Child welfare notification

Who are the guidelines for?

This guideline is intended for persons who have a duty to submit a child welfare notification (Child Welfare Act, section 25). The guideline is also intended for a large group of people who may have concerns about a child’s wellbeing and a need to submit a child welfare notification.

Where do I submit a child welfare notification to?

Who has a duty to submit a child welfare notification?

In Finland, the employees of many parties have a duty to submit a child welfare notification if they have in the course of their work discovered that there is a child whose need for care, the circumstances endangering the child’s development or the child’s behaviour require a possible investigation of the need for child welfare.

These parties include

• health and social services and children's daycare
• providers of health and social services
• education services
• youth services
• education or training providers
• police services
• Prison and Probation Service
• fire and rescue services
• parishes
• other religious communities
• reception centres
• units engaged in emergency response centre activities
• units engaged in morning and afternoon activities for schoolchildren
• Finnish Customs
• Finnish Boarder Guard
• enforcement authorities
• Social Insurance Institution of Finland.

You have a duty to submit a child welfare notification if you

• work permanently, for a fixed term or as a substitute for one of the above-mentioned parties
• are in a position of trust in one of the above-mentioned parties
• carry out similar tasks as an independent professional
• are in a principal-contractor relationship with one of the above-mentioned parties
• are a family advisor
• are a health care professional.

The obligation to remain silent does not prevent you from submitting a child welfare notification. You must submit a notification if the child’s situation requires it. (The only exception to this is the seal of the confessional; see the tab Seal of the confessional).

How do I submit a child welfare notification?

You can submit the notification to the wellbeing services county

• By telephone or by visiting the social services
• In writing by using a form (THL’s form in PDF format (in Finnish) can only be printed or saved. Some wellbeing services counties have an electronic form for submitting a child welfare notification on their website.)
• It is not recommended to use unsecured email to submit a child welfare notification because the information is sensitive. If the wellbeing services county provides an appropriate electronic service, you can use this notification method.

You can use the form provided by THL or the wellbeing services county if it makes submitting the notification easier or if you want to ensure that the notification is recorded correctly word for word. However, it is not necessary to use the form. A phone call is also enough. You will find the contact details and more detailed instructions for submitting the notification on the wellbeing services county’s website.
Wellbeing services counties and their municipalities (Ministry of Social Affairs and Health)

 Information to be reported

• the child’s personal data, i.e. name, date of birth, personal identity code, address or other identification data to the extent you know them. You do not need to have all the information available.
• the reason for the notification 
• have the child and/or the person who has custody of the child been informed of the child welfare notification.

To what kind of situations does the duty to make a child welfare notification apply?

A person with notification duty must submit a child welfare notification when they suspect that a child’s possible need for child welfare should be investigated. 
Persons with notification duty (further up on this page)

There may be very different factors behind the notification. For example,

• neglecting the child’s needs
• abandoning the child
• suspected physical or sexual abuse, or a threat of them (duty to notify violence against a child)
• shortcomings in the care of the child
• substance use or mental health problems of the person who has custody of the child, their inability to cope, neglect of their own care
• lack of an everyday safety net if it endangers the child’s wellbeing
• substance use by the child, the child’s mental problems, committing offences as a symptom, self-harming
• serious interaction problems between a parent and the child
• continuous neglect of school attendance
  • if the need for individual student welfare is only due to learning difficulties or factors that impair health in the school environment, it is usually not justified to "delegate" matters to child welfare services
  • the grounds for submitting a child welfare notification are met if the school is unable to secure the child’s school attendance through its own support and student welfare services, and the parents’ attitude is indifferent
• the child’s disproportionate responsibility for the family’s everyday life, for reasons such as a parent’s illness
• a poor financial situation endangering the child’s care or development.

If you are not sure whether a child welfare notification should be submitted, consult the child welfare authority. The most important thing is to submit the notification without delay, for example by calling the wellbeing services county’s service number. Social welfare professionals assess whether the notification leads to urgent measures and whether an assessment of the need for services should be initiated.

Do not skip the notification even if you think someone else has already submitted it. Also, do not skip the notification even if you know that the family is already a child welfare client. A new notification or several notifications help to perceive the overall situation better.

Can the notification be submitted anonymously?

If you have a duty to notify, you cannot submit the notification anonymously. The person who has custody of the child and/or the child have the right to know who submitted the notification.

If you do not have a duty to submit a child welfare notification on the basis of your work, you can submit it anonymously. If a social welfare employee knows your identity, they cannot promise that the information will not be disclosed to the child and the person who has custody of the child. As a rule, they have the right to know who has submitted the child welfare notification. However, there are situations where the disclosure of a private individual’s identity could endanger the child’s best interest or the safety of the notifier. The best interests of the child may be compromised, for example, if a person close to the child submits a child welfare notification, and disclosing the notifier’s personal details would result in this important relationship breaking up. Other possible reasons for non-disclosure may include the threat of violence or other countermeasures. The notifier can then be protected.

Restricting the right of access to information of a party and other person involved in the matter (in Finnish)

If the identity of the person who submitted the notification is not disclosed, the social services employee must record the grounds for the non-disclosure.

(Act on the Openness of Government Activities, section 11, subsection 2)

Must the person who has custody of the child or the child be told about submitting the child welfare notification?

If you are concerned about something in the child’s situation, you should bring it up with them as soon as it comes up. Where possible, you should discuss the child welfare notification and the reason for the notification with the child and/or the person who has custody of the child in advance. In addition, the possibility to contact social services together must be taken into account. It is also important to inform the persons who have custody of the child of the duty to make a child welfare notification. A child welfare notification does not mean that work with the family must not or cannot be continued. Instead, it is very much encouraged.

However, there is no absolute guideline on having the discussion. Instead, action should be taken as required by the situation. In urgent situations, the notification must always be submitted immediately, even if it has not been possible to discuss the matter in advance. Submitting the notification must not be unduly delayed in other situations, either.

There are also special situations in which submitting the notification must not be discussed in advance. If you suspect that the child has been physically or sexually abused at home, contact child welfare services and the police without discussing it with the child or the person who has custody of the child. Initially, you can also consult the authorities without revealing the child’s identity.
When suspicions of violence arise (in Finnish)

In some individual cases, disclosing information could risk the intended purpose of child welfare. For example, the family and relatives may take the child out of the country or try to prevent the investigation of the need for child welfare. In this case, it is possible not to disclose information.
Restricting the right of access to information of a party and other person involved in the matter (in Finnish)

How and where is the information concerning the notification recorded?

When the child welfare notification has been received in child welfare, it is recorded in the social welfare client register. Instructions for recording the notifications in child welfare are provided in the Kanta services handbook Kanta-palvelujen käsikirja sosiaalihuollon toimijoille (yhteistyötilat.fi) (in Finnish). Notifications received over the telephone are also recorded.
(Child Welfare Act, section 25b)

Child welfare workers must record the following information in the child’s client documents from the moment the client relationship is initiated

• all information affecting child welfare measures and
• the information necessary for the planning, implementation and monitoring of the measures

(Child Welfare Act, section 33)

The notifier also records in the child’s documents the information about having submitted the notification and its content if it is relevant to this party’s activities or to organising the service that the child is entitled to.

In healthcare, the entry is made in the child’s medical records. When the notification has been submitted from health and social services for adults, the information about the child welfare notification is entered only if it is relevant to the adult’s service or care relationship.

What happens after the child welfare notification?

First, the child welfare social worker or other child welfare worker assesses whether the child needs urgent child protection. They also assess whether it is necessary to carry out an assessment of the need for services and investigate the need for child welfare.

The notifier does not have the right to receive confidential information from child welfare as a result of having submitted the notification.

Contacting social services to assess the need for support

A person with notification duty may instead of submitting a child welfare notification contact social services together with the child or the parent. The county-specific notification forms and contact information can be found on the websites of the wellbeing services counties.

If a person with notification duty contacts social welfare together with the parties concerned, the person does not need to submit a separate child welfare notification on the same matter.

However, if it is not possible or appropriate to contact social welfare together with the parent (e.g., because the situation is urgent), the person with notification duty must submit a child welfare notification. A child welfare notification must also be submitted without delay if the parties concerned do not want to contact social welfare and the criteria laid down in section 25 of the Child Welfare Act are met.

How is social welfare contacted?

Social welfare can be contacted notwithstanding the provisions on secrecy.

A precondition for contacting is that

1. contact is made without delay, and
2. in connection with the contact, the person with notification duty reports the reasons that have led to contacting.

The parent with whom contact is made has custody of the child. If one of the parents does not have custody of the child, confidential information concerning the child or the other parent cannot be disclosed to them.

When a child welfare matter is initiated, an effort must always be made to cooperate with the child and the parents. The underlying idea is that contacting child welfare together in mutual understanding with the child and the child’s parents will secure cooperation and the continuity of services better in the future.