Children’s services in plain English
A first guide to common stages, meetings and terms—without assuming you already speak fluent professional acronym.
Read the guideResources & guidance
Clearer information for difficult moments
Practical, plain-English guides for parents, grandparents and kinship families—alongside established routes to urgent, legal and specialist help.
Practical help
Six useful places to begin
These resources support understanding and preparation. They do not replace a solicitor, social worker, clinician, advocate or the child’s existing plan.
Preparing for meetings
A calm, printable worksheet to organise concerns, questions, support needs and agreed actions before a children’s-services meeting.
Use the worksheetProtective planning
A printable tool for turning concerns into clear boundaries, support-network roles and a response if risk changes.
Use the worksheetShowing learning and change
A reflective record focused on what has changed in day-to-day choices—not certificates collected for the sake of a folder.
Use the reflection toolCommunication and accessibility
Practical guidance and a template for explaining barriers and requesting communication support or reasonable adjustments.
Read the guideFinding specialist support
Checked routes to family, kinship, legal, domestic-abuse, mental-health, equality and safeguarding support.
Find specialist helpNeed help now?
Use a service that can respond.
Branches of Safety is not currently providing individual support and cannot monitor urgent messages.
Immediate danger
If a child or anyone else is in immediate danger, call 999.
Government reporting guidanceWorried about a child
Contact the child’s local council children’s social care team, or call the NSPCC Helpline on 0808 800 5000.
Find the right local councilUrgent mental-health help
Use NHS 111 online or call 111 and select the mental-health option.
NHS urgent-help guidanceSomeone to listen
Call Samaritans free, any time, on 116 123.
Contact Samaritans