We are committed to listening to children, young people, and families. We use their feedback to improve the services we provide. If you are unhappy with a children’s social care service or decision, you have the right to complain.
Page contents
- If you are a parent, carer or guardian
- If you are a child or young person
- What happens next
- Contact our Children's Customer Relations Team
If you are a parent, carer or guardian
Let us know if you're unhappy with the help, care, or service the child is receiving.
If you're making a complaint about a child, you need to be closely involved in their care: like a parent, carer, or someone who supports them. If you're not, we might not be able to look into the complaint.
Talk to someone
Most problems can be sorted out by talking to the social worker the child sees the most, or you could ask to talk to their manager (the person in charge).
Make a complaint online
If that does not work, you can make a complaint by filling in this online form:
Children's Social Care complaint form
For Adoption Services, please go to the Adoption South East website.
Try to make your complaint as soon as you can. If it is about something that happened over a year ago, we might not be able to help.
Need help filling in the form?
If you can’t fill in the form yourself, that’s okay, you can contact us and we will help you.
If you are a child or young person
If you're not happy with the help, care, or service you're getting, please do let us know.
Talk to someone
Most problems can be sorted out by talking to the social worker you see the most, or you could ask to talk to their manager (the person in charge).
How to make a complaint online
If that doesn't work, or you don't want to talk about the issue, you can make your complaint by filling in this online form:
Children's Social Care complaint form
Need help filling in the form?
If you can’t fill in the form yourself, that’s okay, you can contact us and we’ll help you:
- Phone: 01483 519095
- Email: be.heard@surreycc.gov.uk
Try to make your complaint as soon as you can. If it’s about something that happened over a year ago, we might not be able to help.
These are the people who can help you make a complaint:
- your parent or carer
- a legal guardian
- a trusted adult, like a teacher or support worker
- a friend or someone from a helpful group (like a charity or support service).
You can also ask for:
- A translator (if you speak a different language)
- A sign language interpreter (if you use sign language)
If you don't know who to ask to help you make a complaint, you can contact us, and we can find an advocate for you. An advocate is someone who speaks up for you. You can contact us by phone or email:
- Phone: 01483 519095
- Email: be.heard@surreycc.gov.uk
What happens next?
If you have provided us with an email address, we will email you to let you know we have received your complaint.
If you have created a 'Complaint Account' you will be able to:
- track the progress of your complaint
- check for messages from us
- send us messages
- give us more information
- if you are unhappy with our first response to your complaint, you can ask us to take another look (move it to the next stage of the complaints process)
- withdraw your complaint if you no longer want us to look into it for you.
How long does it take?
We will try to sort out the problem quickly. We will let you know if our full response is going to take longer than 10 working days from the date we got your complaint.
After our response
When you get a response from us, if you're still not happy, you can move your complaint to the next stage of the Children's Social Care complaints process.
There are 3 stages to the Children's Social Care complaints process and after the final stage, you can contact the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, who are an independent complaints organisation.
Contact our Children's Customer Relations Team
We can complete the online complaint form with you, offer advice and answer questions about your complaint.
- Telephone: 01483 519095
- Email: be.heard@surreycc.gov.uk
- Postal address: Victoria Gate, Chobham Road, Woking, Surrey GU21 6JD