4.31 Supporting Children at Risk from People in Prison or Supervised by the Probation Service

1. Prison Service

The Prison Service undertakes a child safeguarding enquiry with children’s social care for all newly sentenced prisoners and will identify prisoners who present an ongoing risk to children from within custody. Prisons will also decide on the level of contact, if any, they will allow between a prisoner and a child based on a child contact risk assessment and will prohibit or restrict a prisoner’s contact with a child where necessary. The HMPPS Child Safeguarding Policy Framework provides more information on making a child safeguarding enquiry.

In response to a child safeguarding enquiry, children’s social care should:

• review the information provided by the Prison Service and record it as required;
• respond to the child safeguarding enquiry and share with the Prison Service any concerns about the prisoner and any contact with a child;
• contribute to the prisons’ child contact risk assessment where a child is known to children’s social care, or has previously been known, by providing a report on the child’s best interests and verifying the child’s identity. Where the child is not known to children’s social care, they should still provide a view on child contact and should advise the prison to complete a safeguarding children referral if one is required.

1.2 Persons posing a risk to children (PPRC)

The Prison Service will identify prisoners who present an ongoing risk to children from within custody. Guidance:  Prison Public Protection Policy Framework provides detailed guidance of the process and assessment and includes links to the relevant forms and templates.

Their risk status must be reviewed at least every 3 years, or earlier if there is reason to believe that circumstances have changed.

Where a prisoner is assessed as being a person posing a risk to children (PPRC), within 3 working days the Prison Service should notify the prisoner and Children’s Services in:

• the prisoner’s home area;
• the child’s home area, where there is an identified child at risk and their home area is different to the prisoner’s; and
• the prisoner’s home area, and planned release area if this is different

about key sentence information and release dates

1.3 Contact with children

The Prison Service will decide on the level of contact, if any, they will allow between a prisoner and a child based on a child contact risk assessment. A prisoner’s contact with a child will be prohibited or restricted where necessary.

The risk assessment should be multi-agency risk (co-ordinated by the Prison Service) and should include gathering information from the following agencies to inform an assessment of risk and what is in the best interests of the child:

• Police;
• Children’s Services;
• Community Offender Manager (if allocated) / YJS case manager;
• NSPCC (where applicable).

The Prison Service can authorise specific contact arrangements for each child contact application; this could be all types of contact (telephone calls, written correspondence, social video calls and visits) or a specified selection of the different types of contact as deemed appropriate in each case. Each assessment is specific to a particular child and cannot be used to determine contact arrangements with other children.

Prisoners must be informed of the decision within 1 working day and can appeal against a contact decision.

The Prison Service must review all child contact decisions at least every 3 years or earlier if there is reason to believe that circumstances have changed, where there has been a change in risk or following additional information, for example from Children’s Services.  Reviews must be based on updated information from all agencies involved in the original multi-agency risk assessment.

Prison staff facilitating visits and social video calls are required to:

• confirm the identity (in comparison to the approved images provided) of any children attending a social visit at a prison or participating in secure social video calling with a prisoner subject to child contact arrangements prior to the social visit taking place or the prisoner joining the social video call;
• not allow the social visit to go ahead if they are not confident that the child attending the social visit is the child with whom the social visit is allowed; and
• suspend the social video call if they are not confident that the child on screen is the child with whom the video calling is allowed or booked for.

Where a social visit or social video call has not gone ahead because the staff member could not confidently identify the child, the Prison Service should review the prisoner’s child contact arrangements before any further social visits or video calls take place.

If any member of prison staff involved with social visits or social video calls has an immediate concern for the safety or welfare of a child, they must notify the prison’s safeguarding lead, duty governor, and probation service OMU managers.

PSI 16/2011 Providing Visits and Services to Visitors provides information for prisons regarding safeguarding of children during social visits. This includes guidance for staff working in the visits department on appropriate seating arrangements, observing children’s appearance and interactions with the prisoner and reporting any signs of neglect, abuse or distress using the security incident reporting process.

1.4 Prisoners’ access to personal photographs of children

Governors are required to restrict prisoners’ access to personal photographs of children where:

• prisoners are assessed as presenting a risk of sexual harm to children, and
• there is an identified risk to a specific child or children, or
• having the photograph is linked to offending behaviour, and would undermine rehabilitation and risk management work, and potentially increase a prisoner’s risk to children generally.

The Prison Service must approve access to personal photographs of children for all prisoners identified as PPRCs and who present a risk of sexual offending.

Prisoners can appeal against the decision.

Where prisoners meeting these criteria are found in possession of, or are sent via the post, personal photographs of children, the Prison Service must:

• carry out a risk assessment which involves confirming the child’s identity, primary carer consent, and consideration of the potential risk to the child before they authorise a prisoner to have a photograph; and
• notify the relevant local authority Children’s Services Department if the risk assessment raises concerns about the conditioning or coercion of the primary carer by the prisoner, or concerns about the capacity of the parent / carer and should consider withholding the photograph in these circumstances.

Governors can restrict any other prisoners having access to photographs of children where there is evidence they will share photographs with others who should not have them.

Guidance: Prison Public Protection Policy Framework provides further guidance on the process and risk assessment for approving personal photographs of children.

2. Probation Service

The Probation Service will:

• share information with children’s social care about supervised individuals who have contact with children or who pose a known risk to children;
• request information by making child safeguarding enquiries.

Information exchange between probation and children’s social care help both agencies develop a better understanding of the children and families they work with and ensures risk assessments are accurate and well informed.

Under the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 sharing an offender’s personal information must be lawful and fair and must comply with Part 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 and in particular the data protection principles.

See also Tier 1 – Children Safeguarding Data Sharing Agreement (DSA) and Data Protection.

Sharing of information for the purposes of law enforcement and keeping children and young people safe meets one of the requirements for lawful processing under the Data Protection Act 2018, as the data sharing is authorised by law (under section 325(3) and (4) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003) (or section 14 of the Offender Management Act 2007). It is therefore not necessary for Prison and Probation Service staff to obtain consent from the offender under the Data Protection Act 2018.

For information exchange to be effective, children’s social care should:

• explore arrangements with their local Probation Delivery Unit who have resources to support the timely provision of information in response to child safeguarding enquiries, including same day responses, where delay may negatively impact on a child. This may involve sharing information relating to a child, family, or offender who children’s social care may currently or historically know;
• reflect the voice of the child in information shared with the Probation Service, where appropriate;
• be prepared to offer the Probation Service a view on decisions in the child’s best interest.