What Do You Do If a Foster Child Tells You About Abuse?

A child in your care might tell you something no one else knows. Maybe it slips out at bath time, or on the walk back from school. You don’t need the perfect words ready. You need to know what happens next, and that you won’t be doing it alone.

This is what social workers call a disclosure: a child telling you, in their own way, about abuse or neglect, past or present. It can come out as a full sentence or half of one. It can come out sideways, through a drawing or a throwaway comment during a game of cards.

What Does It Actually Look Like?

It rarely looks like a conversation you’d plan for.

A ten-year-old might mention it while you’re doing the washing up. A teenager might text it to you from her bedroom, three doors down. A five-year-old might act it out with a teddy bear instead of saying it in words.

None of that makes it less real. Believe what the child tells you, and let them see that you believe them.

How Do You Respond in the Moment?

Stay calm. Put your phone down. Turn off the television.

Don’t look shocked, even if you feel it. A child watching your face for a reaction can read alarm as anger, and shut down.

Let them talk at their own pace. Don’t fill the silences for them. If they stop, wait. Say “tell me more” or “what happened then”, not “why didn’t you say something sooner?”

Never promise to keep it secret. Say something like this instead: “I’m really glad you told me. I might need to talk to someone else so they can help keep you safe, but you won’t get in trouble for anything you’ve told me.”

Tell them plainly that it isn’t their fault. Children carry blame that was never theirs to carry, and hearing that said out loud matters more than you’d think.

Understanding how to properly hear what a child is telling you, in their words and not yours, is a skill in itself. The NSPCC has written more on how to hear and facilitate the voice of the child, and it’s worth reading before you ever need it.

What Do You Do Once the Conversation Ends?

If the child is in immediate danger, call 999. That comes before anything else.

Otherwise:

• Call your supervising social worker as soon as the conversation is over. If it’s out of hours, use the agency’s emergency number. Don’t wait until morning because it feels like a better time.
• Write down what was said while it’s still fresh. Note the date, the time, where you were, and the child’s own words as closely as you can remember them. Stick to what was said and what you saw, and leave your own theories out of it. It’s the same discipline as everyday recording as a foster carer, just with higher stakes.
• Don’t speak to the person the child has named. However tempting it feels to confront them, it can put the child at greater risk and get in the way of a police investigation.
• Don’t investigate it yourself. That part isn’t your job, and trying to do it can do more harm than good.

What If the Child Doesn’t Use the Right Words?

Children rarely tell you in the way training scenarios suggest they will.

A child might say something confusing, or contradict a detail the next time they mention it. That doesn’t mean they’re lying. Memory under stress is patchy, and children often test the water with a smaller detail before they risk the bigger one.

Some children show you rather than tell you, through a change in sleep, in eating, in how they play. The reasons behind a change in behaviour are usually easier to understand once you know what sits underneath it. Watch for that as carefully as you listen for words.

What If You Get It Wrong?

You might say the wrong thing. Most carers do, at some point.

You are not expected to be a trained interviewer. You are expected to listen, believe, and pass it on to people whose job it is to investigate. That’s the whole of it.

Think of your role as the calm room a child walks into, not the detective working out what happened in it. Getting the tone right matters far more than getting every word right.

What Happens After You Report It?

Your supervising social worker passes what you’ve recorded to the child’s own social worker. From there it usually goes to the local authority’s safeguarding team, who decide whether it meets the threshold for a formal investigation.

That might mean the police get involved. It might mean a strategy meeting, where everyone who knows the child sits down together and decides what happens next. It might, in some cases, mean nothing further happens straight away, because there isn’t enough to act on yet. That last outcome is hard to sit with, but it doesn’t mean you did anything wrong by reporting it.

You’re usually kept informed of what’s happening with the child in your home, even if you’re not told every detail of the investigation itself. Knowing what a child in your care is entitled to throughout this process helps you ask the right questions if you’re ever unsure. Ask your supervising social worker directly if anything is unclear.

You Will Not Be Doing This on Your Own

This is one of the moments fostering asks the most of you, and it’s also one where you’re least alone.

Your supervising social worker is there for exactly this: a phone call away, day or night, and looking after a small enough number of families to actually know yours. Fostering Hearts keeps that ratio to around six families per worker, not sixty.

You’ll get support before you’re approved, through Skills to Foster training on safer caring and safeguarding. You’ll get support after, from a team that has had this call before and knows what to ask and what to leave until later.

If you ever want a second opinion outside your own agency, the NSPCC Helpline (0808 800 5000, weekdays, 10am to 4pm) is there for any adult worried about a child. Childline (0800 1111) is there for the child too, any time, day or night, if they ever want to talk to someone else.

None of this is designed to test you. It’s there because a child telling the truth to someone for the first time deserves a steady adult, backed by people who’ve done this before.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to report everything a child tells me, even small things?

Yes. Pass on anything a child tells you that touches on their safety, however minor it sounds. Your supervising social worker would rather hear ten things that turn out to be nothing than miss the one that mattered.

What if the child made it up?

Treat what you’re told as true until someone whose job it is to investigate says otherwise. Children very rarely invent abuse. Even when details are confused or change slightly between tellings, that’s usually memory under stress, not deceit.

What if I’m the one being accused?

If a child says something about you or another member of your household, your agency has a separate process for that, and you’ll be supported through it. Speak to your supervising social worker straight away rather than trying to manage it alone.

Can I ask the child follow-up questions?

Keep it light. “Tell me more” or “what happened next” is enough. Avoid specific, leading questions such as “did they touch you here”, because that’s a job for a trained interviewer, not you, and it can affect any later investigation.

Will the child know what I’ve written down?

Not usually, though older children sometimes ask. Be honest that you’re keeping a record and who it goes to. Hiding that you’re writing anything down tends to damage trust more than being upfront about it.