Interviewing children for the purposes of child protection investigations

This reference manual is primarily for safeguarding children practitioners and managers who have responsibility for investigating child protection concerns where children may be asked to provide information. Experience has shown that child protection enquiries are likely to be compromised by the absence of timely and objective accounts from relevant children, and it is now recognised best practice that children should be seen and spoken to alone (The Victoria Climbié Inquiry (2003), HMSO, recommendation 40).