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Report a concern about an adult working or volunteering with children

If a child is at immediate risk, call the police on 999.

If you have urgent concerns about the general welfare of a child, contact our First Response Team.

If you're concerned about the way in which an adult working with children has behaved towards a child or you have grounds to believe they may pose a risk of harm to children, you must inform the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) for the area where the person works or volunteers.

For example, if they live in Buckinghamshire but work in Hertfordshire, you would report to the Hertfordshire LADO.

Managers, professionals and colleagues of the person of concern can find out more about managing allegations on the Buckinghamshire Safeguarding Partnership website.

Concerns you can report

You should report concerns to the LADO when a person who works with or volunteers with children has done any of the following:

harmed a child or is suspected of harming a child
been involved in a criminal offence against or related to a child
behaved in a way that may pose a risk to children
behaved in a way that indicates they may not be suitable to work with children

There are different areas of harm to consider. Some relate to specific actions, which are:

physical – there may have been an assault, with or without injury, to a child
emotional – there may be actions or behaviours which are impacting the emotional wellbeing of a child
sexual – a child may have been exposed to inappropriate actions, or material
neglect – a person may have failed to keep a child safe, or exposed a child to harm whilst in their care
exploitation – a child being groomed, forced or coerced into doing something for someone else’s gain

Risk of harm means that, although a specific incident might not have taken place, you feel the person is not suitable to work or volunteer with children because of how they behave in their personal life.

This might include any of the following:

concerning patterns of behaviour
involvement in inappropriate or illegal activity
association with someone else who is unsuitable to be around children

These concerns about the risk of harm should still be reported.

Who can make a report

Concerns can be reported by anyone, whether you are:

a professional (such as a social worker, teacher or colleague of the accused person)
a member of the public (such as a family member, friend, neighbour or observer of an incident)

Report concerns

You should report concerns immediately after you witness or are made aware of something.

If you're unsure of all the facts or are worried for your own safety, report as much as you can.

Report now

If you're unsure whether to report your concerns

You may be unsure whether to report it because your concerns are based on:

low-level incidents
uncertainty around the behaviour of a person

If this is the case, you can request a consultation with the LADO who will advise on the correct course of action.

Non-recent allegations

Where you're reporting incidents of a criminal nature that are not recent and relate to a specific individual, contact the police on 101 to report.

If the individual still works with children, or might still be working with children, you report it to the LADO.

Urgent or complex cases

You can contact the LADO Duty Desk:

Monday to Thursday 9am to 5pm
Fridays 9am to 4:30pm

Email: [email protected]

The LADO will respond within 1 working day.

Phone: 01296 382 070