Records & plans
What is a low-level concern record?
A low-level concern record captures behaviour by an adult that is inconsistent with expected conduct but falls below the threshold for a referral. Recording them is how patterns become visible.
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<img src="https://careoptix.co.uk/glossary/concern-record/diagram.svg" alt="low-level concern record — diagram from CareOptix" width="880" height="620" loading="lazy">
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<a href="https://careoptix.co.uk/glossary/concern-record">What is a low-level concern record?</a> — diagram by
<a href="https://careoptix.co.uk">CareOptix</a>
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</figure>Individually these concerns mean very little, which is why they go unrecorded and why patterns are missed. A pattern across months is a different thing from any of its parts.
Recording is not accusing. The record is that something was noticed, and the purpose is to allow a picture to form rather than to start a process.
Where concerns do reach the threshold, the route is to the local authority designated officer rather than through an internal investigation.
In practice
A member of staff who is slightly too informal with one child.
Nothing has happened. There is no allegation and nobody wants to damage a colleague over a feeling.
Low-level concerns exist precisely for this: a place to record something that is not a referral so that a pattern, if there is one, becomes visible to somebody rather than living in four people's unease.
The cases that go badly are almost always preceded by several of these that nobody wrote down.
What goes wrong in practice
- Concerns held informally by a manager rather than recorded.
- Treated as a disciplinary step, which discourages anyone from raising them.
- Never reviewed as a set, so no pattern is ever seen.