Last updated by ruth.salter@essex.gov.uk on Monday, May 20, 2024
The National Panel has published a short briefing paper about safeguarding children in elective home education. The briefing explores common themes and patterns identified across reviews where children died or were seriously harmed while being electively home educated. It highlights practice issues raised by safeguarding partners and shares learning from reviews to help improve the quality of multi-agency safeguarding practice and thereby enhance how this group of children may be better protected in the future.
While the briefing is clear that home education is not, in and of itself, a safeguarding risk, the findings show that children who were the focus of safeguarding reviews were less visible to safeguarding agencies than those who attend school. Therefore, the Panel is joining calls for a statutory register of children who are electively home educated to help safeguarding agencies have better local knowledge about this group of children.