Childminder Guides > Early Years Safety Blog > Lost and Missing Children - What happens if I lose a Child?
 

Lost and Missing Children - What happens if I lose a Child?

Keeping children safe in the early years

Losing a child is a very scary thing to happen – the childminder who went to the park with 4 children and got on the bus to come home with 3; the nursery practitioners who took 12 children to the park and lost one (he was playing hide and seek).

Policy and procedures: you must have a written policy and procedures to follow for lost / missing children. This is a requirement of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) in England.

Record keeping: once the incident has been resolved and you have taken a breath for a moment, you need to write it up using an incident report form. Use the form to set out what happened, how you responded (following your lost child procedures) and the end result (whether the child was found or not).

Note that your report form may be used in evidence in the future if parents sue you, so you must state only the facts, not opinion, rhetoric or similar. If your report refers to, for example, a child’s behaviour which led to the incident, you will need to be able to show how this has been documented (observations and assessments) and how you have worked on it with parents to support the child. 

Reporting: you need to inform Ofsted as soon as possible – the legal requirement is to inform them about significant events and anything related to safeguarding within 14 days but they will want you to let them know a lot quicker than that – https://www.gov.uk/guidance/report-a-serious-childcare-incident

You should also report the loss of a child to the Local Safeguarding Partners. Their contact details will be on your Safeguarding / Child Protection Policy.

What to report: assuming the child was found and returned to you and all was well, complete the Ofsted report form and give them brief outline of what happened and that you followed your lost child procedures,

Worst case scenario - in some cases, lost child incidents do not end well – for example, the child might not be found safely or they might have been abducted. You must follow your procedures by writing it up and informing Ofsted and the Local Safeguarding Partners. In this instance you would also need to inform the police and your insurance company.

Repercussions: the family of the child who went missing might feel that they can no longer trust you and want to withdraw their child immediately from your care. They are within their rights to do this and ask for any money they have paid in advance back. You have failed to safeguard their child which is a very serious breach of the statutory requirements. My advice is to be as professional as possible: tell them - here's your money - here's your child's learning journey file and any other bits you keep at your house for the child - thank them for being understanding and walk away.

Next steps: you will need to be prepared for an Ofsted compliance inspector’s visit. Ofsted do not always come out for incidents but if they are concerned a child has been put at risk or if, for example, you have a few similar incidents on your file they will visit, usually unannounced.

Make sure you have written everything up in an incident report (if possible ask parents to sign it) and think about what you can learn from the incident and how you might change things in the future. It's important to reflect on mistakes - Ofsted will want to see this as part of your outing risk assessment.

If Ofsted do not visit you, put the incident report and a copy of your updated risk assessment together in a file and keep it until your next routine inspection, which might be brought forward as a result of the incident. Your inspector will want to discuss the incident with you and will ask you to detail any changes you have made as a result of what happened.

Paperwork requirements: you must have a written lost / missing child policy to comply with the EYFS. Childcare.co.uk gold members will find a sample policy here –

https://www.childcare.co.uk/childminderpolicies/safeguarding

While written risk assessments are not a requirement of the EYFS, it is important to think through how you keep children safe inside the house, when playing in the garden and taking children on different types of outings to demonstrate to children’s parents, Ofsted and your insurance company (in the event of a serious accident or incident) that you take children’s safety seriously.

Note that it is a requirement of the Childcare Register to have a written Safeguarding / Child Protection Policy and the EYFS states that, as part of safeguarding, you must detail your procedures if a child is lost or missing on an outing or from your premises.

Updating policies: policies and risk assessments should be updated annually and if there are any changes – for example, legislation reviews. You will also want to review and update any documentation relating to incidents after something like this happens, including thinking about whether your procedures worked in practice and what changes you might need to make in the future.

Managing your emotions: it is a stressful time when something goes wrong in a childminding setting. it is important that you look after yourself and draw on your resilience to cope. You might want to reach out to colleagues confidentially or find support within your family.

If you find the incident repeating itself in your head, you might want to consider a visit to your doctor for counselling. Note that, as a childminder, you will need to report any changes in your health to Ofsted.