Department For Education
Preparing a Prevent referral
Make sure you have the details of how and who to make a Prevent referral to. Contact your Prevent partners or local authority for further information.
When making a referral, try to provide as much detail as possible to support the assessment process.
Details to include in the referral
When you make a Prevent referral about a child, young person or adult learner, you should describe:
- how or why your organisation came to be concerned
- what happened if there was a specific event
- the indicators that something is wrong
- any sympathetic interest in hate crimes, extremism or terrorism - including any extremist ideology, group or cause, support for school shooters or public massacres, or murders of public figures
- any worrying use of mobile phone, internet or social media and how you found this out
- any contact with groups or individuals that cause you concern, including who and how often, and why youre concerned
- any expression of wanting to cause physical harm, or threats of violence, including who to, when and what was said or expressed
- any additional need, disability or special educational need, including what they are and if theyre known or suspected
- any other safeguarding concerns about the family, peer group or environment
- any discussions youve had with the child, young person or adult learner, parent or carer (if under 18)
- the parental or carer support (if known and under 18)
- what youre worried about, what may happen if the child, young person or adult learners needs are not met and how will this affect them
Informing the child, young person, parents or carers
The designated safeguarding lead (DSL) should tell the child or young person that theyre going to speak with their parents or carers (if under 18) and refer this to the local authority.
The reason for a referral is to:
- make a multi-agency safeguarding assessment
- support vulnerable people to move away from harmful activity
The DSL should tell the parents or carers that making a referral to the local authority does not mean theyre accusing the child or young person of a crime.
Sharing information
Before sharing information, you should try to get consent from the parents or carers (if under 18). Do not do this if it would place the child or young person at more risk of harm.
You can share information without consent if you have a good reason and if it will help to safeguard the child or young person sooner.
If necessary, you may share information without the familys participation under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. You must not let fears about sharing information stand in the way of promoting the welfare and protecting the safety of children, young people and adult learners.
When deciding to share or withhold information, you should record who has been given the information and why.Do not assume that a colleague or another professional will share the information that might be critical in keeping the child, young person or adult learner safe. Keeping children safe in education says early information sharing is vital to identify, assess and allocate appropriate service provision.
Information sharing advice for safeguarding practitioners includes the 7 golden rules for sharing information and considerations with regard to the Data Protection Act 2018 and General Data Protection Regulation.
Worries about making a Prevent referral
Safeguarding children, young people and adult learners from extremism or radicalisation is no different to other types of safeguarding harms, many of which are interconnected.
A Prevent referral is not an accusation of criminality and will not affect a persons education or career prospects. Instead, it allows for their circumstances to be assessed and any relevant safeguarding support to be provided.
DSLs should exercise their professional judgment about whether a referral is appropriate, as they do for all other safeguarding risks.
At times, you may experience resistance or distress from parents and carers when referring their child to childrens services.
It is good practice to listen to parents and carers in a safe space. Follow your existing procedures in these instances.
Counter Terrorism Polices ACT Early partnership with netmums includes articles, videos and an interactive forum where parents or carers can ask questions of expert practitioners on the risks of radicalisation. These are on the netmums Act Early page.
If you have any concerns about a child, young person or adult learners welfare, you must act on them immediately.
How a referral is assessed
If you have not received an acknowledgement of your referral within one working day, contact Childrens Social Care or whichever agency you made the referral to. For more information, read working together to safeguard children.
Counter Terrorism Policing may assess the referral. They are trained and experienced in assessing vulnerability and delivering supportive interventions to safeguard individuals and protect the public.
Counter Terrorism Policing will check if the child, young person or adult learner is part of any open investigations. This should take 5 working days.
To understand more about the polices role in Prevent, see case study 2: the role of the police in a referral.
During the assessment period, other agencies can also conduct their own assessments. You should think about what you can do to support the child, young person or adult learner. For help with this, read managing the risk of radicalisation in your education setting.
Prevent referral process
The Channel panel
The Channel panel is a multi-agency panel, which includes the police. Channel works in a similar way to existing multi-agency partnerships for vulnerable people.
If the case is passed to a Channel panel, the members will assess the risk to the child, young person or adult learner and decide whether to adopt the case. Statutory interventions could take place alongside the Channel process.
Channel panels work with local partners to develop an individualised support package to reduce:
- broader risks to the child, young person or adult learner
- the risk of extremism or radicalisation
Channel is a voluntary process. Parents, carers and adult learners can turn down the support offered. If this happens, the child, young person or adult learner will be signposted to other services, if appropriate.
For more information, see:
Channel decisions
No support
If the Channel panel decides the referral is not appropriate for Channel support or other safeguarding services, it will signpost it back to the education setting.
The Channel panel will list the areas of concern and the child, young person or adult learners vulnerabilities. It may suggest how you might deal with them but it will be up to you to choose how you support the child, young person or adult learner.
You can ask your local authority or Prevent policing teams for advice.
Support from other safeguarding services
If the Channel panel decides the referral is not appropriate for Channel support but thinks the child, young person or adult learner can best be suppo