Sharing information

[Elephant23]

Hi all.
I had an incident at the child minders a year ago. Sw was in volved it was my fault. The case is closed. My little one is moving to preschool. CM has said she will be sharing the incident with the school. Is this correct.. I don’t think it is. But I don’t know if I can do anything about it.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Elephant23,

Welcome to the parents’ forum and thank you for your post. My name is Suzie and I am the online adviser at Family Rights Group. I hope that the following advice and information is helpful to you. You can click on the links in my post to take you to more relevant information.

You say that children’s services were involved a year ago and that the case is now closed. Your child is moving to pre-school and the childminder has told you that they will share what happened last year with the school. You don’t wish for this information to be shared and want to know if there is anything you can do about it.

A childminder can only share information with a school without your consent if there are safeguarding concerns about your child. If there is a concern that your child is at risk of harm then the childminder would have a legal duty to share relevant information with the school (and other services such as children’s services). This is made clear in government statutory guidance called Working Together to Safeguard Children.

From the information you have given does not seem that your child is currently at risk of harm, and as children’s services have closed their involvement it seems that they do not believe that your child is at risk of harm. Therefore the childminder may be breaching data protection laws (GDPR) by sharing information with the pre-school without your consent.

I would suggest that you discuss this further with the childminder and if you remain unhappy then you can contact OFSTED and submit a formal complaint if necessary. See HERE for more information on the government website about doing so.

I hope that this is helpful. If you have questions about children’s services involvement then please feel free to contact us again on the forum. You can also call our free, confidential adviceline on 0808 801 0366 (Monday to Friday, 9:30am – 3pm) to speak in person with an adviser. We also have a webchat which is currently open on Monday and Thursday afternoons.

Best wishes,
Suzie

[Elephant23]

Hi Suzie
Thank you for replying
I’m currently waiting on the rest of the SAR report on the case before I make a complaint. I believe LA didn’t handle the incident properly. My gs was on a CIN at the time. I was in the process of doing a SGO. They dragged the process out as I wanted to see a rough support plan before committing to SGO. By the Christmas they stopped all support and said I wouldn’t get anything with the SGO. I was devastated not knowing how I was going to cope on just my wage and CB. The incident at the CM was my fault. I felt like I had let my gs down as I couldn't afford to take him places. He would be better off without me. I breakdown and told LA to collect my gs from the CM as I couldn't bear to see him leave. It broke my heart, but I didn't know what to do and no one else to support me.
I regret what I did but was told by LA I wasn't allowed to see or contact my gs. It took them for 4 days to make a decision. They said I abandoned the child and I had caused him trauma? CM has had I'm for 2 years and loves it there. A sleepover was amazing to him!
I wasn't given the opportunity to have my voice and explanation on file. There isn't any context to what happened. So to anyone reading it. It looks cold, like I just decided one day to leave him on a doorstep??
Now I'm labled with abandonment
I have been turned down for a job because of it. How do I correct it

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Elephant23,

Thank you for your further post and for explaining the situation in more detail.

I am very sorry to hear how unsupported you were and that it led to you feeling that it would be better for your grandson to be cared for by someone else. It must have been an exceptionally stressful and difficult time for you. I hope that things are better for you now. You say that children’s services are no longer involved and that your grandson is still in your care which is really good to hear.

You have made a subject access request and are waiting for these documents before you decide whether to make a complaint. I am assuming that you are referring here to making a complaint against children’s services rather than against the childminder. You say that you were not given the opportunity to explain why you acted as you did and that there is no explanation about this on your grandson’s file. You would like this to be amended. I would suggest that once you have received the documents from the subject access request you can then submit a formal complaint explaining what you feel needs to be addressed or amended. It is not usual for documents to be amended unless there are factual inaccuracies but it is possible for addendums to be added to provide missing information, or to state that some of the information has been challenged.

We have information and advice about making formal complaints against children’s services on our website HERE. This includes the 3 stages of the complaints process and the timescales involved.

I am sorry to hear that this affected your application for a job recently. This may have been because the charge of ‘child abandonment’ showed up on your DBS check if the police were involved and if you were charged. Unfortunately I cannot advise about this and whether it is possible for this to be altered. I would suggest either seeking legal advice about this or contacting the DBS service to discuss with them. You can find their contact details on the government website HERE (scroll to the bottom of the page).

I don’t know which area of England you live in but it may be helpful to know that the government recently launched a pilot project to provide financial support to kinship carers. Kinship carers in the following areas are entitled to claim a weekly, non-means tested financial allowance:  

• Bexley
• Bolton
• Newcastle
• North East Lincolnshire
• Medway
• Thurrock
• Wiltshire

If you do live in any of these areas and are not receiving an allowance then please do contact your local authority to find out more about claiming this.

Finally just to say that this forum is the parents’ forum and it would be very helpful to Family Rights Group if you could make an account on the kinship carers’ forum instead and post any further posts on the kinship carers forum. You can find this by clicking HERE. You may also find the kinship carers forum more helpful as other kinship carers may be able to offer their own advice from personal experience.

I hope this is of some help. Please post again if you have further questions. You can also call our free, confidential adviceline on 0808 801 0366 (Monday to Friday, 9:30am – 3pm) to speak with an adviser. We also have a webchat which is currently open on Monday and Thursday afternoons.

Best wishes,
Suzie