Safeguarding Children In The Uk Essay
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989
This is an international treaty that was adopted and ratified by the UK on 16 December 1991. Although different British governments have said that it regards itself bound by the Convention and refers to it in child protection guidance, it has not become part of UK law. There is no single piece of legislation that covers safeguarding children and young people in the UK; different laws and guidelines cover different parts of the UK. The only countries that have not ratified the treaty are Somalia, South Sudan, and the United States.
The UN Convention on the rights of the child contains 54 Articles, each Article states a different right that children are entitled to. The rights embodied by the UN Convention which relate to childcare and education specifically are
Article 9 – Children have the right to live with their parent(s) unless it is bad for them. They have the right to live with a family that cares for them.
Article 27 – Children have the right to food, clothing, a safe place to live and to have their basic needs met. They should not be disadvantaged so that they can’t do many of the things that other children do.
Article 21 – Children have the right to play and rest
Article 19 – Children have the right to …show more content…
be protected from being hurt and mistreated in body or mind.
Article 32 – Children have the right to protection from work that harms them and s bad for their health and education. If children do work they have the right to be safe and paid fairly.
Article 12 – Children have the right to give their opinions and for adults to listen and take it seriously.
Article 23 – Children have the right to special education and care if they have a disability as well as all the rights under the convention in order that they can live a full life.
Article 28 – Children have the right to good quality education. They should be encouraged to go to school to the highest level they can.
The Children Act (1989)
This brought together several sets of guidance and provided the basis for many of the standards we maintain with children.
It outlined a number of principles such as:-
- The welfare of the child is paramount
- Practitioners should work in partnership with parents and each other. All professionals should work in partnership and share information to ensure the child can be fully protected.
- Parents should care for their children whenever possible.
- Children’s opinions should be taken into account when matters concern them.
- Concept of Parental responsibility - who has duty and rights in respect of a child – regarding education, home, contact, responsibility for health and welfare
- Local authorities must help children only if the first principle is not being upheld - Section 17 (a child in need). Support given to families.
- A Section 47 Inquiry may be required and will include interviewing the child. No delay principle – if children’s cases are to go to court it must happen as soon as possible in order to protect the child
Protection of Children Act (1999)
This Act requires childcare organisations to not offer any involvement which requires regular contact to children, either in a paid or unpaid capacity, to any person who is unsuitable to work with children, as per those listed in the act. This introduced the Disclose and Barring Service (DBS). The DBS helps employers provide for safer recruitment preventing unsuitable people working with vulnerable groups including children. It acts as a central access point for criminal records checks for anyone who is applying to work with children and young people. The DBS replaced list 99, the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and the Independent Safeguarding Authority. This legislation has now been updated by the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act (2006).
Every Child Matters (2003)
The Every Child Matters policy was introduced as a result of the death of Victoria Climbie in 2001 and launched in 2003. The Laming Report highlighted the need for better protection of children through the sharing of information. Organisations are under an obligation to ensure that the way they work with children keeps them safe and does not place them at unacceptable risk of harm. The Every Child Matters policy applies to the well-being of children and young people from birth up until they reached the age of 19. It is based on the idea that every child, regardless of their individual circumstances or background, should have plenty of support throughout their life.
Every child matters encourages practitioners to work towards the achievement of 5 key outcomes for children:
• To be healthy
• To stay safe
• To enjoy and achieve
• To make a positive contribution
• To achieve economic well-being
The policy applies to everyone who works in any capacity with children, or provide services to children. This includes professionals such as teachers, social workers, foster carers, hospitals, children’s homes, social services and the police, as well as any voluntary groups or charities. The underlying principle was that at the core of all the work these professionals did, the five key outcomes should be remembered and put into action, to ensure children get a better start in life.
The guidance from the Every Child Matters framework reminds us that all those who come into contact with children and families in their everyday work, including practitioners who do not have a specific role in relation to safeguarding children, have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
The Children Act (2004)
It is important to note that this did not replace or change the 1989 act. It arose from Every Child Matters. It placed a duty on local authorities and other agencies such as health service providers, youth justice system and the police force to co-operate in promoting the wellbeing of children and to make arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. It requires local authorities to take the lead through multi-agency children's trusts, to develop a children and young people's plan, and to set up a shared database of children, containing information relevant to their welfare. Children and young people will have far more say about issues that affect them as individuals and collectively.
It placed a duty on Local Authority’s to ensure the educational achievement of looked after children. The percentage of looked after children, non-looked children and children in need achieving 5+ GCSEs A*-C or equivalent including English and mathematics, is broadly similar to 2016. Looked after children dropped slightly from 13.9% in 2015 to 13.6% in 2016, non-looked after children had a similar decrease from 53.2% to 53.0% in 2016 and children in need remained the same at 14.9%. It also developed the Children’s Commissioner for England who us currently Anne Longfield. The Commissioner will pay particular attention to gathering and putting forward the views of the most vulnerable children and young people in society, and will promote their involvement in the work of organisations whose actions and decisions affect them.
The Children Act (2004) put the Local safeguarding children’s boards (LSCB), which is a multi-agency body set up in every local authority, on a statutory footing. It also gave the LSCB powers of investigation and the ability to review the procedures they use to review cases of child deaths. It also revised the legislation on physical punishment. It thereafter made it an offence to hit a child if it caused the child any mental harm or left a lasting mark on the skin.
The 2004 Act requires different agencies across education, health, social care and housing to co-operate in the best interests of the child and/or young person. The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) provides a structure to facilitate this. Although the CAF is specific to England the same approach of working together is recommended in all the countries of the UK.
Child Care Act (2006)
This sets out the statutory assessment of setting within the framework of the Early Years Foundation Setting (EYFS) which strongly supports guidance on safeguarding and welfare of children. It provides that all children under five will have access to high quality early learning and care and better access to early childhood services and offers free care and learning for those that wish to take up the offer, which will increase and become more flexible for parents of three and four year olds. The EYFS also covers the adult to child ratio with regard to working with children under the age of 8. The current minimum ratios for children aged 0-1 is 1:3 for children aged 2-3 is 1:4 and for 3 years plus is 1:8. It is fair to say that some settings have slightly different ratios depending upon conditions such as number of rooms and location of toilets etc.
Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act (2006)
This was designed to implement new and more stringent ways in which to carry out checks on those individuals who wish to work with children or those who are classed as being in positions of vulnerability. It established a single body to make decisions about individuals who should be barred from working with children and to maintain a list of these individuals (DBS). The act also looks how the DBS carry out their tasks which include providing basic and enhanced disclosures for potential employees and employers and deals with how the system can run more efficiently and with tighter restrictions than are currently in place.
Working together to Safeguard Children (2015) - A guide to inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children
The guidance came into effect April 2013, but amended in March 2015. It sets out how organisations and individuals should work together and how practitioners should conduct the assessment of children. The amended version incorporates legislation and statutory guidance published over the last two years. The new guidance makes some changes to guidance on making allegations against people who work with children. Other amendments include the specification that Local Safeguarding Childrens Boards, local authorities and their partners should be commissioning and providing services for children at risk of sexual exploitation, female genital mutilation and radicalisation. Professionals should use the guidance, along with their expertise and judgement, to tailor support to individual children and families. It also covers the following areas:-
• A summary of the nature and impact of child abuse and neglect.
• How to operate best practice in child protection procedures.
• The roles and responsibilities of different agencies and practitioners
• The processes to be followed when there are concerns about a child
• The action to be taken to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, experiencing, or at risk of, significant harm.
• The important principles to be followed when working with children and families
• Training requirements for effective child protection
Prevent Duty (2015)
The Prevent duty is the duty in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 on specified authorities, in the exercise of their functions, to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. It provides guidance for schools and childcare providers on preventing children and young people from being drawn into terrorism. The guidance in itself is non-statutory however, all schools, whatever their status, have to implement the Prevent duty. It highlights that extremism and radicalisation are safeguarding concerns and should be dealt with using the school’s existing safeguarding procedures. It is intended to help schools and childcare providers think about what they can do to protect children from the risk of radicalisation. The aim of Prevent is to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism, schools can help to protect children from extremist and violent views in the same ways that they help to safeguard children from drugs, gang violence or alcohol. Channel is part of the Prevent strategy. The process is a multi-agency approach to identify and provide support to individuals who are at risk of being drawn into terrorism. School staff and childcare providers should understand when it is appropriate to make a referral to the Channel programme. Channel works in a similar way to existing multi‐agency partnerships for vulnerable individuals. The Channel Panel is chaired by the local authority and works with multi agency partners to collectively assess the risk to an individual and decide whether an intervention is necessary. If a Channel intervention is required the Panel works with local partners to develop an appropriate individualised support package. Partnership involvement ensures that those at risk have access to a wide range of support. The support package is monitored closely and reviewed regularly by the Channel Panel.
Keeping Children Safe in Education (2016)
The Department for Education has published an updated version of the statutory guidance keeping children safe in education which revises and replaces the 2015 guidance. This came into force for schools on 5 September 2016. Updates were published in May 2016 and again in September 2016.
This guidance was revised and updated in 2016 to reflect the new Prevent Duty (2015). The updated version also sought to address sexting and missing children and highlighted the importance of regular safeguarding training and the need to keep up to date with the latest safeguarding knowledge and information. There was also an emphasis on strengthening the processes around online safety, responding to female genital mutilation (FGM) and the teaching of safeguarding issues.
In summary the policy itself covers safeguarding information for all staff, the management of safeguarding, safer recruitment and allegations of abuse made against teachers and other staff.
In short the final version of Keeping Children Safe 2016 simply tidies up the previous version of the guidance, however, it is important to note that there are two significant areas of additional guidance about agency staff and the Single Central Record; and Children Missing Education (CME).
With regard to the Single Central Record (SCR), paragraph 112 now says, “For supply staff, schools should also include [in the SCR] whether written confirmation has been received that the employment business supplying the member of supply staff has carried out the relevant checks and obtained the appropriate certificates, and the date that confirmation was received and whether any enhanced DBS check certificate has been provided in respect of the member of staff.”……..“Independent schools and non-maintained special schools should also include the date on which any certificate was obtained.”
With regard to Children missing in education guidance has been issued about registering pupils when they are admitted.
When schools add a pupil to their admission register, they must also add the expected start date. If the pupil subsequently does not arrive as expected “the school should consider notifying the local authority at the earliest opportunity to prevent the child from going missing from education”. Save for pupils who join the school at the start of the school’s youngest year, schools are required to notify the local authority within five days when a pupil’s name is added to the admission register and provide all the information held within the admission register about the
pupil.
When a pupil’s name is deleted from the admission register, under one of the 15 specified reasons within the guidance, the school must inform the local authority and supply the following information:
• the full name of the pupil;
• the full name and address of any parent with whom the pupil lives;
• at least one telephone number of the parent with whom the pupil lives;
• if applicable, the full name and address of the parent with whom the pupil is going to live, and the date the pupil is expected to start living there;
• the name of pupil’s destination school and the pupil’s expected start date there, if applicable; and
• the grounds under which the pupil’s name is to be deleted from the admission register
When a pupil leaves the school, the admission register must also record:
• the name of the pupil’s new school; and
• the expected start date at the new school
Schools should highlight to the local authority where they have been unable to obtain the necessary information from the parent, for example in cases where the child’s destination school or address is unknown. Schools should also consider whether it is appropriate to highlight any contextual information a vulnerable child who is missing education, such as any safeguarding concerns.
What to do if you are worried a child is being abused (March 2015)
This advice is non-statutory, and has been produced to help practitioners identify child abuse and neglect and take appropriate action in response.
This advice replaces the previous version of What to do if you’re worried a child is being abused, published in 2006, and compliments Working Together to Safeguard Children (2015) statutory guidance.
This guidance is for anyone who comes into contact with children and families while working, including:
• social care practitioners
• health practitioners
• early years practitioners
• school staff (both teaching and non-teaching)
• police officers
• local authorities
It applies to people working in the:
• statutory sector (organisations set up, controlled and funded by the government)
• voluntary sector (not for profit organisations)
• independent sectors (organisations funded by the clients who use the service)
It explains:
• the signs of abuse and neglect to look out for
• the action to take if you think a child is being abused or neglected 1.2 An explanation of child protection within the wider concept of safeguarding children and young people
In relation to children and young people, the definition used in the Children Act 20041 and the Department for Education (DfE) guidance document: Working Together to Safeguard Children 2013, defines safeguarding and promoting children and young people’s welfare as:
• protecting children from maltreatment
• preventing impairment of children’s health or development
• ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care, and
• taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.
Safeguarding is an umbrella term that includes and covers everything adults and professionals who work with children and young people do to ensure that they are kept safe and healthy.
Safeguarding also covers all our safe working practices, procedures for undertaking DBS, data protection, all legislation dealing with children’s rights, health and safety, risk assessments, visitors in school, e-safety etc.
The same statutory guidance outlined above goes on to define child protection as part of safeguarding and promoting welfare. Child protection is part of the wider work to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people. It in short is the activity which is undertaken to protect specific children who are suffering, or are likely to suffer, significant harm. It also includes covers the legal response in such circumstances and the powers to intervene as well as outlining the policies and procedures which should be followed in the event of suspected harm or abuse.
This is an international treaty that was adopted and ratified by the UK on 16 December 1991. Although different British governments have said that it regards itself bound by the Convention and refers to it in child protection guidance, it has not become part of UK law. There is no single piece of legislation that covers safeguarding children and young people in the UK; different laws and guidelines cover different parts of the UK. The only countries that have not ratified the treaty are Somalia, South Sudan, and the United States.
The UN Convention on the rights of the child contains 54 Articles, each Article states a different right that children are entitled to. The rights embodied by the UN Convention which relate to childcare and education specifically are
Article 9 – Children have the right to live with their parent(s) unless it is bad for them. They have the right to live with a family that cares for them.
Article 27 – Children have the right to food, clothing, a safe place to live and to have their basic needs met. They should not be disadvantaged so that they can’t do many of the things that other children do.
Article 21 – Children have the right to play and rest
Article 19 – Children have the right to …show more content…
be protected from being hurt and mistreated in body or mind.
Article 32 – Children have the right to protection from work that harms them and s bad for their health and education. If children do work they have the right to be safe and paid fairly.
Article 12 – Children have the right to give their opinions and for adults to listen and take it seriously.
Article 23 – Children have the right to special education and care if they have a disability as well as all the rights under the convention in order that they can live a full life.
Article 28 – Children have the right to good quality education. They should be encouraged to go to school to the highest level they can.
The Children Act (1989)
This brought together several sets of guidance and provided the basis for many of the standards we maintain with children.
It outlined a number of principles such as:-
- The welfare of the child is paramount
- Practitioners should work in partnership with parents and each other. All professionals should work in partnership and share information to ensure the child can be fully protected.
- Parents should care for their children whenever possible.
- Children’s opinions should be taken into account when matters concern them.
- Concept of Parental responsibility - who has duty and rights in respect of a child – regarding education, home, contact, responsibility for health and welfare
- Local authorities must help children only if the first principle is not being upheld - Section 17 (a child in need). Support given to families.
- A Section 47 Inquiry may be required and will include interviewing the child. No delay principle – if children’s cases are to go to court it must happen as soon as possible in order to protect the child
Protection of Children Act (1999)
This Act requires childcare organisations to not offer any involvement which requires regular contact to children, either in a paid or unpaid capacity, to any person who is unsuitable to work with children, as per those listed in the act. This introduced the Disclose and Barring Service (DBS). The DBS helps employers provide for safer recruitment preventing unsuitable people working with vulnerable groups including children. It acts as a central access point for criminal records checks for anyone who is applying to work with children and young people. The DBS replaced list 99, the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and the Independent Safeguarding Authority. This legislation has now been updated by the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act (2006).
Every Child Matters (2003)
The Every Child Matters policy was introduced as a result of the death of Victoria Climbie in 2001 and launched in 2003. The Laming Report highlighted the need for better protection of children through the sharing of information. Organisations are under an obligation to ensure that the way they work with children keeps them safe and does not place them at unacceptable risk of harm. The Every Child Matters policy applies to the well-being of children and young people from birth up until they reached the age of 19. It is based on the idea that every child, regardless of their individual circumstances or background, should have plenty of support throughout their life.
Every child matters encourages practitioners to work towards the achievement of 5 key outcomes for children:
• To be healthy
• To stay safe
• To enjoy and achieve
• To make a positive contribution
• To achieve economic well-being
The policy applies to everyone who works in any capacity with children, or provide services to children. This includes professionals such as teachers, social workers, foster carers, hospitals, children’s homes, social services and the police, as well as any voluntary groups or charities. The underlying principle was that at the core of all the work these professionals did, the five key outcomes should be remembered and put into action, to ensure children get a better start in life.
The guidance from the Every Child Matters framework reminds us that all those who come into contact with children and families in their everyday work, including practitioners who do not have a specific role in relation to safeguarding children, have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
The Children Act (2004)
It is important to note that this did not replace or change the 1989 act. It arose from Every Child Matters. It placed a duty on local authorities and other agencies such as health service providers, youth justice system and the police force to co-operate in promoting the wellbeing of children and to make arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. It requires local authorities to take the lead through multi-agency children's trusts, to develop a children and young people's plan, and to set up a shared database of children, containing information relevant to their welfare. Children and young people will have far more say about issues that affect them as individuals and collectively.
It placed a duty on Local Authority’s to ensure the educational achievement of looked after children. The percentage of looked after children, non-looked children and children in need achieving 5+ GCSEs A*-C or equivalent including English and mathematics, is broadly similar to 2016. Looked after children dropped slightly from 13.9% in 2015 to 13.6% in 2016, non-looked after children had a similar decrease from 53.2% to 53.0% in 2016 and children in need remained the same at 14.9%. It also developed the Children’s Commissioner for England who us currently Anne Longfield. The Commissioner will pay particular attention to gathering and putting forward the views of the most vulnerable children and young people in society, and will promote their involvement in the work of organisations whose actions and decisions affect them.
The Children Act (2004) put the Local safeguarding children’s boards (LSCB), which is a multi-agency body set up in every local authority, on a statutory footing. It also gave the LSCB powers of investigation and the ability to review the procedures they use to review cases of child deaths. It also revised the legislation on physical punishment. It thereafter made it an offence to hit a child if it caused the child any mental harm or left a lasting mark on the skin.
The 2004 Act requires different agencies across education, health, social care and housing to co-operate in the best interests of the child and/or young person. The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) provides a structure to facilitate this. Although the CAF is specific to England the same approach of working together is recommended in all the countries of the UK.
Child Care Act (2006)
This sets out the statutory assessment of setting within the framework of the Early Years Foundation Setting (EYFS) which strongly supports guidance on safeguarding and welfare of children. It provides that all children under five will have access to high quality early learning and care and better access to early childhood services and offers free care and learning for those that wish to take up the offer, which will increase and become more flexible for parents of three and four year olds. The EYFS also covers the adult to child ratio with regard to working with children under the age of 8. The current minimum ratios for children aged 0-1 is 1:3 for children aged 2-3 is 1:4 and for 3 years plus is 1:8. It is fair to say that some settings have slightly different ratios depending upon conditions such as number of rooms and location of toilets etc.
Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act (2006)
This was designed to implement new and more stringent ways in which to carry out checks on those individuals who wish to work with children or those who are classed as being in positions of vulnerability. It established a single body to make decisions about individuals who should be barred from working with children and to maintain a list of these individuals (DBS). The act also looks how the DBS carry out their tasks which include providing basic and enhanced disclosures for potential employees and employers and deals with how the system can run more efficiently and with tighter restrictions than are currently in place.
Working together to Safeguard Children (2015) - A guide to inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children
The guidance came into effect April 2013, but amended in March 2015. It sets out how organisations and individuals should work together and how practitioners should conduct the assessment of children. The amended version incorporates legislation and statutory guidance published over the last two years. The new guidance makes some changes to guidance on making allegations against people who work with children. Other amendments include the specification that Local Safeguarding Childrens Boards, local authorities and their partners should be commissioning and providing services for children at risk of sexual exploitation, female genital mutilation and radicalisation. Professionals should use the guidance, along with their expertise and judgement, to tailor support to individual children and families. It also covers the following areas:-
• A summary of the nature and impact of child abuse and neglect.
• How to operate best practice in child protection procedures.
• The roles and responsibilities of different agencies and practitioners
• The processes to be followed when there are concerns about a child
• The action to be taken to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, experiencing, or at risk of, significant harm.
• The important principles to be followed when working with children and families
• Training requirements for effective child protection
Prevent Duty (2015)
The Prevent duty is the duty in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 on specified authorities, in the exercise of their functions, to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. It provides guidance for schools and childcare providers on preventing children and young people from being drawn into terrorism. The guidance in itself is non-statutory however, all schools, whatever their status, have to implement the Prevent duty. It highlights that extremism and radicalisation are safeguarding concerns and should be dealt with using the school’s existing safeguarding procedures. It is intended to help schools and childcare providers think about what they can do to protect children from the risk of radicalisation. The aim of Prevent is to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism, schools can help to protect children from extremist and violent views in the same ways that they help to safeguard children from drugs, gang violence or alcohol. Channel is part of the Prevent strategy. The process is a multi-agency approach to identify and provide support to individuals who are at risk of being drawn into terrorism. School staff and childcare providers should understand when it is appropriate to make a referral to the Channel programme. Channel works in a similar way to existing multi‐agency partnerships for vulnerable individuals. The Channel Panel is chaired by the local authority and works with multi agency partners to collectively assess the risk to an individual and decide whether an intervention is necessary. If a Channel intervention is required the Panel works with local partners to develop an appropriate individualised support package. Partnership involvement ensures that those at risk have access to a wide range of support. The support package is monitored closely and reviewed regularly by the Channel Panel.
Keeping Children Safe in Education (2016)
The Department for Education has published an updated version of the statutory guidance keeping children safe in education which revises and replaces the 2015 guidance. This came into force for schools on 5 September 2016. Updates were published in May 2016 and again in September 2016.
This guidance was revised and updated in 2016 to reflect the new Prevent Duty (2015). The updated version also sought to address sexting and missing children and highlighted the importance of regular safeguarding training and the need to keep up to date with the latest safeguarding knowledge and information. There was also an emphasis on strengthening the processes around online safety, responding to female genital mutilation (FGM) and the teaching of safeguarding issues.
In summary the policy itself covers safeguarding information for all staff, the management of safeguarding, safer recruitment and allegations of abuse made against teachers and other staff.
In short the final version of Keeping Children Safe 2016 simply tidies up the previous version of the guidance, however, it is important to note that there are two significant areas of additional guidance about agency staff and the Single Central Record; and Children Missing Education (CME).
With regard to the Single Central Record (SCR), paragraph 112 now says, “For supply staff, schools should also include [in the SCR] whether written confirmation has been received that the employment business supplying the member of supply staff has carried out the relevant checks and obtained the appropriate certificates, and the date that confirmation was received and whether any enhanced DBS check certificate has been provided in respect of the member of staff.”……..“Independent schools and non-maintained special schools should also include the date on which any certificate was obtained.”
With regard to Children missing in education guidance has been issued about registering pupils when they are admitted.
When schools add a pupil to their admission register, they must also add the expected start date. If the pupil subsequently does not arrive as expected “the school should consider notifying the local authority at the earliest opportunity to prevent the child from going missing from education”. Save for pupils who join the school at the start of the school’s youngest year, schools are required to notify the local authority within five days when a pupil’s name is added to the admission register and provide all the information held within the admission register about the
pupil.
When a pupil’s name is deleted from the admission register, under one of the 15 specified reasons within the guidance, the school must inform the local authority and supply the following information:
• the full name of the pupil;
• the full name and address of any parent with whom the pupil lives;
• at least one telephone number of the parent with whom the pupil lives;
• if applicable, the full name and address of the parent with whom the pupil is going to live, and the date the pupil is expected to start living there;
• the name of pupil’s destination school and the pupil’s expected start date there, if applicable; and
• the grounds under which the pupil’s name is to be deleted from the admission register
When a pupil leaves the school, the admission register must also record:
• the name of the pupil’s new school; and
• the expected start date at the new school
Schools should highlight to the local authority where they have been unable to obtain the necessary information from the parent, for example in cases where the child’s destination school or address is unknown. Schools should also consider whether it is appropriate to highlight any contextual information a vulnerable child who is missing education, such as any safeguarding concerns.
What to do if you are worried a child is being abused (March 2015)
This advice is non-statutory, and has been produced to help practitioners identify child abuse and neglect and take appropriate action in response.
This advice replaces the previous version of What to do if you’re worried a child is being abused, published in 2006, and compliments Working Together to Safeguard Children (2015) statutory guidance.
This guidance is for anyone who comes into contact with children and families while working, including:
• social care practitioners
• health practitioners
• early years practitioners
• school staff (both teaching and non-teaching)
• police officers
• local authorities
It applies to people working in the:
• statutory sector (organisations set up, controlled and funded by the government)
• voluntary sector (not for profit organisations)
• independent sectors (organisations funded by the clients who use the service)
It explains:
• the signs of abuse and neglect to look out for
• the action to take if you think a child is being abused or neglected 1.2 An explanation of child protection within the wider concept of safeguarding children and young people
In relation to children and young people, the definition used in the Children Act 20041 and the Department for Education (DfE) guidance document: Working Together to Safeguard Children 2013, defines safeguarding and promoting children and young people’s welfare as:
• protecting children from maltreatment
• preventing impairment of children’s health or development
• ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care, and
• taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.
Safeguarding is an umbrella term that includes and covers everything adults and professionals who work with children and young people do to ensure that they are kept safe and healthy.
Safeguarding also covers all our safe working practices, procedures for undertaking DBS, data protection, all legislation dealing with children’s rights, health and safety, risk assessments, visitors in school, e-safety etc.
The same statutory guidance outlined above goes on to define child protection as part of safeguarding and promoting welfare. Child protection is part of the wider work to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people. It in short is the activity which is undertaken to protect specific children who are suffering, or are likely to suffer, significant harm. It also includes covers the legal response in such circumstances and the powers to intervene as well as outlining the policies and procedures which should be followed in the event of suspected harm or abuse.