You've overhead a child disclosure. Do you have enough to act?
What a Coaching Scenario is
Not quiz style. This is judgement practice — you're put inside a real situation from human-services work and asked what you would actually do. It draws on the knowledge you use on the job, not the kind you can look up.
Every choice changes what happens next, and every choice gets a coaching beat straight after it: what drew you toward that option, and how it played out. What's held back is the verdict on your path, so you stay with what you'd genuinely do rather than working out what you're supposed to say.
- 4 decisions
- Each one shaped by the one before it. No two paths through are the same.
- Coaching as you go
- A beat after every decision, naming the pull behind your choice and where it led.
- A full debrief
- Your whole path replayed at the end, with the reasoning behind each decision you made.
- Evidence you can keep
- A completed scenario is recorded in your PracticeLab and appears in your downloadable ProofKit.
Scenarios are made to be talked about. Most people finish one still turning it over, which makes them a ready-made prompt for supervision, a team meeting or a conversation with a colleague — everyone walks the same situation, and comparing where you each landed is often where the real learning happens.
This one ends with
Next time you're uncertain whether something meets the threshold for a child protection concern, remember: the threshold is concern, not certainty — and your job is to report what you observed, not to investigate.
The situation
You are a client services worker at a community organisation that runs after-school programmes for tamariki aged 6–12. It's a busy Thursday afternoon, and you're moving through the activity room tidying up when you hear two children talking quietly near the bookshelf. One of them — Claudia, a nine-year-old who has been coming to the programme for about three months — says clearly: "My uncle gets angry and hurts me." The other child looks startled and doesn't reply.
Claudia glances up and sees you. Her expression shifts immediately. She picks up a book and starts talking about something else entirely, as if the sentence was never said. The other child wanders off. You slow your movements and stay calm, but your heart rate has picked up. What you heard was brief, unguarded, and now apparently withdrawn.
You know Claudia a little — she's generally quiet but engaged in programme activities. You haven't had specific concerns about her before today. You also know that your organisation has a child protection policy, and that there are people and agencies you are supposed to contact when you have concerns. What you don't know is whether what you just overheard is enough, or what your next move should be.
The next few minutes will matter. How you respond — and what you do after — will shape whether Claudia gets help, and whether the process that follows is safe and fair.
What you're practising
Before you start, notice
Real-world decisions in scenarios like this are shaped as much by feeling as by reasoning. People often notice one of these pulls — naming what you feel before you decide is half the skill.
- Uncertainty about whether what you heard is 'enough' — and the urge to gather more information before acting
- Protectiveness toward Claudia — and the worry that involving agencies could make things worse for her
- The pull to handle it quietly in-house rather than escalate and seem like you're overreacting
- Discomfort with sitting in ambiguity — the wish for a clear, definitive sign before you move
Policies this draws on
- Children's Act 2014 (NZ)
- Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 (NZ)
- Your organisation's child protection policy
- Te Arotahi — Oranga Tamariki Practice Framework
- Your own organisation's policies take precedence — check them where they apply.
Heads up — coaching scenarios work differently. You'll make a sequence of decisions as the situation unfolds, and after each one you'll get a coaching beat: what drew you toward that choice, and how it played out. The one thing held back is the verdict on the path you took — that lands in the debrief at the end, with your whole walk replayed alongside it.
New to Good Practice Hub? Coaching Scenarios come with PracticeLab Pro, or browse the practice library to see what else is there.
More Coaching Scenarios
See the whole library
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Coaching ScenarioLooking beyond the crisis
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