Safeguarding

What to do if you are worried about a child or young person outside of school hours:

If you are worried about a child or a young person under the age of 18, you should ring NYCC Child Protection on the customer services centre - 01609 780780. This is available outside of office hours. The Minicom number is 01609 779838.

All calls are taken seriously and can be taken in confidence. In an emergency, always ring 999.

What happens when you call NYCC Child Protection:

The customer services centre will take more details from you. Experienced staff will then decide whether action needs to be taken and, if so, how quickly. It may not always be possible to let you know what happened because of confidentiality. Combining your information and anything already known, a decision may be taken to conduct an investigation to establish whether the child is at risk of harm or not.

If you decide to remain anonymous this will be respected. However, it is helpful for the investigating social worker to be able to share your concerns openly, so we do ask callers to consider this option.

Following an investigation, staff from the children and young people's service will take one of the following actions:

• Decide no further action is required;
• Offer the family help or advice to resolve any difficulties; and / or
• Call a meeting to decide what further steps should be taken.

Useful websites:

Children – Do you need some help?