been very cooperative. I have found in the past they did not state any concerns until it was too late for to do anything about it and they could move things up a level.

Thank you

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Iloveautumn,

Thank you for your post.

You say that your family has been under a child in need plan for 6 months now. The social worker has told you that there are only minor issues relating to your property, however you believed that children's services are withholding some concerns. You would like to know how to get them to disclose these concerns in a timely way.

Firstly, I would advise that you request a meeting with the social worker in order to go over the current child in need plan. This should outline any concerns in writing and the objectives of the plan, including any actions that need to be achieved. You can clearly discuss with the social worker what steps have not yet been achieved, and what meeting these objectives might look like.

You state that the social worker has told you that there are only minor issues. A child in need plan is a voluntary agreement between you and children's services and should be purposeful in providing support to meet areas of need. If you feel the plan is no longer purposeful, you may want to consider ending the agreement with children's services. I encourage you to discuss this with the social worker first as children's services may have sufficient concerns to escalate the matter to child protection enquiries.

Finally, there are ways that you can formally ask children's services to share personal information they record and hold on you. If you would like to read more about how to do this, then take a look at our advice sheet here on making subject access requests.

Best wishes,

Suzie.

[Iloveautumn]

Thank you Suzie

[Iloveautumn]

Hi Suzie,
The link is nor working. Is there another way I can find the info sheet?

Kind regards

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Iloveautumn

I am sorry you were unable to access the link to the advice sheet and I am resending in the hope that it will work time. This is the advice sheet relating to accessing records from children's services.

Please post again if you have the same problem and I will send it by an alternative medium but I have checked the link and it should work

Best wishes

Suzie

[Iloveautumn]

Hi Suzie,
Yes it works.

Thank you.

I did tell the webmaster fyi.