Section 47 Social Services

Social services must seek your views and consider the child s wishes and feelings when deciding what action should be taken in the section 47 enquiry.

Section 47 social services. This section 47 certificate must be completed by a doctor or other authorised healthcare professional in order to provide non emergency treatment to an adult who lacks capacity to give or refuse consent. Children s social care services managers have the responsibility based on available information to authorise section 47 enquiries. The child is the subject of an emergency protection order the child is in police protection.

This may occur whenever the criteria set out in section 2 purpose of the section 47 enquiry are met for example. Section 47 and the rise in social services interventions posted onnovember 19 2018 the rise of child protection plans and section 47 investigations in november 2018 the bbc reported on the rise of child protection plans and section 47 investigations into children at risk from harm. The social worker when conducting a section 47 enquiry must assess the potential needs and safety of any other child in the household of the child in question.

Children s social care services managers have the responsibility based on available information to authorise section 47 enquiries. It should be completed following assessment and provides evidence that the treatment complies with the principles of the adults with incapacity act and associated code of practice. The decision to initiate a section 47 enquiry must be taken following a strategy discussion.

Section 47 of the act covers a local authority s or social services duty to carry out an investigation or assessment when they are informed that a child who lives in their area meets one or more of the following criteria. The power for social services to carry out this enquiry comes from section 47 of the children act 1989 and the process may be referred to simply as a section 47 enquiry. Other information might be gathered from schools gps or other professionals who know you and your child well.

The enquiry will involve an assessment of the child s needs and the ability of those caring for the child to meet them. Section 47 and sharing information if the social workers at your local authority la are given information that makes them worry your children are at risk unless the situation is one of obvious and immediate danger when the police should probably be called the la will need to carry out an investigation to decide if it should make an application to the court or instead offer the family some support. This may occur whenever the criteria set out in section 2 purpose of the section 47 enquiry are met for example.

In cases where social services believe there is a serious risk they may take emergency action to protect the child. The decision to initiate a section 47 enquiry must be taken following a strategy discussion.