Initial Contacts and Referrals to Dudley Children's Services Front Door

1. Initial Contacts - Dudley Children's Front Door

Dudley Children's Front Door is the first step to accessing the statutory services of Children's Services. All contacts in relation to children living in Dudley are screened for safeguarding concerns and recorded on Liquidlogic Children's Social Care System (EHM), the electronic recording system for Children's Services.

Anyone can contact the Dudley Children's Front Door if:

• The family have had an Early Help Assessment and concerns are still escalating;
• They think that the Local Authority can assist or support a family or child in a difficult phase of their life; or
• Families that require specialist support as there are immediate safeguarding concern.

All contacts will be considered alongside the Early Help Framework and Threshold Document - Dudley's Thresholds Framework.

The possible outcomes of a child contact are:

• Referral to Children's Services: strategy discussion;
• Referral to Children's Services: S17 (Child in Need) assessment;
• Referral to early help; (Targeted Early Help)
• Referral to Early Help; (Family Hubs)
• Needs met by universal services.

2. Referrals to Children's Services

If there any child protection concerns, the Dudley Children's Front Door Social Worker will have an immediate discussion with the MASH manager and the Safeguarding Manager to decide whether the threshold for a Strategy Discussion is reached. Summary information for MASH is available on the Dudley Safeguarding website.

If it is decided that the case meets level 4 of Dudley's Threshold Framework without raising child protection concerns, responsibility will be passed to the relevant Safeguarding Team for assessment. Where the contact relates to a case that is known, but closed:

• If responsibility was previously held by a Safeguarding Team, and the case was closed within one month of the current contact, that team will resume responsibility.