Series Case Review

1.1 Outline current legislation, guidelines, policies and procedure within own UK Home Nation affecting the safeguarding of children and young people.

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-

The report made 108 ‘sweeping recommendations’ (Laming, 2003) about modifications that were needed in the child protection system as a response to the errors made by professionals who had accountability for Victoria’s care. These involved the creation of a children and families board, a children’s commissioner, new local authorities management boards and the creation of a national children’s database. The thrust of the report was to address the integration of children’s services, bringing the relevant sections of the professional sector together to improve co-ordination and communication as that would directly lead to effective collaboration.

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

Serious case reviews are called by the local safeguarding children’s board when a child dies and abuse and neglect are known or suspected to be a factor in the death. They will involve the local authority children’s service and the police, as well as health, education

The importance of interagency working in the safeguarding and protection of children in the UK

When it comes to the roles and responsibilities of early years practitioners regarding safeguarding, protection and welfare of children it is important to remember “Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility”1 To help all practitioners achieve this responsibility the EYFS states: “Providers must have and implement a policy, and procedures, to safeguard children.” 2 “Providers must train all staff to understand their safeguarding policy and procedures, and ensure that all staff have up to date knowledge of safeguarding issues.” 3 Every setting must provide clear policies and procedures along with training covering all aspects of safeguarding, child protection, health and safety issue, identifying signs of possible abuse and neglect. However, it is a

Serious Case Reviews (SCR’s) are undertaken when a child dies (including death by suspected suicide), by a local authority (and more often than not by the Local Children’s Safeguarding Board) if abuse or neglect is known or suspected to be a factor in the death. SCR’s are not enquiries into how a child died or who was responsible; that is a matter for the Coroner's and Criminal Courts to determine. Instead the purpose of Serious Case Reviews is to:

The term “child protection” is more and more being replaced by the term “safeguarding children”. Child protection is specifically about abuse when it comes under the umbrella term of safeguarding. Child protection in England and Wales is the overall responsibility of the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and they offer both non and statutory guidance to Local Authorities. Child protection is part of the larger concept to safeguard and

NSPCC (2015) serious case reviews have been used since 2002 before that they were formally known As ‘Inquiries’ and were not seen compulsory but now under section 18 of the Children Act 2004 serious case reviews have to be completed. Serious case reviews are done after a child dies or is seriously injured abuse or neglect is thought to be involved. It looks at the lesson that can be learned and what can be done to prevent similar incidents in the future, further it focuses on what happened in the case and why it happened. The decision to carry out a serious case review needs

A serious case review SCR take place after a child dies or is seriously injured and abuse or neglect, this will be conducted by the local safeguarding children board LSCB for example they will bring to gathers all the organisations involved in the case including children social care the police, health and education, each organisations will be conduct an independent inquiry into their management of the case and make recommendations for future improvements, for example to take lesions that can help prevent similar incidents from happening in the future, the findings from serious case reviews are published in a final report, which then used as part process for sharing lessons learnt from the situations, for example the final report will provide

Safeguarding children is the promise made by the Government in the United Kingdom when implementing social policies and legislation to ‘…protect them from harm.’ (H.M Government, 2013, p11) Furthermore, the Government have stipulated that the protection of children is paramount and is the responsibility of everyone who comes in contact with a child. This is the aspect of social policy and legislation that is going to be analysed and critically reflected on; engaging in the historical social policies and legislation developed to enrich the lives of young children and their families. Also, finding out if the adjustments made to current policies and legislation has been effective.