Guidance

Prevent leads: your role under Prevent

Published 19 October 2026

Applies to England

About Prevent

Prevent is part of the UK government’s Counter-terrorism strategy (CONTEST) 2023. Prevent aims to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.

Your role

As a professional working in a mental health service, Prevent sits alongside your safeguarding responsibilities to your patients and the public, as well as being a legal requirement for NHS trusts and foundation trusts as set out in section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015.

As Prevent lead, your role is to:

• act as your organisation’s main Prevent contact, collaborating with staff to identify radicalisation concerns and support referrals
• act as the main liaison with the police, Channel panels and other local agencies involved in Prevent
• ensure your organisation has a Prevent policy outlining roles and expectations. At a minimum, it should signpost required training, important local contacts (including the Prevent lead) and the national referral form, which you can download from the Get help for radicalisation concerns guidance page
• provide quarterly updates to your organisation’s board and regular updates to your Channel panel chair

When you should consider making a referral

If you believe there is an immediate or high-risk threat, call 999 straight away.

You should be aware that radicalisation can take many different forms, and anyone, regardless of background, can be susceptible. A referral should be made if there is concern that a person may be at risk of becoming a terrorist or supporting terrorism.

Each person should be considered on a case-by-case basis using the government guidance below and your professional judgement. Like any safeguarding mechanism, it is far better to receive a referral that turns out not to be of concern than for someone who genuinely needs support to be missed.

You should support your colleagues to consider people on a case-by-case basis, taking into account all available information, and follow the Notice, check, share framework.

There is no established causal link between having a mental health condition and radicalisation. Mental health conditions should be considered alongside all other aspects of someone’s personal context, including their:

• background
• social circumstances
• childhood experiences
• personal experiences

Likewise, there is no established causal link between neurodivergence and radicalisation. Although neurodivergence and mental health conditions can co-occur, they are distinct.

Mental health conditions and/or neurodivergence can impact ‘push’ or ‘pull’ factors towards radicalisation susceptibility.

You should always refer cases where there are Prevent concerns, even if there are other safeguarding services already involved or where other safeguarding services are also required.

Prevent is the only programme that offers multi-agency radicalisation risk management and support, and can run alongside and complement other safeguarding processes. Prevent will assess terrorism risk and consider both the harm from - as well as to - the person.

Staff within your organisation may seek your advice. Ensure you provide appropriate guidance and discuss the case with them as needed.

For further guidance on making referrals, you should refer to the Key principles of Prevent and ‘Get help for radicalisation concerns’ guidance, and your organisation’s Prevent training.

Process for making a referral

If your colleague decides to make a referral, support them in completing the national referral form, which you can download from the ‘Get help for radicalisation concerns’ guidance page.

Make sure the form describes the specific reasons why there is concern that the person could be at risk of being radicalised and explain why.

When complete, send the form to your local counter-terrorism policing contact.

Whether a referral is made or not, ensure your colleagues make a record of the rationale in the patient care record. Remind colleagues that consent for referral should be sought from the person where possible - however, not receiving consent should never be a reason not to refer if you have a concern.

Next steps

Once a referral is submitted to Prevent, it is assessed by specialist police officers who determine whether there are reasonable grounds to suspect that a person is susceptible to becoming a terrorist or supporting terrorism. This is called a ‘gateway assessment’. You may be asked to facilitate the sharing of appropriate and proportionate information to support this process.

Once multi-agency information gathering is complete, if a case passes the gateway assessment, the Channel panel discusses whether the person should be adopted onto Channel and receive tailored support to reduce their susceptibility to being radicalised into terrorism. The Channel panel considers the level of risk and the types of support that may be appropriate.

It is part of your role to ensure that mental health expertise feeds into this process, providing insights that other agencies may not be able to offer. Ensure that your organisation is represented on every Channel panel you are requested to be part of. If you do not have the relevant expertise yourself, it is part of your role to make sure that more appropriate colleagues are able to attend or contribute in some other meaningful way.

For adopted cases, a support plan will be developed based on the panel’s discussion.

Ensure that all actions assigned to your organisation are completed promptly and recorded appropriately in the patient care record. This may include:

• obtaining consent
• gathering supporting information
• arranging or helping to arrange mental health or neurodevelopmental assessments
• facilitating treatment pathways