New National Safeguarding report highlights urgent learning for practice

The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel has published its latest annual report, bringing together learning from 330 serious child safeguarding incidents and 82 Local Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews across England. The report provides a powerful overview of the patterns, risks, and practice issues emerging from cases where children died or suffered serious harm between April 2023 and March 2024. (GOV.UK)

The findings make for important reading for anyone working with children and families. The report highlights continuing concerns around safeguarding babies, children’s mental health, parental mental health, neglect, and extra-familial harm. It also identifies the ongoing over-representation of Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage children in safeguarding reviews and reinforces the importance of culturally informed practice. (IHV)

Among the key findings:

• Under 1s remain the age group experiencing the greatest level of harm, representing over a third of incidents reviewed. (IHV)
• In almost 9 out of 10 incidents, families were already known to children’s social care. (pauldodds.co.uk)
• More than half of reviews involved parental mental health difficulties, while substance misuse featured in 43% of cases. (IHV)
• The report also highlights increasing concerns around children and young people experiencing mental health difficulties and the links between unmet need and vulnerability. (vkpp.org.uk)

Alongside the statistics, the report encourages practitioners and leaders to think critically about professional curiosity, information sharing, multi-agency working, and the organisational conditions needed for good safeguarding practice to thrive. Importantly, it also recognises the skill, commitment, and compassion shown by practitioners working in increasingly pressured systems. (leedsscp.org.uk)

This is an important report for safeguarding partners, leaders, managers, and frontline practitioners alike, offering valuable reflective learning to strengthen practice and improve outcomes for vulnerable children.

You can read the full report here: Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel Annual Report 2024–2025