Escalation is not a paper exercise – it is about a culture of professional challenge, resilience and consultation.

The Escalation policy aims to give frontline professionals and managers the support to not only raise their professional concerns, but also to follow them up – seeking second opinions and expert consultation, calling professionals’ meetings and working with colleagues across the partnership to explore complex and perplexing situations.

The Escalation Policy explains how concerns and cases should be escalated to the Lambeth Safeguarding Children Partnership (LSCP) and how any issues with the application of thresholds should be resolved. 

It is for use by all partners in relation to inter-agency issues, so the same timescales and escalation period should apply across all agencies (although it should be noted that the structural hierarchies may be slightly different in different organisations).