Professionals must seek, in general, to discuss concerns with the family and, where possible seek the family’s agreement to making a referral to children’s social care unless this may place the child at increased likelihood of Significant Harm or jeopardise a criminal investigation.

During the course of working with families and children it may become necessary to share their information with other services in order to ensure there is an holistic and informed assessment, to sign post them to services appropriately or to safeguard the children. Consideration must be given to gaining their consent to share as appropriate.

Who can give consent?

Only a parent with parental responsibility can give consent. Mothers always have parental responsibility (PR). Who else can have PR?

• Natural father, married at the time of birth, or subsequently married.
• Child born after 1st December 2003 and father is on the birth certificate.
• Child born before 1st December 2003 father has to have been married to mother at time of birth, or subsequently married.
• Mother’s partner can attend court and obtain PR. There will be documented proof.
• Under an interim care order or full care order the Local Authority has joint PR with parents (that have PR)
• When in voluntary accommodation/foster care only the parents with PR continue to have it.

Only adoption removes parental responsibility.

Residence orders also give the person with whom a child is going to live PR, but do not take away the PR of the parents that already have it and so PR will be shared. However, some decisions can only be made by the parents with PR.

Special guardianship orders do not end the legal relationship between a child and their birth parents. However it does come with parental responsibility which can be exercised to the exclusion of any other persons with PR (apart from another special guardian).

Those looking after children in a private fostering arrangement do not have PR.

Children giving consent

A young person aged 16 or 17, or a child under 16 who has capacity to understand and make their own decisions, may give (or refuse) consent to sharing information. The following criteria should be considered in assessing whether a particular child on a particular occasion has sufficient understanding to consent, or refuse consent, to sharing of information about them:

• Can the child understand the question being asked of them?

Does the child have a reasonable understanding of:

• What information might be shared?
• The main reason or reasons for sharing the information?
• The implications of sharing that information, and of not sharing it?

Can the child:

• Appreciate and consider the alternative courses of action open to them?
• Weigh up one aspect of the situation against another?
• Express a clear personal view on the matter, as distinct from repeating what someone else thinks they should do?
• Be reasonably consistent in their view on the matter, or are they constantly changing their mind?

Where a child has given consent for the sharing of information they should be encouraged to involve their parents/carers in their decision.

Services should also consider what information sharing agreements already exist between them and their service users.

Consent for medical examination or treatment is not covered in this factsheet.

The seven golden rules to sharing information

Is there a clear and legitimate purpose for sharing information?

1.Remember that the Data Protection Act 1998 and human rights law are not barriers to justified information sharing, but provide a framework to ensure that personal information about living individuals is shared appropriately.

Does the information enable a living person to be identified?

2. Be open and honest with the individual (and/or their family where appropriate) from the outset about why, what, how and with whom information will, or could be shared, and seek their agreement, unless it is unsafe or inappropriate to do so.

Is the information confidential?

3. Seek advice from other practitioners if you are in any doubt about sharing the information concerned, without disclosing the identity of the individual where possible.

Do you have consent to share?

4. Share with informed consent where appropriate and, where possible, respect the wishes of those who do not consent to share confidential information. You may still share information without consent if, in your judgement, there is good reason to do so, such as where safety may be at risk. Base your judgement on the facts of the case. When sharing or requesting personal information from someone, be certain of the basis upon which you are doing so. Where you have consent, be mindful that an individual might not expect information to be shared.

Is there sufficient public interest to share the information?

5. Consider safety and well-being: Base your information sharing decisions on considerations of the safety and well-being of the individual and others who may be affected by their actions.

Are you sharing information appropriately and securely?

6. Necessary, proportionate, relevant, adequate, accurate, timely and secure: information shared should be necessary for the purpose for which you are sharing it, is shared only with those individuals who need to have it, is accurate and up-to-date, is shared in a timely fashion, and shared securely.

Have your properly recorded your information sharing decision?

7. Keep a record of your decision and the reasons for it – whether it is to share information or not. If you decide to share, then record what you have shared, with whom and for what purpose.

Contacting Medway Children’s Advice and Duty service (CADS) to make a referral

When a telephone contact is made to CADS the professional will be asked if the parent/carer of the child is aware that they are contacting children’s services. This is often referred to as “gaining consent”.

If parents have not been advised that a professional is calling CADS then information will not be take or recorded. CADS will record that they have advised the professional to speak to the parents and to call back.

The only time that a contact will be taken and recorded without “consent” or prior discussion with apparent/carer is when it is deemed that the child would be placed at significant/immanent risk of harm by the parents/carers being spoken to, or if the information would be delayed. These are immediate safeguarding issues.

Examples of immediate safeguarding issues include;

• a child presents with an injury and discloses that the parent caused it,
• sexual activity where a child is 13 years or under,
• disclosure of a serious physical domestic abuse incident where a parent is a perpetrator,
• strong indications/disclosure linked to forced marriage or FGM.

Advice and consultation may be sought about the appropriateness of the referral from the Children's Advice and Duty Services

The consent of one parent is acceptable.

Manager’s responsibilities

A decision by any professionals not to seek parental permission before making a referral to Children’s Social Care must be approved by their manager, recorded and the reasons given.

Managers should also give advice where a parent has been consulted and refuses to give permission.

This guidance should be read in conjunction with the Kent and Medway Safeguarding Procedures and “Information sharing: advice for practitioners providing safeguarding services. DfE March 2015.