Practitioners can wrestle with issues of what constitutes neglect and when to refer or escalate concerns.

Neglect is fully defined in Working Together to Safeguard Children (2023) as the persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical and/or psychological needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of the child’s health or development. Neglect may occur during pregnancy as a result of maternal substance abuse. Once a child is born, neglect may involve a parent or carer failing to:

• provide adequate food, clothing, and shelter (including exclusion from home or abandonment)
• protect a child from physical and emotional harm or danger
• ensure adequate supervision (including the use of inadequate caregivers)
• ensure access to appropriate medical care or treatment

It may also include neglect of, or unresponsiveness to, a child’s basic emotional needs.

More detailed definitions of neglect include the six classifications of neglect outlined by Horwath (2007):

• medical neglect - when a child is denied medical or dental care, to treat or prevent an illness or condition, for example a parent or carer minimising or denying a child’s needs, ignoring or refusing recommendations and failing to seek medical attention
• nutritional neglect – when a child is provided with inadequate calories for normal growth or to thrive (failure to develop physically or psychologically) or when childhood obesity occurs due to provision of an unhealthy diet
• emotional neglect – when a child doesn't get the nurture they need to respond to their basic emotional needs and to form secure and positive attachments for example they are ignored, humiliated, or isolated by their parent or carer
• physical neglect – when a child's basic needs associated with food, clothing, hygiene, and shelter are not met, for example a parent or carer not providing appropriate clothing, food, cleanliness and living conditions
• lack of supervision and guidance – when a child is not provided with adequate guidance and supervision to protect them from harm, for example a parent or carer leaving a child to cope alone, abandoning them, or leaving them with inappropriate carers, or failing to provide appropriate boundaries about behaviours such as under-age sexual activity or alcohol use
• educational neglect – when a child is not given access to education or a stimulating environment, for example a parent or carer failing to provide a stimulating environment, show an interest in the child’s education at school, support their learning, or respond to any special needs, as well as failing to comply with state requirements regarding school attendance