Neglect

Neglect is the ongoing failure to meet a child or young person's basic needs

This includes:

• Food, clothing and shelter
• A safe place to live
• Love, care or attention
• Education, health and dental care

Neglect is the most common form of child abuse.  It is dangerous and can cause serious, long-term damage to children and young people.  It can result in death.

On 1 April 2019 we, the Lancashire Safeguarding Children Board, launched a refreshed multi-agency strategy to assist practitioners in tackling Neglect more robustly.  The strategy can be downloaded below, along with a quick reference guide to the indicators of Neglect; a Neglect Toolkit, created by Action for Children; and a poster for display in your own settings or on websites.

• LSCB Multi-agency Neglect Strategy
• Neglect indicators: a quick reference guide
• Neglect Toolkit - tools for assessments and action planning
• Poster for display - Neglect

We have created a short clip which summarises the purpose of the strategy and some of the key elements to Neglect.  The clip also includes some views of Lancashire's children and young people.

Note: External video hosting sites can contain inappropriate content

Tools and Resources

We want practitioners to feel confident in identifying, assessing and putting the correct measures in place to tackle neglect.  The tools below have been collated from various sources as examples of good practice. 

• Nice Guidance: Child abuse and neglect
• Research in Practice: Neglect - mapping resource
• Ofsted: A professionals response to neglect
• NSPCC: Child abuse and neglect
• Action for Children
• Children's Needs - Parenting Capacity
• The Children's Society - understanding adolescent neglect
• DfE: Adolescent neglect - a guide for professionals