Understand the impact of current legislation that underpins the safeguarding of children and young people.
1.1 Outline the current legislation that underpins the safeguarding of children and young people within own UK Home Nations.
There is no one piece of legislation that underpins the safeguarding of children and young people in the United Kingdom but there are countless that are constantly being reviewed, changed or updated. From these many legislations, child care settings develop policies, according to the Oxford online dictionary a policy is ‘A course or principle of action adopted or proposed by an organisation or individual’. Policies are a guide for all those involved in the setting, to ensure and endorse the well-being of all families, children and staff and provide a common understanding of how these things should be done within the setting. Understanding the legislation involving children is vital to creating policies that are up to date, relevant, understandable and useable. In this essay I will be outlining some of the most up to date and important legislation that underpins the safeguarding of children.
The United Nations (UN) convention on the rights of children in 1989 is a hugely essential piece of legislation which has influenced all child protection/safeguarding legislations. This is a treaty of nations which aims for all children to be treated equally, fairly and with dignity throughout their childhood and lifetime. All kinds of children’s rights were discussed and agreed upon; the right to life, liberty, freedom, justice, health treatment, education, equality and much more. Article 19 is most relevant to safeguarding children, “Government must take all appropriate measures to protect a child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including