Procedure for a Lost Child

Onsite

1. All registers must be marked correctly including the time of arrival and departure, children visiting for extra sessions and kept on the age appropriate clip board in the nursery room. Head counts should be recorded daily.

2. all doors which should be locked should be kept closed at all times and alarmed where possible.

3. If at any time a child is unaccounted for, stay calm and instigate a search of the immediate environment.

4. Staff should ensure the safety of the remaining children by keeping calm. Care and supervision of these children must be of the utmost importance whilst any search is being carried out.

5. Report incident to senior member of staff who will contact Children’s Centre Manager at once.

6. Management and senior staff to check the premises thoroughly, including classrooms, cupboards, security gates, gardens, lavatories, pram shed and play house.

7. One or more members of staff to be delegated to check local roads and parks.

8. Inform Police and seek advice on the next course of action.

9. Parents to be contacted, after discussion with police. Contact should be made by the most senior member of staff on duty.

10. Re-check all venues and report incident in book.

11. Ofsted should be informed and a full report written up.

Check by phone and/or mobile all adults – first staff and then parents – who have recently left the premises

Offsite

Ensure that when children are taken offsite they are wearing wrist reins and a yellow visible jacket, children should be signed out on the register, staff must retain a 1-2 ratio and stay with their designated 2 at all times. They should be informed that they must only talk to the staff from the nursery or venue they are visiting.

1. A search of the area should be made by staff. Staff should stay calm and ensure that the children are appropriately supervised while any search is being carried out.

2. Contact should be made with any lost child point and a description of the child left with the staff at that point.

3. Staff should contact the nursery and inform a senior member of staff about any lost child and the action that they have taken.

4. Once a search of the area has been made and a child has not been found, or is not at the lost children site, or other designated meeting point, contact should be made with the police and they should be informed about the situation and their advice sought.

5. Once advice has been obtained from the police contact should be made again with the nursery and the outcome of the information received from the police discussed with a senior member of staff e.g. Nursery Manager Etc.

6. Any contact with parents about this situation will be made via the centre office.

7. Following the incident Ofsted must be informed and a thorough investigation carried into how we could prevent another incident from occurring again. This will include a review of the initial risk assessment that was carried out.

© 2010