Minimum Standards For Childminding

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 – States that services should be put into place to ‘safeguard and promote the welfare of children within the (local authority) area who are in need’.

All Early years’ settings have policies and procedures that staff need to work with and follow they need to be up to date and be in line with the current framework of current legislation. Every policy has a procedure to follow and how to respond if you have any concerns about your key child or any other child that attends to the setting. The following procedures must be completed to ensure that the correct method is actioned.

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

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;

Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 places a duty on local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in need and to promote the upbringing of children by their families, so far as this is consistent with their welfare duty to the child, by providing an appropriate range and level of services. A child in need is one who is disabled, or unlikely either to achieve a reasonable standard of health or whose health or development will suffer unless services are provided.

This Act, which regulates the childcare in England, formalise the important strategic role of local authorities play through a set of duties. These duties require

The main current legislation guidelines policies and procedures within own UK home nation for safeguarding children and young people.

All people working with children are governed by legislation that is in place to protect your children and the child care provider. In this document I have listed four important legislations that are of particular importance to home based child care providers and noted how I aim to incorporate them into my practice. Child care practitioners also have a regulatory body; in England it is Ofsted. This document gives you a brief description of their supervisory role in child care settings. However, the list of legislation is not comprehensive and nor is the short description of Ofsted’s Role, if you would like more information or would like to discuss

Section: 1.3 * Analyse how national and local guideline, policies and procedures for safeguarding affect day to day work with children and young people. The government is there to create a law for a serious case review, this is then given to the local authorities and they then interpret the law and then develop a code of practice which is then given to all the schools. Then it is up to the schools management to write the school policies and make sure that the staff and volunteers read and follow. The policies are reviewed for at least every two to three years.

It’s the first acknowledgement of uk law of children’s rights. It established the needs of a child’s welfare are paramount. A child-minder needs to ensure that they meet a child’s needs as it is vital to their well being and must be suitable; as each child is unique and has individual needs. Amongst other things, the act legislates to protect children who may be suffering or are likely to suffer significant harm.

As a former Childcare Tutor and National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ) Assessor working in the education sector, it was imperative to understand the various legislative requirements and code of practices implemented by various organisations. I adhere to these laws and codes which I have identified and listed.

It is the policy of the Nursery/Pre-School to comply fully with the requirements of European Community Law, the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974, and all other relevant statutory provisions.