The Role Of Multi Agency Working ( Maw )

This helps practitioner’s work together for the welfare of children. It promotes the Every Child Matters outcomes to reinforcing how important it is for all child careers to work together.

Multi agency working is a child centred approach and deemed to work well providing the best support to children, young people and families. It provides more benefits because

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-

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

It has been debated that children and families have received poor service because of the failure of professionals in understanding each other’s roles or working together in a multi-disciplinary

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.

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

The multi-agency team work together to support the child and their family sharing information in meetings, identifying problems and trying to solve the problems as soon as possible. The practitioner should have regular contact with the other professionals to provide the child and their family with a better service. (The Department for Eduation ,2012 www.education.gov.uk, 2012) The practitioner and other professionals will share ideas and comments, the diversity of the different professionals that the practitioner will be working with will benefit the child and their family. The other professionals will have different experiences and will be likely to offer more information and solutions to help the child and their family. (Tassoni.P et al, 2007).For example a practitioner is working with other professionals to meet the needs of a child that has special needs and this child will be starting primary school soon and the practitioner is working with someone who is a SENCO worker (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator). They have got to work out a solution on how best to meet this child’s needs by involving the child in as many activities as possible and encouraging the child to be as independent as possible by making the

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

There has been certain legislation in the United Kingdom along with home policies and procedures that affect the safeguarding of children and young people. Policies and procedures for safeguarding and child protection in England and Wales are the result of the Children Act 1989 and the Children Act 2004 brought more changes that affected the way the child protection system works here in the United Kingdom and so affecting the safeguarding of children and young people. Through the protection policies and procedures for safeguarding children and young people, settings which work with children and young people have an important role in the

Safeguarding is the term that has replaced the term Child Protection. It includes promoting children’s safety and welfare as well as protecting children when abuse happens. It has only been developed in the past 50 years, and the need for improved legislation has been highlighted by cases such as Maria Colwell (1973) and Victoria Climbie (2000) as these cases showed weaknesses in procedures.

There was also the case of Victoria Climbié (2000), who was killed by her caregivers when she was eight years old, her death led to some of these key changes. There were many opportunities, at least 12, (Telegraph, 2002) missed by professionals during her short life and if these had been picked up and investigated thoroughly could have prevented her death. After her death there was an inquiry led by Lord Lamming, (2003) ‘to make recommendations as to how such an event may, as far as possible, be avoided in the future.’ After his report was produced, a paper, ‘Every child matter’ was published by the government and the Children Act 2004 was also passed. One of the key aspects of this act was to make sure that any agencies involved with cases