Children’s Commissioner, Children referred to the Prevent programme (August 2026)
The Children’s Commissioner has published a report examining what happens to children referred to the Prevent programme. the report finds that rising numbers of children are being referred to Prevent, but the majority do not progress to receive an intervention, exposing a significant gap in the system’s ability to support children at risk.
Details
Drawing on published statistics, new data obtained using the Commissioner’s statutory data powers, and interviews with professionals and individuals with experience of the programme, the key findings of the report are summarised below:
- Prevent referrals for children have risen substantially, growing from under 3,000 a year in 2016 to over 4,700 in 2024-25 (p. 6).
- Children now make up more than half (54%) of all Prevent referrals (p. 6). The increase is mainly driven by the 11 to 15-year-old age group (p. 14).
- The majority of children referred do not have a specific ideology. Almost three quarters (71%) of referrals for children in 2024-25 had no clear ideology identified (p. 15).
- A higher proportion of children (7.1%) than adults (3.8%) fell under the category of ‘fascination with extreme violence or mass casualty attacks where no other ideology’ (p. 15).
- Of the 4,715 children referred to Prevent between April 2024 and March 2025, 79% did not have their case progressed to panel. Only 21% were discussed at panel and 18% were adopted by Channel (p. 7).
- Children with no clear ideology were more likely to have their case closed without being discussed at panel (86%) compared to those with a clear ideology (60%) (p. 7).
- Almost 60% of referrals came from education, followed by the police (20%) and local authorities (11%) (p. 22).
- At least 65% of referrals from education providers were referred back to education on closing, 93% of which were never discussed at panel (p. 26).
- In the period between April 2016 and March 2025, 9% of children (1,136) were referred at least twice, and 1.5% of children (187) were referred three or more times (p. 27).
- Data on children’s mental health and neurodiversity was poor: 60% of referrals had this information recorded as ‘unspecified’. Where recorded, autism spectrum disorder accounted for 16% of conditions, significantly higher than the estimated 3% prevalence rate among school-aged children (p. 18).
- Professionals interviewed for the report described a system in which referrals were frequently closed with little or no feedback, leaving referring organisations unclear about why a case had not progressed or what support the child should receive instead (pp. 24-25).
- Children referred to Prevent are often vulnerable to exploitation, with professionals drawing parallels to children at risk of county lines involvement and child sexual exploitation (p. 17).
The report makes 12 recommendations grouped under four themes: tackling online drivers of harm (including restricting children’s access to platforms that cannot demonstrate adequate protections), establishing a new pathway for children at risk of committing violence (including joint statutory guidance from the Home Office and Department for Education requiring referral to multi-agency child protection teams), improving health responses (including specific mental health strategy provisions for children), and improving data (including rolling out a consistent childhood identifier) (pp. 8-10).
Commentary
This report is directly relevant to practitioners representing children in the youth justice system and those involved in safeguarding work. Its central finding — that the majority of children referred to Prevent do not progress to receive an intervention and are frequently referred back to the organisation that raised the concern — speaks to a significant gap in the multi-agency response to children at risk. For practitioners, the report provides authoritative evidence that can be used to challenge inadequate safeguarding responses where a child’s concerning behaviour has been flagged but no meaningful support has followed. The recommendation that referrals should be routed through local multi-agency child protection teams, rather than relying solely on Prevent, reflects a growing consensus that a safeguarding-first approach is needed for children who are fixated on violence but do not have a fixed ideology. Preventive work and the provision of adequate training resources to education and health professionals and others who might refer children are key aspects of such an approach, and youth justice practitioners can play an important role in this.
The report’s findings on the over-representation of children with autism spectrum disorder among referrals, and the poor quality of data on children’s mental health needs, also underline the importance of ensuring that neurodiversity and mental health are properly assessed and addressed in any intervention. Practitioners should be aware of this report when advising on cases involving Prevent referrals, when making representations about a child’s vulnerability and safeguarding needs, and when pressing agencies to provide the support that a child requires.