Children Of A Child Protection Process Essay

Child Protective Services For 30 years, advocates, program administrators, and politicians have joined to encourage even more reports of suspected child abuse and neglect. Their efforts have been successful, with about three million cases of suspected child abuse having been reported in 1993. Large numbers of endangered children still go unreported, but a serious problem had developed: Upon investigation, as many as 65 percent or the reports now being made are determined to be "unsubstantiated", raising serious civil liberties concerns and placing a huge burden on investigative staffs.

General Considerations Of the four researchers involved in this study, two obtained a Doctor of Medicine degree (MD) and the remaining two a Doctor of Philosophy degree (PhD). Qualifications were met by each researcher for this study. The title, “How Childcare Providers Interpret ‘Reasonable Suspicion’ of Child Abuse”, is appropriate for the described study. The title implies a research on the interpretation of child abuse by medical professionals and what they constitute as reasonable suspicion to report as abuse; the article follows this idea. The abstract gives a comprehensive, yet precise, idea of the study and allows a new

Child protection concerns play a large part in Social Work practice, which is underpinned by law, policy, organisational procedures and public enquiries regarding how the Government try to prevent abuse from going unseen (Hothersall 2010).

Often children die or get seriously injured due to abuse or avoidable accidents. Society has a duty to protect children. We have a range of professional organisations supported by legislation, policies and procedures in order to do this. When the procedures and policies do not work society has failed at the thing it is meant to do. It is vital and that the causes of failure are known and dealt with.

Section 47 of the Act places a duty upon local authorities to investigate such situations whereby 'there is reasonable cause to suspect that a child is suffering or likely to suffer harm'.

You should discuss your concerns with your manager, a named or designated professional or a designated member of staff. Such as; school staff (both teaching and non-teaching), concerns should be reported via the schools’ or colleges’ designated safeguarding lead. The safeguarding lead will usually decide whether to make a referral to children’s social care; for early years practitioners, the Early Years Foundation Stage sets out that providers should ensure that they have a practitioner who is designated to take a lead responsibility for safeguarding children who should liaise with local statutory children’s services agencies. Child minder’s should take that responsibility themselves and should notify children’s social care (and, in emergencies, the police) if they have concerns about the safety or welfare of a child; for health practitioners, all providers of NHS funded health services should identify a named doctor and a named nurse (and a named midwife if the organisation provides maternity services) for safeguarding. GP practices should

Practitioners and professionals working with children on a daily basis are in a good position to notice changes in a child's or young person’s behaviour which may be a possible sign of abuse. Children or young people may also confide in practitioners or allege that abuse has taken place. Schools

Children Act 2004 section 11 states which professional and agencies have to safeguard and promote welfare. ‘’local authorities, councils, public health, NHS foundation and trust, Policing body, crime agency, college, and any person to the extent that he is providing services.’’ (Legislation.gov.uk)

The organization under investigation is Child Protective Services, also referred to as CPS, which is an agency within the Department of Family and Protective Services. CPS is a governmental organization that has existed for years. The agency is designed to protect children from abuse and neglect. There are numerous cases

with all police and schools etc. Each organisation will do its own inquiry. The LSCB will conduct a serious review once a child dies or receive serious injuries from abuse or neglect. A serious case review is done to establish any lessons learnt and better inter agency communication. First steps will involve the schools polices which include contacting the police as there may be a criminal offence made. The school and police will also be in contact with the social services to establish if any information was missed to protect the child and what procedures

There are many procedures, policies, legislations and statutory guidance to support the safety and welfare of children and young people. They have been developed over many years to recognise the rights of children and young people, protect vulnerable children and young people and after independent inquiries of fatal abuse cases, to recognise the failures of multi agencies and support services.

n this circumstance, the requirements of community workers with regards to client confidentiality may conflict with the mandatory reporting requirements for child abuse and neglect. For example, if you have a client who is a young person under the age of 18 years and they disclose to you that they have been sexually abused by their uncle since they were 12 years of age, the information they are disclosing is confidential but you may also be required under mandatory reporting laws to notify the relevant child protection agency. In circumstances such as this, where the code of practice conflicts with the law it is important for professionals to seek advice from their relevant governing body and if necessary, legal advice. In this circumstance you may be found to have a legal duty of care for your young client and you may be found to have breached your duty of care if you do not report suspected child abuse or neglect. In all cases, you should be aware of the ethical and legal requirements of your profession and these should be made clear to your clients at the start of the therapeutic relationship. This is particularly important for issues surrounding confidentiality and the limits of confidentiality.

Assessing cases within the ecological approach Social worker in charge of particular cases of a suspected child maltreatment must initially complete a core assessment of the child and his family's situation. This process is crucial for planning of an intervention with a positive outcome (Parker and Bradley, 2003). In the assessment, under the ecological model, the practitioner must recognise different systems, such as the child, family or neighbours, and surrounding environments. If the assessment asserts that a child fits a category of a child in need within these systems, defined in the Children Act 1989 as a child 'unlikely to achieve or maintain (...) a reasonable standard of health or development without the provision for him of services by a local authority' (Children Act, 1989, section 17), the social worker must organise a form of an intervention. He or she must assess which part of the environment requires a change, and where are stress factors negatively affecting the child and the family. At the same time, the child should be given resources, and a certain level of autonomy, and to be treated as the centre of the assessment (Teater, 2010). In the ecological perspective, it might be easier for the social worker to relate to the adults' needs (Davies and Davies, 2011). However, the focus of the assessment should be child-centred, protecting the child's health and wellbeing (Every Child Matters, 2004)(Department of Education, 2011).

The legal definition of child abuse is deliberately broad to cover any situation where there is ‘reasonable cause to suspect a child is suffering, or likely to be, significant harm’ (Children Act 1989:C41:PV:S47). To bring clarity, Working Together (2015) identifies four main areas of child maltreatment, including abuse in terms of physical, emotional and sexual, as well as neglect. The policy also gives a brief overview of typical scenarios appearing within each category. For instance, physical abuse entails acts like poisoning and hitting, failure to protect a child from harm constitutes as neglect, whilst making a child feel inadequate or humiliated is classified as emotional abuse. It can be stated that the three categories and examples highlighted particularly appertain to the case study.

Here the main benefit to both the family and child would be the need of early help to prevent any future cases of neglect. As nothing has happened yet, this is only hypothetical and also can be used as a solution, it would be down to the social worker to report and note any irregularity relating to the child that may develop into serious neglect in the future for the benefit of the court/local authority. Social workers have a duty to abide by legislation and a power to enforce it, in Section 7 of the Child protection Act 1989 it clearly states that welfare reports may be requested by the court from the local authority, or a social worker to use as evidence to make a judgement.