The Basics of Safeguarding
The Children’s Act 1989 provides the legislative framework for child protection in England. Key principles include the paramount nature of the child’s welfare and the expectations/requirements around duties of care to children.
This was strengthened by Section 11 of the Children Act, 2004 which places a duty of care on organisations such as providers of Probation Services.
Both of these acts are amended by the Children and Social Work Act 2017, which received Royal Assent on 27 April 2017. Key provisions include:
- The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel was established to review and report on serious child protection cases that are complex or of national importance (Sections 12 to 15)
- The previous model of Local Safeguarding Children’s Boards (LSCBs) has been replaced by local safeguarding partners who will publish reports on local safeguarding practice reviews (Section 17)
- Child death review partners are required to review each death of a child normally resident in their area and identify matters that are relevant to public health and safety and children locally (Section 24)
- Local authorities must appoint personal advisers for care leavers up to the age of 25 (Section 3)
- Social Work England is created as a regulatory body for the social work profession in England (Section 36)
- Relationships education will be provided to primary school children and relationships and sex education will be provided (instead of sex education) in secondary schools (Section 34).
What is child abuse?
Child abuse falls into one or more of five categories, which you will need to be aware of. These categories are:
Physical Abuse – Physical abuse is behavior such as:
- Slapping
- Hitting
- Shaking
- Throwing
- Poisoning
- Pushing
- Burning or scalding
- Drowning
- Suffocating
- Any other behaviour or physical action that causes harm to a child.
It may also be caused when a parent or carer fabricates symptoms of, or induces illness in a child.
This can be very generally speaking, the easiest to spot, because of the actual physical injuries the child receives. Physical harm is often covert, however, and can be covered up by the parents so professionals may not see it.
Emotional Abuse – Emotional abuse can be described as consistent emotional ill treatment of a child either directly or indirectly.
This ill treatment can have severe effects on the child’s emotional development.
This is often a lot harder to spot. Emotional abuse can include:
- Being witness to domestic abuse
- Conveying to a child that s/he is worthless, unloved or inadequate
- Imposing developmentally inappropriate expectations e.g. beyond the child’s developmental capability
- Causing a child to feel scared or in danger
- Exploitation.
This is not an exclusive list, and it will rely on observation skills and professional judgment to spot.
Sexual abuse – Sexual abuse can involve forcing or enticing a child to take part in sexual activities. These sexual activities can involve physical contact either penetrative (2 types) and / or non-penetrative acts.
Type 1: Penetrative acts include penetration of vagina, anus or mouth with a penis.
Type 2: Assault by penetration is sexual penetration of vagina or anus of a child with a part of the body or an object.
Sexual activities may also include non-contact activities such as
a child looking at or watching / production of abusive images, watching sexual activities or encouraging him/her to behave in sexually inappropriate ways.
Note: Children under sixteen years of age cannot lawfully consent to sexual intercourse even if they practice it.
Neglect –Neglect involves the persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical and/or psychological needs and is likely to result in the serious impairment of the child’s health and development.
Neglect may occur in a number of ways including during pregnancy (for example abusing drugs) or after a child is born.
After a child is born, neglect includes behaviour that fails to support and provide for the child’s needs for example, not providing food, not responding to emotional needs and not accessing basic medical support. Again, this is not an exclusive list.
Bullying – Bullying may be defined as deliberately hurtful behaviour, usually repeated over a period of time, where it is difficult for those bullied to defend themselves. It can take many forms, but the three main types are physical (e.g. hitting, kicking, theft), verbal (e.g. racist or homophobic remarks, threats, name calling) and emotional (e.g. isolating an individual from the activities and social acceptance of their peer group).
The damage inflicted by bullying can frequently be underestimated. It can cause considerable distress to children to the extent that it affects their health and development or, at the extreme, cause them significant harm (including self-harm). All settings in which children are provided with services or are living away from home should have in place rigorously enforced anti- bullying strategies.
Probation Service Duties under section 11
Probation staff are subject to Section 11 duties by providing reports to the Courts about the risk an offender poses.
Responsible Officers (RO) are therefore well placed to identify offenders who pose a risk of harm to children.
Where an adult offender is assessed as presenting a risk of serious harm to children, the RO should develop a risk management plan and supervision plan that contains a specific objective to manage and reduce the risk of harm to children.
In preparing a sentence plan, offender managers should consider how planned interventions might impact on parental responsibilities and whether the planned interventions could contribute to improved outcomes for children known to be in an existing relationship with the offender.
Timeframes of referrals – When should things be done?
The timeliness of an assessment is a critical element of the quality of that assessment and the outcomes for the child.
You should make a referral within 24 hours if you identify a child is at risk and immediately if the risk is immediate so that Social Care can take the appropriate action.
The speed of the assessment by Social Care itself should be determined by the needs of the individual child and the nature and level of any risk of harm faced by the child.
This will require professional judgements to be made by the social worker in discussion with their manager on each individual case.
When you make a referral, within one working day of a referral being received, a local authority social worker should make a decision about the type of response that is required and acknowledge receipt to the referrer.
Note: If this does not happen – follow this up!
When you make a referral – good practice states that you should inform the offender of your referral.
Immediate risk – For children who are in need of immediate protection, action must be taken by the social worker, or the police or NSPCC if removal is required, as soon as possible after the referral has been made to local authority children’s social care (sections 44 and 46 of the Children Act 1989).
Timeframes of Assessments for Social Care
The maximum timeframe for the assessment to conclude, such that it is possible to reach a decision on next steps, should be no longer than 45 working days from the point of referral.
If, in discussion with a child and their family and other professionals, an assessment exceeds 45 working days, the social worker should record the reasons for exceeding the time limit.
Whatever the timescale for assessment, where particular needs are identified at any stage of the assessment, social workers should not wait until the assessment reaches a conclusion before commissioning services to support the child and their parents or family.
Assessments Outcomes
Social Care assessments have 3 possible outcomes:
These are:
Child in need: Once a referral is acted on by social care – the Social worker leads an assessment under section 47 of the Children Act 1989 and other professionals contribute.
If child protection is not needed but the child is still assessed as being in need, the social worker will, with the family and all other professionals, agree a plan for ensuring the child’s future safety and welfare. All decisions and actions will be recorded.
Child protection: The social work manager will convene a child protection conference within 15 working days of the strategy discussion.
All decisions made will be recorded at the child protection conference.
The child will be the subject of a Child Protection Plan with a core group established to manage the child’s welfare.
You have a duty to attend all these meetings!
What happens at a child protection conference?
A Chair will lead the meeting.
As a matter of good practice, you should have submitted a report about your involvement with the family prior to the meeting.
When you arrive at the meeting, you will then have time to read all the professionals’ reports. The parents of the child will also have time to read the reports.
All professionals will then discuss their involvement with the child in the presence of the parents.
Note: If there is information that cannot be shared, a confidential “side meeting” will be called and parents will be asked to leave for a short period.
All professionals will then have to give a decision as to whether the child should be on the child protection register and under which category(s) (emotional, physical, sexual or neglect). Or, decide if the children are “children in need”.
The Chair has overall say on this and the decision is made in the meeting in front of the parents. Following this, a subsequent meeting is held in accordance with the information and timelines expressed in this chapter.
If you would like to watch a useful video on safeguarding, click on the video below:
