5.3 Cafcass initial involvement and the safeguarding letter

As Cafcass is involved in family law cases involving children, all C100 applications (where a party is applying for a child arrangement order, prohibited steps or specific issue order) are sent to a Central Intake Team at Cafcass. This triggers the opening of an electronic case file. These cases are then screened by an Early Intervention Team for initial safeguarding, including referring to authorities, if necessary.

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An image of the first page of Form C100.

C100 application form [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]

Cafcass have targets for sending the case to the Early Intervention Team. It can take three weeks or more from submitting an application to Cafcass starting their enquiries. Therefore, it may be useful for volunteers to set realistic expectations about timescales with clients who are making applications. An early intervention officer, who is a trained social worker, will then carry out a series of checks, as follows:

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A step diagram. The first box says criminal records and has sub text saying check if any parent or party has a criminal record. The second step says local authorities and the sub text says contact the local authorities where the child and parents have lived. The third step says interview and the sub text says conduct a safeguarding telephone interview with both parents.

What is a safeguarding telephone interview? The person from Cafcass will have a script and will ask each parent questions about issues such as domestic abuse, substance abuse and mental health. The purpose is to establish whether there are any safeguarding concerns about the child which need to be addressed urgently.

Following the initial safeguarding enquiries, the early intervention officer will then write a safeguarding letter to the parents. This will be a short report on the outcomes of the safeguarding checks and any child welfare issues raised in the telephone interviews with the parents. Cafcass will send this letter via email to both parents separately before the first hearing and file it at court. Here is a copy of the safeguarding letter sent to parents.

Following the safeguarding checks, the local or regional Cafcass teams will pick up the case after the initial safeguarding letter has been sent out.