Early Childhood Education: Child Protection Essay example

Any individual who comes into contact with children in their daily line of work “has a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children”.

Children Act 2006 – Is an Act that defines the new duties imposed on the Local Authorities in respect to improving the Every Child Matters outcomes for pre-school children. The Act also defines new rules in relation to childcare for working parents as well as parental information services. It is aimed at improving the well-being of young children. It emphasises the importance of safeguarding children and young people within an educational setting. If a child discloses neglect or abuse; an establishment should have instructions to help the child. This could be referral to an outside organisation or internally.

Children Act 1989 – Determines the duty of early year’s practitioners to identify and meet the separate and distinctive needs of children and to keep them safe. It initiated the belief that the child ought to be at the centre of planning and that a child’s well-being and safety are vital when judgements are made concerning them. This act also recognises the accountabilities of parents in keeping their offspring safe. In this act there are two particular segments that relate to the duty of local authority with concern to child protection, these are-

Children and young people should feel happy, safe, respected and included in the school or early years setting environment and all staff should be proactive in promoting positive behavior in the classroom, playground and the wider community. Policies and practice which make sure the safety and wellbeing of children should already be in place and it is this legislation develop through many years and experiences, and mistakes, that underpin the working practices that are used today.

It is everybody’s responsibility to safeguard children – This means every single staff member within a setting; irrelevant of what role they may have there. This also includes non-staff members, such as volunteers, student’s third-party companies (visitors, service providers etc). Each setting should therefore adopt their own safeguarding policy, of which has to be kept up to date and followed at all times.

The children act 1989 has influenced some settings by bringing together several sets of guidance and provided the foundation for many of the standards practitioners sustain and maintain when working with children. The act requires that settings work together in the best interests of the child and form partnerships with parents or carers. It requires settings to have appropriate adult to child ratios and policies and procedures on child protection. This act has had an influence in all areas of practice from planning a curriculum and record keeping. The every child matters framework has

Ensuring children and young people’s safety and welfare in the work setting is an essential part of safeguarding. While children are at school, practitioners act in ‘loco parentis’ while their parents are away. As part of their legal and professional obligations, practitioners hold positions of trust and a duty of care to the children in their school, and therefore should always act in their best interests and ensure their safety – the welfare of the child is paramount (Children Act 1989). The Children Act 2004 came in with the Every Child Matters (ECM) guidelines and greatly impacted the way schools look at the care and welfare of pupils. Children and young people should be helped to learn and thrive and be given the opportunity to

1.3 Analyse how national and local guidelines, policies and procedures for safeguarding affect day-to-day work with children and young people

Safeguarding is for everyone and every organisation responsibility to protect children from any harm and promote their welfare (Children Act, 2004). However, the Department of Children, School

Today we use the term safeguarding instead of child protection because it covers a much broader range. These changes were influenced by the first Joint Chief Inspectors’ safeguarding report 2002 and formalised in the Every Child Matters legislation outlined in the Children Act 2004. By safeguarding a child or young person we ensure they get the very best of the opportunities available to them for them to achieve the best of their potential while keeping them safe from bullying, crime, accidents, neglect and abuse.

To be able to safeguard children effectively we need to be aware of the following policies:

An Act to reform the law relating to children; to provide for local authority services for children in need and others; to amend the law with respect to children’s homes, community homes, voluntary homes and voluntary organisations; to make provision with respect to fostering, child minding and day care for young children and adoption; and for connected purposes.”

Working together to safeguard children 2006 sets out how organisations and individuals should work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people in accordance with the Children’s Act 1989 and the Children’s Act 2004. It is important that all practitioners within settings and environments looking and caring after children and young people must know their responsibilities and duties in order to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people, following their legislations, policies and procedures.

There has been certain legislation in the United Kingdom along with home policies and procedures that affect the safeguarding of children and young people. Policies and procedures for safeguarding and child protection in England and Wales are the result of the Children Act 1989 and the Children Act 2004 brought more changes that affected the way the child protection system works here in the United Kingdom and so affecting the safeguarding of children and young people. Through the protection policies and procedures for safeguarding children and young people, settings which work with children and young people have an important role in the

Legislations and procedures are put into place to protect the welfare of children, schools and childcare settings. Adults who work with children will need to understand about current legislations and familiarise themselves with them. Legislations are reviewed constantly so it is important to keep up to date with reading the relevant publications.