The report by the independent Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, which advises the government, raises concerns over potential harm to children who “have never been to school” and have been kept “away from wider society”.
“For these children, a national register may make a difference,” says their report.
“Children at risk of harm may disclose abuse to a known person. This can be a relative, a teacher, a nurse, a doctor, or trusted adult,” it states.
However, it warns that “children educated at home may not have access to people working in universal services that can act to protect and help them.”
The advice from the Panel comes six months after the government told MPs that it “remains committed” to implementing a EHE register, even though it was not included in the last King’s Speech.
For their study the Panel spoke to safeguarding partnership representatives, who detailed a raft of concerns around the safety of home-schooled children. This includes examples “where a parent has sometimes either challenged or evaded professionals as a way of steering attention away from what is happening in their children’s lives”.
Contact with home school families also varies nationwide, the partnerships warn, as there is no legislation or guidance to give EHE workers regular access to home-schooled children.
While some areas visits are offered, some only offer online meetings, or make contact by telephone or email online.
In some cases, there was “intentional misuse” of online meetings by parents, “so that the visibility of what was happening to children was greatly reduced”.
Partnerships also told the Panel they are concerned around a lack of “access to safe places and opportunities” where children “can talk openly about their lives and, when necessary, disclose abuse”.
The Panel concludes that “the evidence presented” for its report “reinforces the need for a statutory register so that relevant statutory organisations know which children are being home educated”.
While their report acknowledges “this will not of itself protect children” it “will help safeguarding agencies to have better local knowledge about this group of children”.
