The Role of Social Work in Relation to Protecting Children from Sexual Abuse

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

Safeguarding is everybody’s responsibility, and includes measures to prevent or minimise the potential for abuse occurring. Protection is considered a statutory responsibility in response to individual cases where risk of harm has been identified

Social work professions need to understand the importance of how individuals interact both with other people and their environment, to have an understanding how individuals are affected by these interactions (Rogers, p. 2). According to Rogers (2016), “Social workers are knowledgeable about human behavior across the life course; the range of social systems in which people live; and the ways social systems promote or deter people in maintaining or achieving health and well-being. Social workers apply theories and knowledge from the liberal arts to understand biological, social, cultural, psychological, and spiritual development (p. 2). Their work with clients begins with assessments to evaluations of intervention and is based in and supports of the core value system of the profession.

Safeguarding Policy Policy Statement HIT Training Ltd is strongly committed to practices that protect children, young people and vulnerable adults from abuse, neglect or significant harm. Staffs recognise and accept their responsibility to develop the awareness of the risks and issues involved in safeguarding. The company also recognises that it has a responsibility to protect staff from unfounded allegations of abuse. The company is committed to working with existing local safeguarding or adult safeguarding Boards and other health and social care partnerships to ensure the safeguarding of its learners. The company will ensure it has one nominated person the Operations Director

Practitioners and professionals working with children on a daily basis are in a good position to notice changes in a child's or young person’s behaviour which may be a possible sign of abuse. Children or young people may also confide in practitioners or allege that abuse has taken place.

What is child abuse? From the word “abuse” we can understand that it is some sort of a maltreatment of a child, causing harm and damage both to his physical and psychological well-being. At the Federal level, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) describes child abuse and neglect as: “any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse, or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.” Child abuse is a very substantial and widely spread problem in U.S. affecting children of any age, gender, race, background or income, with more than 1.8 million investigations done every year and on average, killing more than 5 children every day. The main issue of child abuse is that the abuser is usually someone a child loves or depends on (a parent, sibling, coach, neighbor, etc.), who violates child’s trust putting personal interests first, therefore official numbers of how many children suffer maltreatment might be not accurate enough as remarkable amount of these cases go unreported. Each case of child abuse is unique, with a lot of individual factors involved, nevertheless, we can distinguish some of the common causes, such as poverty, lack of education, depression, mental or physical health

Child abuse is when a parent or caregiver, through action or failure to act, causes injury, death, emotional harm or risk of serious harm to a child. According to The Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, as amended by the CAPTA Reauthorization Act of 2010, at a minimum, child abuse and neglect is defined as, "Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation"; or "An act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm (Children 's Bureau, 2010)." The law recognizes a child as being any person who is under the age of 18. The law is broken into 2 sections, and each section treats the idea of child maltreatment in different ways. Criminally, those who abuse children are able to be arrested and prosecuted in court. Civil statutes say that people who suspect a child of being abused are mandated to identify and report it.

3.3 Evaluate ways in which concerns about poor practice can be reported whilst ensuring that whistleblowers and those whose practice or behaviour is being questioned are protected.

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

The article I have chosen is written by Dr Sophie Hallett, called ‘An uncomfortable Comfortableness’: ‘Care’, child protection and child sexual exploitation.

All child protective services caseworkers are at all time expected to adhere not only to SC DSS policies and procedures, but all interactions with children and their families must be guided by the Child protective services imperatives and these imperatives are realistic and goals set forth by the agency are achievable. Weekly self-monitoring and supervisory monitoring allow for individuals to achieve and adhere to the performance standards and more importantly to assure that all children are safe. Oversight of worker safety and child safety are at the upmost importance of agency staff, although at times many caseworkers can note times where they personally did not feel

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is loosely defined as the use of “persuasion, enticement, and other inducements to coerce a child to engage in sexually explicit conduct or simulation of sexual acts” (Wilson, 2010, p. 56). While all CSA is austere, the form and severity level of CSA falls on a spectrum ranging from non-contact CSA (lowest severity) to non-penetrative contact CSA (moderate severity) to penetrative CSA (highest severity; Negriff, Schneiderman, Smith, Schreyer, & Trickett, 2014). Since the form and severity level of CSA fall on a spectrum, there is no standard clinical presentation of CSA, which may obscure a clinician’s ability to identify the signs of CSA (Yancey, Naufel, & Hansen, 2013).

Topic: Sexual abuse is a common and controversial issue that can happen to and or affect all of us.

Specific Purpose: After my speech my audience will know what child molestation is, the road to recovery, and the obstacles along the way.

Child abuse is horrible and it affects everyone in one way or another. Before 1963, there were no laws to protect the kids from abuse but thanks to social workers and other judicial people, there were laws passed (Pfohl). This paper is going to explain why it is so important for social workers to protect kids by talking about this history of abuse and why social workers need to be around. It will also discuss what social workers do today to prevent kids from being hurt. Social workers are useful in just about every aspect of life but in my opinion this is one of the more important jobs of a social worker because your protecting those of the future. Abuse isn’t just