Safeguarding children below the Prevent threshold

The Children’s Commissioner’s report, Children referred to the Prevent programme, examines the increasing number of children and young people being referred to Prevent and raises significant concerns about what happens when those children do not meet the threshold for further Prevent or Channel intervention.

Published following the Southport Inquiry, the report argues that the existing system is not adequately responding to a growing group of children who may display a fascination or fixation with violence, extreme material or mass-casualty attacks but who do not necessarily subscribe to a clearly identifiable extremist ideology.

A significant increase in referrals involving children

Prevent referrals involving children have increased substantially. In 2024–25, 4,715 children were referred to Prevent, representing 54% of all Prevent referrals in England and Wales. The increase has been driven particularly by referrals involving children aged 11–15.

Significantly, 71% of referrals involved children where no clear ideology was identified. This category included cases where:

• no ideology had been identified;
• there was another susceptibility to radicalisation;
• multiple ideologies were present without a dominant ideology;
• there was a fascination with extreme violence or mass-casualty attacks without another identified ideology.

This challenges traditional assumptions about radicalisation. Professionals may now encounter children whose concerning behaviour is characterised less by commitment to a particular political or religious ideology and more by a broader fascination with violence, harmful online material or extreme communities.

Children can be vulnerable as well as potentially presenting a risk

An important message from the report is that children referred to Prevent should not automatically be regarded as perpetrators or potential terrorists. Many are themselves vulnerable to exploitation.

Professionals interviewed for the report identified factors including bullying, social isolation, difficult or chaotic home circumstances and a desire to belong as potentially increasing children's vulnerability to exploitation and radicalisation.

This reinforces the importance of approaching radicalisation through a child safeguarding lens. Concerning behaviour should prompt consideration not only of the risk a child may pose to others, but also of what may be happening to the child.

Mental health, neurodiversity and autism

The report raises important questions about neurodiversity. However, it also stresses that the available data is poor and conclusions must therefore be treated cautiously.

In 60% of referrals, information concerning mental health or neurodivergence was recorded as unspecified. Of the conditions that were recorded, autism spectrum disorder represented 16%, compared with an estimated prevalence of around 3% among school-aged children.

The report specifically warns against interpreting this as evidence that autism causes violence or extremism. Instead, the report suggests that some autistic children may experience vulnerabilities, including isolation, bullying or exploitation, that could make them more susceptible to harmful influences.

For safeguarding professionals, the important message is that behaviours associated with SEND or neurodivergence must be properly understood and assessed rather than either automatically attributed to the child's condition or automatically interpreted as evidence of radicalisation.

The online environment is increasingly significant

The report identifies the online world as central to understanding contemporary radicalisation and violence fixation among children.

Children may encounter extreme material across different ideologies rather than following a straightforward pathway towards one particular extremist belief system. Algorithms, online communities, messaging platforms, gaming environments and emerging AI technologies such as child-targeted chatbots may contribute to children repeatedly encountering increasingly harmful material.

The report therefore argues that online safety needs to extend beyond simply removing terrorist content. Greater attention needs to be given to how the design and operation of online services, including recommendation algorithms and continuous engagement mechanisms, may expose children to harmful material.

Post referral

The report's most significant safeguarding concern relates to children who are referred to Prevent but receive no subsequent intervention.

Children without an identifiable ideology were particularly unlikely to progress. 86% of referrals involving children with no clear ideology did not progress to panel discussion, compared with 60% of referrals where there was a clear ideology.

This does not necessarily mean that the original concern was unfounded. Instead, the criteria for Prevent were not met.

The difficulty identified by the report is: what happens next?

Education is the largest source of Prevent referrals involving children, accounting for almost 60% of referrals in 2024–25.

The report found that at least 65% of referrals originating from education settings were subsequently referred back to education when the Prevent case was closed. Of those, 93% had never been discussed at panel or progressed further through Prevent.

This creates a significant problem for schools and safeguarding professionals. A school may identify behaviour as sufficiently concerning to warrant a Prevent referral; however, if the concern does not meet Prevent criteria, the case may simply return to the school without specialist intervention being provided.

The report describes a system in which professionals are expressing serious concern about children but can encounter ‘closed doors and dead ends’.

Repeat referrals

Repeated referrals may indicate that professionals continue to have significant concerns but that the underlying needs or risks have not been adequately addressed.

This strengthens the argument for a coordinated multi-agency safeguarding response rather than repeatedly moving a child into and out of Prevent.

The report’s central recommendation is a significant one. Rather than expecting professionals to determine at the outset whether a child's behaviour belongs within Prevent, children about whom there are concerns regarding violence, terrorism, violence fixation or serious harm should enter through a local multi-agency safeguarding pathway.

It proposes that local multi-agency child protection teams should effectively act as a triage or ‘front door’, drawing on counter-terrorism policing expertise where necessary.

Following assessment, the child could then be directed towards the most appropriate response, which might include:

• Prevent and Channel;
• children's social care;
• mental health services;
• youth justice;
• early help;
• specialist interventions addressing violence or harmful behaviour; or
• another safeguarding response.

The report also recommends that Working Together to Safeguard Children should make it clearer that concerns about a child potentially committing violence or harm to others can constitute grounds for a safeguarding referral and support.

Implications for schools and safeguarding professionals

The report has important implications for DSLs and other professionals working with children.

Most importantly, a decision that a child does not meet the threshold for Prevent should never automatically be interpreted as meaning that there is no safeguarding concern.

Professionals should consider the child's behaviour within the wider context and the collective picture of vulnerability, exploitation, online influences, mental health, neurodiversity, family circumstances, peer relationships, and risk to others. They should therefore maintain professional curiosity and continue to assess safeguarding needs where a Prevent referral is closed.

The DSL should consider whether another pathway is required, including children's social care, early help, mental health services, police or other specialist services, in accordance with local safeguarding procedures. A closed referral should not result in the original safeguarding concern disappearing from the child's chronology.

Summary

This is an important report because it identifies problematic gaps between counter-terrorism intervention and child safeguarding.

The report doesn’t argue that Prevent is unnecessary: rather, it concludes that the process is primarily designed to respond to radicalisation and terrorism and cannot be expected to provide the appropriate intervention for every child exhibiting disturbing, violent or extreme behaviour.

The emerging challenge for safeguarding support is the child who may be violence-fixated, vulnerable, exploited or immersed in harmful online environments without subscribing to a clearly identifiable extremist ideology. The report therefore advocates a broader multi-agency safeguarding response in which professionals do not have to decide at the point of referral whether the issue is primarily a ‘Prevent case’, a mental health case, a social care case or a youth justice case.

For schools, the key safeguarding message is clear: a Prevent referral is a safeguarding action, not the end of the safeguarding process. If Prevent closes the case but concerns about the child's welfare, vulnerability or potential to harm themselves or others remain, those concerns still require assessment, intervention and appropriate multi-agency support.

SSS Learning

7 September 2026