Information Sharing Guidance - White Paper
Sharing information in the right context is an extremely crucial and valuable thing, it really can mean the difference between significant harm or life and death. When considering safeguarding children and adults, it is important to understand that we can share information to prevent future or further harm coming to a person. Within this white paper we will be discussing the effects information sharing can have on safeguarding, why it’s important, laws and policies, and how things can go wrong when information is not appropriately shared.
Information Sharing: Advice for Safeguarding Practitioners
The guidance ‘Information sharing: advice for safeguarding practitioners’ advises practitioners who are directly involved in safeguarding children, as well as individuals who work with children, parents, carers, and families, such as those who work in education, health, social care, justice and voluntary.
The guidance advises professionals in these roles or environments on how best to handle information and how to share it appropriately with others in order to protect children or adults at risk. Within this guidance it refers to the ‘Seven Golden Rules for Sharing Information’ which are:
All children have the right to be protected from abuse and neglect. Protecting a child takes priority over protecting their privacy or the privacy of the people failing to protect them.
When you have a safeguarding concern, wherever it is safe to do so, engage with the child and/or their carer and explain what information you’ll be sharing and why.
You do not need consent to share personal information about anyone involved if the child is at risk or is perceived to be at risk of harm.
Seek advice whenever you are not certain or do not completely understand how the legal structure supports sharing information in a specific case.
Ensure that you and the person/ agency that receives the information you share, takes steps to protect the identities of the individuals involved, that might suffer harm if their details become known to their abuser.
Only share relevant and accurate information with those involved in the safeguarding of the child and/or family, ensure that the information is needed to support their services.
Record the reasons for your information sharing decisions, whether you decide to share it or not.
Many are concerned that they will face consequences from sharing information like this, however this is not true, if used and done for the correct reasons. The Data Protection Act is in place to ensure that personal data is used fairly, lawfully and transparently. GDPR similarly governs how personal data can be processed and transferred.
Although these data protection laws are in place to protect a person's information and prevent unlawful or unauthorised processing and access to our data, they also enable us to share information when not sharing information to inflict more harm on a child or adult at risk. If a person is at risk of harm, or the information is needed to identify their risk of harm the sharing of information is supported, within these laws.
Safeguarding Children Practice Reviews
Arthur Lobinjo-Hughes was just 6 years old when he died on the 17th of June 2020. Arthur had been subjected to months of abuse from his father Thomas Hughes and his father’s partner Emma Tustin. Arthur was forced to stand for hours, deprived of food, force-fed salt, assaulted, and later killed by his father.
Several attempts were made by family members to contact social services and police after finding consistent bruising on Arthur. One social work team visited Arthur during this period and found no safeguarding concerns. Police denied a request for a ‘Safe and Well’ visit and did not pass on photos of Arthurs bruising to social work teams. Arthur was found with 130 bruises on his body and fatal brain injuries inflicted by Tustin hitting his head repeatedly on a hard surface.
Star Hobson was just 16 months old when she died in September of 2020. Star had been subject to months of abuse at the hands of her mother Frankie Smith and her partner Savannah Brockhill. Star had been subjected to repeated beating, and kicking.
Several attempts were made by family members to contact social care and the police. Social care had visited Star around 4 times without recognising a safeguarding concern. Star’s father submitted photos and videos to social care and the police and after talking with the family they found no concern for Star’s welfare.
Star suffered a cardiac arrest after a fatal injury to her abdomen which led to internal bleeding. She was also found to have other older injuries including a fractured ankle and skull.
After the deaths of these two children a national review was initiated to understand what had happened to them and how agencies acted to safeguard them during this time.
What did we learn from the reviews:
Weaknesses in information sharing and seeking within and between agencies.
A lack of strong critical thinking and challenging withing and between agencies.
A need for sharper specialist child protection skills, especially in relation to complex risk assessments and decision making.
A need for leadership and management to create and protect the organisation of these complex activities.
The review gives us a few key points for safeguarding partners to think about, these are:
Multi-agency discussions are always to be held whenever suspicion is raised that a child may be at risk of significant harm.
Sufficient resources are in place from across all agencies to allow for these necessary multi-agency discussions and engagement.
Strong information sharing arrangements and protocols should be in place across the partnership.
Referrals should not be deemed malicious without a full and thorough multi-agency assessment.
You can find more in-depth explanations about the review here
Safeguarding Adult Practice Review
27-year-old Gemma Hayter was found murdered on the 9th of August 2010 on a disused line in Rugby. Gemma was a vulnerable adult who was known to a number of agencies throughout her life.
Daniel Newstead, Chantelle Booth and Joe Boyer were the main perpetrators in Gemma’s abuse and murder however, Duncan Edwards and Jessica Lynas were also involved in conspiring against her. These five were people Gemma believed to be her friends.
On the day of her death Gemma visited Booth’s home where she was forced to drink urine, thrown against a radiator (resulting in a broken nose), struck with a mop and confined in a toilet for a long period of time. The group then led Gemma away from Booth’s home under the false pretense of taking her home. Instead, they took her to a railway bank, tortured and murdered her and left her body on the railway tracks.
Gemma’s death led to a safeguarding review to make recommendations on how they could better safeguard individuals in the future. The review found that there was no evidence that Gemma’s murder could have been predicted or prevented, however if she had received and accepted better support, she may have been less likely to fall into the company of those who would seek to harm her.
It also found that there was no evidence that any of the five perpetrators presented a serious risk of harm to Gemma or any other vulnerable adults. However, Gemma had been a victim of “Mate Crime” in the past, but not by those involved in her death. Mate Crime is when a person befriends a vulnerable adult with the intention of exploiting or abusing them, physically or mentally.
It was clear that none of the agencies who were involved with Gemma had the full picture of what was happening in her life and had missed several opportunities to initiate safeguarding.
Key Lessons:
The system for accessing specialist health services for those with lifelong disabilities was deemed inadequate.
Risk assessments were not routinely undertaken.
Mental capacity assessments were not completed. Decisions were made on the assumption of the individual's capacity without testing this.
The adult safeguarding process of significant harm relied on a single large trigger and failed to identify those at risk in the community where evidence was through more low-level triggers.
There was no prevention strategy to give those who are vulnerable the skills and resources to keep themselves safe.
There was no systematic approach by agencies to give or request feedback following referrals.
All of these factors demonstrated the need for change and gave the safeguarding community the push it needed to approach these failings to ensure others didn’t fall to the same fate as Gemma.
You can read more about the safeguarding review into Gemma’s death here
Safeguarding adult vs children
Safeguarding overall is the act of protecting someone from harm, abuse and neglect, but this can be different from children to adults. Many safeguarding organisations can and do support both children and adults, however different policies are in place between the two, this is because there are many differences between what adults might need to be safeguarded from compared to children.
Why is safeguarding different between adults and children:
Children and Adults can face a different set of issues.
Adults have the right to self-determination, which essentially means that they can decide their own destiny.
Adults have the right to refuse consent. This means they can refuse help this can only be overridden when it will increase the risk of harm to them or others.
Procedures for reporting abuse are different from adult to children.
The definitions and terms used from adult to children differ.
There are different policies and legislations.
Overall, both adults and children have safeguarding policies in place to protect them from harm. They may not face the same issues and may encounter different vulnerabilities, but the fundamentals of safeguarding remain the same for both.
Throughout this white paper we have discussed the ins and outs of information sharing and how it affects safeguarding. The three case reviews we shared highlight the importance of sharing information to prevent present and future harm to both adults and children. It showcases the need for education within safeguarding so that all involved understand what information they should be sharing, when they should share it and with whom.
If you have any concerns about the issues raised in the white paper or need any help or advice, please get in touch. Our team offers full support and training around issues like this and can advise and train employers and employees on safeguarding for children and adults.
Resource links
Information Sharing – Advice for Practitioners
Our training courses can be accessed here