A brief outline of current legislation, guidelines, policies and procedures within own UK Home Nation affecting the safeguarding of children and young people. Safeguarding means to protect and promote what is best for the welfare of the child and ensuring that there are sufficient measures in place to prevent the child coming into contact with abuse or an abusive situation. Child protection is protecting a child where there is reasonable belief that the child may have suffered or may be at high risk of suffering as a result of abuse.
As a teaching assistant, you have to be aware of signs of possible abuse, neglect and bullying; to whom you should report any concerns or suspicions; the school’s child protection policy and procedures; the school’s
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• E-safety and the ways to ensure that the potential for abuse is removed
• Bullying of any child or young person, including cyber-bullying
A wide variety of legislation, statutory guidance, policies and procedures support the safety and welfare of children and young people. This includes policies relating to health and wellbeing, safety and security, personal care and individual rights. The legislation and guidance has been developed over a number of years in response to:
• The recognition of rights of children as individuals with their own entitlements.
• An increased focus on the need to protect vulnerable children and young people.
• Independent enquiries into the tragic deaths of children, most notably the Laming Report on the death of Victoria Climbié in
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In England these reviews are called serious case reviews (SCRs). In Wales they are called child practice reviews, in Northern Ireland they are known as case management reviews and in Scotland, significant case reviews.
SCRs are undertaken when a child or young person dies (this will include if the death is a suspected suicide), and there is the suspicion or knowledge that abuse or neglect is known to be a factor in the death. Under chapter 8 of the paper Working Together to Safeguard Children (2006), the objective of the SCR is to:
• “Establish what lessons are to be learned from the case about the way in which local professionals and organisations work individually and together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children of children and young people.
• Identify clearly what those lessons are both within and between the agencies, how and within what timescales they will be acted on, and what is expected to change as a result.
• Improve intra- and inter-agency working and better safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people. ”
SCR’s will also be conducted if any of the following is the
This essay aims to explore the characteristics that make a good quality social work assessment in child care. Martin (2010) stated that there was “no single agreed definition of social work assessment.” Coulshed and Orme (2006, p24) did not offer a formal definition but they described assessment as “…a basis for planning what needs to be done to maintain, improve or bring about change in the person, the environment or both.” According to the Maclean and Harrison (2015) good assessments must be “purposeful and timely.” This is because practitioners need to be clear about why they are carrying out assessments and what it is they wish to achieve at the end of that assessment.
In this essay, the researcher will explore what a ‘looked after child’ is and the current system for LAC in the UK. This includes legislation, Policy and, statistics on LAC in the UK. As well as, this essay will include why children looked after by the local authority, why do they end up with the local authority, the impact of child abuse and neglect on children, young people and their families, and lastly other issues/perceptions surrounded around children and young people who are ‘looked after’.
P1: To outline why children and young people may need to be looked after away from their families.
Legislations are laws derived from current government policies and outlines rules and principles that everybody must follow. (Peteiro et al, 2017) There are multiple, current, legalisation that have been created in regards to the safeguarding of children and adults. The Data Protection Act of 1998, for instance, was created as a way to control how organisations use personal information. In a health and social care setting, the Data protection act ensures that personal information about individuals will be kept confidential and not misused. The act gives service users the right to determine how their personal data is used and who it is used by to prevent the risk of the information not being private and being put at risk for abuse. (Peteiro et al, 2017) This includes things such as date of birth, national insurance number and medical history. If certain personal information is not protected, then it puts the individual at risk of harm, or abuse. The Data Protection Act safeguards individuals against this. Similarly, The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 safeguards against children and adults by ensuring that only appropriate persons are allowed to work with certain groups. This act created the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) who deal with criminal record checks and overlooks the Barred Children’s and Barred Adult’s Lists of unsuitable
The tragic story of Veronica Climbie is an unfortunate example that highlights the impact that not only unprofessional practice but what miscommunication amongst disciplines can have on the life of a client, in this case, a young and innocent little girl. The Veronica Climbie Inquiry (lord lamming, 2003) was established after the tragic and preventable death of a young abuse victim in the UK caused an understandable amount of outrage and consequent reassessment of the functioning and protocol of many multi-disciplinary domains related to her untimely death. In the report, Lamming makes numerous recommendations to improve the child protection sector and prevent unnecessary deaths like Veronicas from happening again, one of these such recommendations is the need to enhance communication between the many disciplines involved with the complex issue of child abuse and protection, and the need for agencies to take accountability of their workers, their decisions and their actions within this context. It is unfortunate that the death of an innocent child had to be the catalyst for positive change and development within multi-disciplinary practice, nonetheless , we can see that a push in policy to create a greater structure for accountability and communication in complex social issues that require interprofessional collaboration can help us overcome these negligent and potentially detrimental barriers of
...children, young people and their families can be both complex and difficult. Social work practice is one of the most challenging as it involves work with a diverse range of both professionals and service users. However, there is more that one single reason for this. As all professionals, agencies and parents continue to work together in various different cases, a variety of skills are required including: communication, preparation, intervention skills, assessment of significant harm, research of current legislation and decision making skills, all of which contribute to the complexities and difficulties of social work. It could be argued that these difficulties are highlighted most in many public cases of child abuse; moreover these cases can be seen to be changing social work practice, affecting the difficulties and complexities of working within this profession.
The grounds for making a supervision or care order can be found in in s.31 of The Children Act 1989. Before a supervision or care order can be made, there are four areas that must be established. The court must show that ‘the child concerned is suffering or likely to suffer, significant harm’. Under s.31(2)(b) it states that, ‘The harm, or likelihood of harm, is attributable to: (i) the care given to the child, or likely to be given to him if the order were not made, not being what it would be reasonable to expect a parent to give him; or (ii) the child’s being beyond parental control’. The last two criteria are that the making of the order would promote the welfare of the child, and it is better for the child than making no order at all. A care order was explained in Hunt’s major study on care proceedings as a “last resort” and should only be used if all other options have been explored .
The Education and Inspection Act 2006 states that school must have measures in place to prevent all forms of bullying and all these measures should be communicated to staff, children and parents.
Each local authority will set up a Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) that ensure all multi-agencies and professionals that work with children and young people follow guidelines and work together effectively to support the welfare of the child in every way. The LSCB promote good practice developing links for professional, parents and carers concerning the safety and wellbeing of children and young people.
The Daniel Pelka serious case review is one of many that are conducted around the United Kingdom every year. A serious case review is a local enquiry into the death or serious injury of a child, where abuse or neglect are known or suspected. These are conducted by the Local Safeguarding Children Boards; with the main focus being on what lessons can be learnt locally to prevent this from happening again (Brandon, Bailey, Belderson, 2010). In this textual analysis we will be looking back at previous case reviews including Jasmine Beckford and Baby P. We will then look at what recommendations have been made and use the Peka case to see weather we have learned from our previous mistakes or are we still in the same position now as we where then.
and agencies designed to meet the physical, intellectual, and social-emotional needs of individuals and families.” . As a Child Protective worker, my responsibilities are to assess safety (immediate),risk (future harm), abuse and maltreatment, make a
An outline of current legislation, guidelines, policies and procedures within own UK Home Nation (England), affecting the safeguarding of children and young people.
Throughout this essay, the health, safety and welfare policy and practise that came about after the Victoria Climbie case will be reviewed and evaluated. After arriving in England in November 1991 from the Ivory Coast, eight-year old Victoria Climbie suffered abuse from her great-aunt, Marie-Therese Kouao, and her great-aunts partner. The anguish and eventual murder of Victoria in 2000 from hypothermia, caused by malnourishment and damp conditions, provoked ‘the most extensive investigation into the child protection system in British history’ as described by Batty (Macleod-Brudenell, 2004). The high media profiled incident exposed a clear lack of precision and communication between all professionals and agencies involved. This is shown by the fact that the mistreatment Victoria was suffering had gone unnoticed by the social services, police and NHS staff, who failed to make each other aware of the clear danger signs. Within the Lord Laming Inquiry into Victoria Climbie’s death (2003), it can be seen that some features recur time after time in child abuse cases; inadequate resources to meet demands, inexperience and lack of skill of individual social workers. In addition, it can also be seen that crucial procedures were evidently not being followed. The procedure that was established after this case included the recommendations made by Lord Laming such as the Green Paper of Every Child Matters (DfES, 2003) and the Children Act (DfES, 2004). These ensure that all children have the fundamental right to be protected from harm and abuse. In addition to this, it also certifies all adults who come into contact with children and families have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
LSCB, (2013), SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN, YOUNG PEOPLE AND VULNERABLE ADULTS POLICY, (www.safechildren-cios.co.uk), [Assessed 1 November 2013].
Commission for Social Care Inspection (2005) Making Every Child Matter, Commission for Social Care Inspection