3.3 Understand how to safeguard the wellbeing of children and young people

There is much more to Safeguarding than just protecting children from direct abuse. Any service that works with children and young people knows that they have a much wider responsibility than simply protecting the children from neglect and abuse. An action plan was put in place by Her Majesty’s Government called the ‘Stay Safe’ action plan, and it identifies a number of important features in the wider view of safeguarding including: • Keeping children safe from accidents
• Crime and bullying - This could be helping victims of crime and also helping those that commit crime. This could also be witness's that need support Bullying could be racially motivated, cyber, text. Making sure that children and parents are given the information to protect themselves
• Forced marriages
• Missing children - This aims to develop an action plan to put the principles set out in The Children’s Society recommendations into action, to initiate an early review of emergency accommodation provision, to consider how local authorities can best provide safe places and ‘breathing spaces’ for young runaways; and revise the Missing from Home and Care guidance, in conjunction with the review of the Children Act 1989 regulations and guidance.
• Actively promoting their welfare in a healthy and safe environment – The Staying Safe action plan states that it is important that everyone (parents, practitioners, government) work together to create the healthiest, safest environment possible for children and young people to access wherever they are, whether they’re at home, school/nursery, on public transport or just outside playing. It is everyone’s responsibility to create this safe environment so that all young people can achieve and are getting the best support possible.

The Staying Safe consultation document set out three levels of safeguarding:
• Universal safeguarding – Working to keep all children and young people safe and create safe environments for all children
• Targeted safeguarding – Some groups of children are more at risk than others, and it is important to target policies and services to these groups, to help keep them safe from harm
• Responsive safeguarding – Unfortunately, no matter what we do, there will always be some children and young people who suffer harm. We need to respond quickly and appropriately when this happens – supporting children and dealing with those who harm them.