Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance her Department provides on access to therapeutic support for children identified as in need in cases where parental consent is disputed.

The guidance ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023’ is clear that local authorities should have a comprehensive range of services in place to respond to local needs. It also requires safeguarding partners to publish a threshold document setting out what services are delivered in their area across different levels of need, including targeted early help and statutory children’s social care, including under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989.

Any support and services provided under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 are consensual. If there are concerns that a child has suffered significant harm or is likely to do so, a referral should be made to local authority children’s social care.

Reforms to family help being delivered through the Families First Partnership programme are seeking to improve timely access to services. We are already seeing examples of senior therapists being embedded into multi-disciplinary teams to provide direct therapeutic support to families.