Understand the Main Legislation for Safeguarding Children and Young People

The local authority has a welfare of duty to protect children in their area and work

There are many procedures, policies, legislations and statutory guidance to support the safety and welfare of children and young people. They have been developed over many years to recognise the rights of children and young people, protect vulnerable children and young people and after independent inquiries of fatal abuse cases, to recognise the failures of multi agencies and support services.

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-

There are many policies and procedures within the UK that outline the current legislation and guidelines to help with safeguarding children and young people.

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

Today we use the term safeguarding instead of child protection because it covers a much broader range. These changes were influenced by the first Joint Chief Inspectors’ safeguarding report 2002 and formalised in the Every Child Matters legislation outlined in the Children Act 2004. By safeguarding a child or young person we ensure they get the very best of the opportunities available to them for them to achieve the best of their potential while keeping them safe from bullying, crime, accidents, neglect and abuse.

There is no one piece of legislation that underpins the safeguarding of children and young people in the United Kingdom but there are countless that are constantly being reviewed, changed or updated. From these many legislations, child care settings develop policies, according to the Oxford online dictionary a policy is ‘A course or principle of action adopted or proposed by an organisation or individual’.

Must be able to identify and record possible signs of abuse or neglect as soon as possible

Risk assessments should be carried out regularly to make sure that there are no safe guard threats towards the children in the setting. Childcare settings need risk assessing for example is there entrances and exits to the building that an unauthorised person could use? Could a child leave the setting without anyone noticing? Could a child get seriously hurt due to a broken piece of equipment?

xxxx takes all safeguarding issues very importantly. Whilst we may focus on vulnerable adults we do have young member of staff who would still be classed as children for Safeguarding purposes. We also have children who visit the home. We adhere that all staff on the premises are adequately checked at employment and we risk assess the adults who live within the home to the impact that they may pose to children on the premises. Sxxxxxx adheres to the 4LSCB procedures and we have a policy in place for the staff members to follow should they be worried about any child on the premises. A child’s safety is paramount and we have a duty to protect that child. Our staff members understand abuse, signs and

1. Outline 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

How national and local guidelines, policies and procedures for safeguarding affect day to day work with children and young people