Tameside Safeguarding Framework

Appendix 4 - Significant Harm

1. Significant Harm
   - The Legal Basis
   - Definitions within Law

Significant Harm

Some children are in need because they are suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. The Children Act 1989 introduced the concept of significant harm as the threshold that justifies compulsory intervention in family life in the best interests of children . It gives the local authority (Tameside Council's Children's Social Care) a duty to make enquiries to decide whether they should take action to safeguard or promote the welfare of a child who is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm.

The Act does not provide an exact definition of the term 'significant harm'. However it highlights the need to compare the progress, health and well being of a child with any other similar child. The emphasis is on the needs of the child and not on the capabilities or willingness of the parents.

Therefore, there is no absolute criteria when judging what constitutes significant harm. Consideration of the severity of ill-treatment may include:

• the degree and the extent of physical harm
• the duration and frequency of abuse and neglect
• the extent of premeditation, degree of threat and coercion, sadism, and bizarre or unusual elements in child sexual abuse

Each of these elements has been associated with more severe effects on the child, and/or relatively greater difficulty in helping the child overcome the adverse impact of the maltreatment.

Sometimes, a single traumatic event may constitute significant harm, eg a violent assault, suffocation or poisoning. More often, significant harm is caused by a series of events, both acute and longstanding, which interrupt or damage the child's physical and psychological development.

The Legal Basis

Under the Children Act 1989, a court may make a care order committing the child to the care of the local authority or a supervision order placing the child in the supervision of the local authority if it is satisfied that:

• The child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm; and
• That the harm or likelihood of harm is attributable to a lack of adequate parental care or control
• And that the child's interests are served by the making of the order

To understand and establish significant harm, it is necessary to consider:

• The nature of harm, in terms of maltreatment or failure to provide adequate care;
• The impact on the child's health and development;
• The child's development within the context of their family and wider environment;
• Any special needs, such as a medical condition, communication impairment or disability that may affect the child's development and care within the family;
• The capacity of parents to meet adequately the child's needs;
• The wider and environmental family context.

Definitions within Law

Under s31 (9) of the Children Act 1989 as amended by the Adoption and Children Act 2002:

• 'Harm' means ill treatment, or the impairment of health or development, including, for example, impairment suffered from seeing or hearing the ill treatment of another.
• 'Development' means physical, intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural development.
• 'Health' includes physical and mental health.
• 'Ill treatment' includes sexual abuse and forms of ill treatment, which are not physical.

Under s31 (10) of the Children Act 1989, where the question of whether harm suffered by the child is significant turns on the child's health and development, his/her health and development shall be compared with that which could reasonably be expected of a similar child.

It is critical that where a practitioner working with children and young people has reasonable cause to suspect that a child or young person is suffering or is at risk of suffering significant harm, they should always make a referral to Children's Social Care.

See section 3 for more information about Making Referrals.