Serious Case Review Essay

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-

4- The committee and Ms Beckel decided to include a religious studies curriculum in the program. The principal approved of it. However, Ms Wright one of the community members did not. She threatened to show up at the committee meeting with the media. On the day of the meeting, Ms Wright showed up with a placard protesting the use of the bible in public schools.

The death of Victoria Climbie was partly responsible for Every Child Matters: Change for Children, which is a UK government initiative for England and Wales, which was launched in 2003. This was meant to help promote the well being of children and young people. To ensure that all organisational that seek to provide a service

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.

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

In 2003 it was clear services for children still weren’t working or communicating together this was flagged up because of the tragic death of Victoria Climbie

In March 2009 a review by Lord Laming said a higher priority should be given to child

The court deciphering between criminal negligence and recklessness. Criminal negligence being a person failing to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the result will occur or that the circumstance exists. The risk must be of such nature and degree that the failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the situation.

Working Together to safeguard children 2015 is a statutory guidance and says ‘’specific duties in relation to children’s need and children suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm.’’ (Gov.uk)

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.

According to the two Serious Case Review (SCR) released by the coalition and then Children Health Secretary Ed ball, which found the youngster’s ‘horrifying’ death ‘could and should’ have been prevented by the public workers charged with protecting him.

Every Child Matters was published in 2003 by the government because of the death of Victoria Climbie. There are five outcomes that are key to children and young people’s wellbeing, these are:

Every child needs to be Safe, healthy, enjoy/achieve, economic, positive contribution. The Children’s Act was influenced by Victoria Climbié who died with 128 injuries in February 2000, which was one of the highest profile cases of death. She lived in Europe with her aunt Marie Therese Kouao and her boyfriend Carl Manning to get a better education. Even though she came across health, police, service users on different occasions they did not discover the abuse until her death. Due to the circumstances leading to Victoria Climbie’s death social care provisions had to make recommendation on how the system should change.

Children are left at risk when a case is not followed up promptly due to