Shielding
ContactPoint has the facility to hide or ‘shield’ data from ContactPoint users. This is a safeguarding process intended to prevent the whereabouts of a child being legitimately disclosed to someone who may pose a threat to that child’s safety or security.
A record that becomes shielded will only show the ContactPoint unique identity number, the child’s or young person’s name, gender and their date of birth. In a shielded record, all address details and professional involvement details will be hidden. This process will be used when a practitioner has reason to believe that not doing so is likely to:
- place a child at increased risk of significant harm;
- place an adult at risk of significant harm;
- prejudice the prevention or detection of a serious crime; or
- in the case of adoption, put a child’s placement at risk.
The Local Safeguarding Children’s Board have contacted all partners and provided guidance for them to identify requests by assessing children receiving services from them on a case-by-case basis. Services are required to add these steps into their existing safeguarding procedures and shielding will be an ongoing process.
The DCSF are providing national and regional communications to the public, and local authorities will target communications to vulnerable groups. Where possible this will be done through professionals working with children and families. A shielding panel has been set up to assess requests directly from the public.
Shielding is not unique to ContactPoint and it is already in place in a number of systems. As a local authority, we have shielded the relevant records of children or young people resident in Devon or that are the accountability of Devon County Council before making the database available to other organisations.
Associated documents
| Format | Title | Date |
|---|---|---|
 |
ContactPoint Shielding Fact sheet | January 2010 |
|
ContactPoint Shielding Guidance | July 2008 |
|
ContactPoint Shielding FAQ’s- Practitioners | December 2008 |
|
ContactPoint Shielding FAQ’s- Public | March 2009 |
