Explain What Is Means to Have a Duty of Care in Own Work Role

Duty of Care: best interest; defensible decision making; contextualising behaviour; identification of positive and negative risks

The Children Act 1989 – Places a duty on all child care practitioners within a setting to not only identify but also to meet the needs of every individual child as well as keeping them safe. The Act introduced the idea of child led planning, placing the child at the center of any planning made regarding their own learning and development. The act also specifies the responsibility of the parent in keeping their own child safe and free from harm.

2.2- Demonstrate how to deal with hazards to minimise risks to the health, safety and security of children and young people.

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.

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

It is important to ensure children and young people are protected from harm within the setting, as the parents are leaving their children in your care with the expectation that they can trust you and your colleagues to keep their children from harm. It is difficult for parents to leave their children in an education or care setting and then go to work; they need to be confident that their children will be in safe supportive hands with people that will help them develop.

Childminders must ensure the premises and equipment used for the purposes of childcare are safe and suitable and must undertake a risk assessment of the premises and equipment at least once in each calendar year. Childminders must ensure that all necessary measures are taken to minimise any identified risks.

As a home based child-minder the safe supervision of children both in and out of the home is ultimately my complete and main responsibility. When considering the level of supervision required it is important to remember that ’supervision’ can be interpreted into 3 different level types- I.e. the depth of supervision that you adapt, and that safety requirements outlined by Ofsted determines supervision to be adapted at all times of children in my care primarily in the following activity areas;

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

It is important that children and young people are allowed to exercise their rights and choices, whilst health and safety requirements are maintained. This can lead to a dilemma when children and young people wish to undertake a task that you may feel is not within their capabilities, or that is not safe for them to do so

It is very important to let children asses’ danger for themselves in a secure environment. It is not good for them to be cooped up and have somebody tell them that one thing is bad and will hurt them and another will keep them safe they need to identify these things for themselves to enable them to live a positive life as an adult and to gain confidence in themselves and their own abilities. At the same time the children need to be given this chance in a safe and secure place whereby I as the carer know they will not come into any danger.

1.1 Explain what it means to have a duty of care in your work role.

While working with vulnerable groups of individuals in health and social care settings there are times when care workers are faced with a conflict of interests. Very often ethical dilemmas will not have the right answer and will depend upon a number of considerations. When the care worker is faced with a dilemma and will be expected to make a decision. Before making a decision, the care worker must consider their risks to the individual and any other people, the policies of the organisation and if they have all the facts of the case.

Explain a range of ethical and moral dilemmas which social workers and the team may encounter when dealing with this care – look at case study on the assignment brief.

Duty of care is a legal concept originating from common law and is considered the driving force behind most school policies, guidelines and practices. Duty of care outlines the responsibility one must undertake to ensure that reasonable steps are in place to protect the safety or well-being of others. Within these parameters teachers must manage their classrooms and school activities, maintain order and discipline, and make every effort to understand their legal rights and those of their students, (Whitton et al, 2010).