Closed petition: Require local authorities to add "unmet needs" as a Child Protection category

Closed on 15 November 2025

Families seeking support for a disabled child can end up going through child protection routes. When a local authority issues a child protection plan, professionals working with the family have to assign one of five categories e.g. physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect or multiple.

We think these categories assign parent blame and therefore want a new category "unmet needs".

When parents of children with disabilities (CWD) seek help, they can end up on a safeguarding pathway. The minimum criteria for a CWD Social Worker (SW) is high e.g. must have autism and a learning difficulty, which can result in families being assigned SW's with safeguarding as their primary training, rather than disabilities. These families can get trapped in a safeguarding loop which we feel breaks down trust and currently, if placed on Child Protection, this can have lifelong DBS consequences including loss of work. We want change.