“IT’S SILENT”: RACE, RACISM AND SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN - National Panel Report and webinars

The Child Safeguarding Review Panel is an independent panel commissioning reviews of serious child safeguarding cases. They want national and local reviews to focus on improving learning, professional practice and outcomes for children.

The Panel’s latest report 'It's Silent' (March 2025) delves into the critical issues of race, racism, and racial bias within the context of safeguarding children. This thematic analysis examined 40 rapid reviews and 14 LCSPRs involving 53 children from Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage backgrounds to identify areas for learning and improvement in multi-agency child safeguarding practice. (Read the briefing.)

The report found limited attention was given to race, ethnicity and culture in reviews; as a result, reflection on practice lacked necessary critical analysis, depth, and detail. This in turn meant that identifying learning and good practice was challenging. Most worryingly, there was a very evident silence about racism and a hesitancy to name it and the ways that it can be manifested. This meant that the safeguarding needs of Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage children and families were too often rendered invisible in both practice and the system for learning from reviews.

We need to improve how professionals identify, acknowledge and protect Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage children at risk of harm, exploring how social factors including race and racism, gender, poverty and class connect so that their safeguarding needs can be better considered in practice. While the report broadly identifies some important learning about safeguarding practice with Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage children and their families, it is crucial that these groups of children are not, and should not be seen as, a homogenous group. Individual children, and different ethnicity groups, will have unique daily life experiences and will experience engagement with practitioners in many ways.

When a serious incident does occur, it is critical that agencies consider the impact of racial bias and racism on child safeguarding practice, identifying how racism – whether internalised, interpersonal, institutional or structural – may influence decision-making and undermine the effectiveness of public agencies to protect Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage children. The report sets out a number of reflective questions and recommendations for local areas so they can better protect Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage children who are at risk of harm.

Recommendations include:

• Acknowledging and Challenging Racism: Local leaders should ensure that appropriate internal structures are in place to support practitioners to recognise, discuss and challenge internal and institutional racism.

• Empowering Practitioners: Creating conditions that empower practitioners to have conversations with children and families about race and identity. This includes building skills and confidence and ensuring there are safe opportunities for self-reflection within teams and in supervision to acknowledge their own biases.

• Reviewing Local Strategies: Child Safeguarding Partnerships should review their local strategies and approaches to addressing race, racism, and racial bias in their work with Black, Asian, and Mixed Heritage children.

In producing this report, the Panel is very aware that they too have learning and work to do to address this important aspect of safeguarding practice. It is important that the Panel, like other bodies, scrutinises carefully when and how race, racism and racial bias shapes and influences our decisions and practice. The Panel encourage safeguarding partners and all those who work directly with children to read the report and reflect on the key findings and recommendations.

Register for the webinar: Tues 29th April (1200-1300)