Page contents
Introduction
Return to main health practitioner page
Specialist services – such as therapeutic services, psychological or psychiatric assessments, sexual violence or exploitation services, and other trauma‑informed interventions – often hold highly sensitive and contextual information about a child and their experiences. This information can be critical for safeguarding and assessment, but it must be shared and used with particular care.
The information is often gathered for a therapeutic, clinical or support purpose, rather than for investigation or statutory assessment. Records may include reflections, hypotheses, formulation notes, or material shared by the child (or adult) in a context of trust and emotional safety. Taken out of context, or shared without explanation, such information may be misunderstood, over‑interpreted, or experienced as intrusive or distressing, and may risk causing further harm. Therefore, while it important to share relevant information from records kept by specialist services, in general this information should be shared in summary form.
Where information from specialist services is shared as part of a multi‑agency assessment or safeguarding response, this should usually focus on:
- key professional conclusions or opinions, rather than raw notes or verbatim records
- identified risks or protective factors that are relevant to safeguarding decisions
- the impact of harm on the child’s behaviour, wellbeing or functioning, where this helps other agencies understand vulnerability or need
- recommendations for support, safety planning or reasonable adjustments
- clear professional analysis explaining what the information means in practice, and any limits to its reliability.
Wherever possible, information should be shared in the form of summaries or reports, rather than full therapy notes or session records, and should be clearly linked to the safeguarding purpose for which it is being shared.
It will rarely be necessary or appropriate to share:
- verbatim therapy notes or session transcripts
- speculative hypotheses, unfinished formulation work, or practitioner reflections
- details recorded primarily for therapeutic processing rather than safeguarding
- information that has no direct relevance to identifying risk, supporting protection, or meeting the child’s needs.
Sharing such material increases the risk of misinterpretation and may undermine the child’s trust in practitioners or their willingness to engage with support.
Practitioners should be aware that therapy notes are treated differently from other types of safeguarding information within the criminal justice system, and that their disclosure engages specific legal and ethical considerations. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has published Pre‑Trial Therapy guidance (most recently updated 2022), including principles for obtaining, reviewing and disclosing therapy records in cases involving child sexual abuse.
The CPS guidance makes clear that:
- access to therapy should not be delayed or withheld because of criminal proceedings
- therapy notes should only be sought where they form a reasonable line of enquiry, not as a matter of routine
- requests for therapy notes should be specific and proportionate, and not speculative
- consideration must be given to the potential impact on the victim, and to data protection and privacy obligations.
If you are involved in sharing information when criminal investigations are ongoing, familiarise themselves with the CPS guidance and ensure that any sharing of information from therapy is lawful, necessary, proportionate and clearly justified.