Explain Why It Is Important To Work With Children

There are many legislations and guidelines affecting safeguarding of children and young people. The Children Act 1989, assigns duties to local authorities, courts, parents and other agencies to ensure children are safeguarded, their welfare promoted and for children to be consulted in decisions affecting them. The Children's Act 2004 made amendments to the act of 1989 after the failings regarding Victoria Climbe. It places duty on local authorities to work together and share information introducing local Safeguarding Boards to work collaboratively to safeguard children and young people. This includes the five outcomes of Every Child Matters 2003. The Childcare Act 0f 2006 introduced plans for children aged 0-5 to

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.

Section 17 of the act places an obligation to ensure services are in place within local authority areas to safeguard and promote the welfare of children within such areas who are 'in need'.

1 - To be healthy: enjoying good physical and mental health and living a healthy lifestyle.

Current legislation is the result of The children Act 1989 which was brought in to ensure that all people who work with children worked together and was clear about their responsibility’s 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 led to the governments Every Child Matters paper and The Children Act 2004. In the last year this has now been renamed Every

Children Act 1989 – Protecting children’s welfare and to provide services according to the specific needs of children.

All services are aimed at young people and are based around each individual needs. Children’s wishes should be considered during decision making to give them a sense of belonging and not to be made to feel as though its them who’s to blame

Child Act 1989- “the Children Act 1989 aimed to ensure that the welfare of the child was paramount, working in partnership with parents to protect the child from harm” http://www.careandthelaw.org.uk/eng/b_section2 appendix 3

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

Polices and procedures for safeguarding and child protection in England and Wales are the result of the Children Act 1989 and in Northern Ireland of the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995. The Children Act 2004 introduced further changes to the way the child protection system is structured and organised in England and Wales.

The idea behind the Act is to promote (co-ordination between multiple official entities to improve the overall well-being of children. The 2004 Act also specifically provided for including and affecting disabled children. The Act places a duty on local authorities and their partners (including the police, health service providers and the youth justice system) to co-operate in promoting the wellbeing of children and young people and to make arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

The following is an outline of current legislation, guidelines, policies and procedures within own UK Home Nation for safeguarding children

Working with children or youth can be challenging because worker needs to put consideration of the developmental stage of the individual. Each child and/or young adults may be more vulnerable than others depending on their age, maturity and circumstances. There are many areas of concern when working with children or youth; such as substance abuse, bullying, body image, build relationships, changes in the family (parental separation) and much more.

I have learned many things throughout my years working with children. The first and (arguably) most important thing I have learned is that patience is very important. It may take many tries to achieve a goal but the ‘trying’ aspect is what is crucial to learning. We live in a world of instant gratification and the ‘try’ aspect is starting to become lost. For many people if they do not see the desired result instantly; they give up. I want to show my students that it is okay to not get things on the first, second or even third try but to have patience along the way because mistakes are learning opportunities. It is important to have passion and excitement about what you are teaching. The children have much more willingness to learn when they

The Children and young Persons Act (2008) also makes similar provisions for the wellbeing of a child to be the duty of