Current legislation Essay

Outline current legislation, guidelines, policies and procedures within own UK Home Nation affecting the safeguarding of children and young people Current legislation is the result of The Children Act 1989 in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland the children (Northern Ireland) order 1995 which was brought in to ensure that all people who work with children worked together and that they were clear about their responsibilities and knew how to act if allegations of child abuse were made. Following the death of Victoria Climbie in the year 2000 an independent inquiry highlighted many problems with how reports of neglect and child abuse were dealt with and found that vulnerable people in society were not being safeguarded. The laming report in 2003 resulted in a green paper, Every Child Matters , which in turn lead to the Children Act 2004. The Children Act 2004 was introduced to make changes to the way the child protection system is structured and organised in England and wales. The every child matters paper is aimed at ensuring every child should be helped to have positive outcomes in life . They should: stay safe, enjoy and achieve, have economic wellbeing and make a positive contribution. The main points of The Children act 2004 was that every local authority has a director of children’s services who is ultimately responsible for ensuring that children are safeguarded. Local safeguarding boards were set up and children’s wishes taken into account. Children’s services now have a duty to safeguard children and to work together with a multi- agency approach to promote their welfare. The common assessment framework was introduced to identify children’s needs. Working together to safeguard children 2006 in 2006 the document was revised. This document had now updated the safeguarding and the national framework to help agencies work individually and together promote the welfare of children. In October 2009 the vetting and barring scheme was introduced, anyone working with children and vulnerable adults needs to have their personal information checked to prevent unsuitable people working in these areas. The scheme is now called the disclosure and barring service. CYP CORE 3.3 (1.2) Explain child protection within the wider concept of safeguarding children and young people Child protection is part of the wider work to safeguard and  promote the welfare of children and young people. We as practitioners and people working with children have a much wider role to play to ensure the safe and wellbeing of the children in our care. This refers to the activity that is undertaken to protect specific children who are suffering from any form of abuse or neglect. It also involves protecting children and young people from maltreatment and preventing impairment of a child’s health and development by ensuring children are raised in positive circumstances by providing safe and caring environments. Parents or carers who fail to protect or care for their children could then be taken to court and the child be then removed from the home and placed into care. Assessing observations to identify additional support needed by a child or young person will be a (CAF) which is a common assessment framework, this system enables multi agencies to access and add information about children. You must be careful that parental consent has been gained before sending this information to any agencies. The EYFS also highlights that there must be a designated person who will take the lead for all safeguarding. They are responsible for liaising with the local statutory children services agencies and also with the Local Safeguarding Children Board. They must provide support , advice and guidance to other members of staff and must attend a child protection course. Analyse how national and local guidelines, policies and procedures for safeguarding affect day to day work with children and young people It is our duty as practitioners working with children and young people to understand that we need to be aware and recognise any child at risk of harm and in need or is very vulnerable and unsecured. This earlier this is dealt with the better the outcome will be. There are clear lines of responsibility to ensure that all children are protected. Department for education – they have the overall responsibility for safeguarding and child protection in England Issue statutory and non-statutory guidance to local authorities Local Authorities – the y use guidance to produce procedures for services and practitioners Services used as basic for their policies and procedures I am also aware of my own settings safeguarding policy that was developed  with the Children Act 1989 and 2004 in mind. These are the policies and procedures we need to follow whilst working with children within our setting; Within childcare practice we must be aware that we have a clear and defined role in relation to child protection. Professionals working with children/young people such as teaching assistants, volunteers, outside agencies are all DBS cleared. Adults working with children should also be fully trained in safeguarding children by a nominated safeguarding adviser and have the opportunity to receive training in order to develop their understanding of the signs and indicators of abuse or neglect, this training is offered every 3 years. In order for child protection to work effectively we must ensure we have good inter relationships with other agencies and good cooperation from professionals that are competent in responding to child protection situations. A procedure for recording concerns and incidents if a child discloses information that concerns his/her welfare; we must make a record of exactly what the child has said in their words and report it to a safeguarding officer, ensuring that these records are kept confidentially and separated from their own record. Explain when and why inquires and serious cases reviews are required and how sharing of the findings informs practice A Serious Case Reviews are held when a child dies, abuse or Neglect are known or suspected to be a factor in the death, local organisations should consider immediately whether there are other children at risk of harm who require safeguarding. Thereafter, organisations should consider whether there are any lessons to be learnt about the ways in which they work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Consequently, when a child dies in such circumstances, the Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) should always conduct a Serious Case Review into the involvement with the child and family of organizations and professionals. The LSCB should always consider whether a Serious Case Review should be conducted: If a child sustains a potentially life-threatening injury or through abuse or neglect If a child has been subjected to Sexual Abuse If a child has been killed by a parent with a mental illness If they find  concerns about inter-agency working to protect children from harm The purpose of Serious Case Reviews carried out is to establish whether there are lessons to be learnt from the case about the way in which local professionals and organizations work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, identify clearly what those lessons are, how they will be acted on, and what is expected to change as a result. This will then improve inter-agency working and better safeguard and promote the welfare of the child. Where more than one LSCB has knowledge of a child, the LSCB for the area in which the child is or was normally resident should take lead responsibility for conducting any review. In the case of looked after children, the local authority which has responsibility for the child should take lead responsibility for conducting the review, again involving other LSCBs with an interest or involvement. Any professional may refer such a case to the LSCB if it is believed that there are important lessons for inter-agency working to be learned from the case. It would be the LSCB’s responsibility to take note of any referral and make a decision as to what if any action is needed. Explain how the processes used by own work setting or service comply with legislation that covers data protection, information handling and sharing In our setting all data for the children we look after is held in the main office. Only staff have access to this. The child’s personal information is stored away either on computer or on paper. The computers are all locked and you can only log on with a password which is unique to one person. All paper records are locked away in a cabinet. The information which we hold about the child includes the child’s name, date of birth, and contact number for parent/carer. In an event of a serious accident we would have this information available to us. In our own room the only information we hold about the child is their allergies information. We abide by the Data Protection Act as our setting also holds information about their staff and any safeguarding issues which we may be aware of. This information needs to be Acquired only when necessary Need to make sure that it is secure Make sure it is accurate All information is kept up to date We regularly remind parents to advise us of any changes such as address, telephone numbers or emergency contact details. We as staff are constantly reminded not to share any information on any child to another person or member of staff unless there is a safeguarding issue. We know who are safeguarding contact is and we should share any concerns straight away. We do not discuss any children’s matter outside of work with any one.