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Safeguarding means protecting and promoting the child’s welfare and putting measure in place to prevent abuse. Child protection is protecting a child where there is reason to believe that the child has suffered or are likely to suffer as a result of abuse.

Safeguarding is about keeping children safe from harm and abuse. It means proactively seeking to involve the whole community in keeping children safe and promoting their welfare.

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

UNIT 524. Facilitate change, in health and social care or children and young people’s settings.

Safeguarding involves everything a setting does, including their procedures and policies etc, to ensure children are kept safe and healthy, and that the risk of them coming to harm or being involved in an accident, is minimised.

Safeguarding is for everyone and every organisation responsibility to protect children from any harm and promote their welfare (Children Act, 2004). However, the Department of Children, School

Any individual who comes into contact with children in their daily work has a duty to ensure the safety and well-being of children. Safeguarding means protecting and promoting the childs welfare and putting measures in place to prevent abuse. Child protection is protecting a child when there is reason to believe that the child has suffered or is likely to suffer from abuse or neglect. In order to ensure this happens within a school setting, there are many laws that protect the welfare and safeguarding of children:-

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.

As there are a number of different agencies which may be involved when working in the context of safeguarding, it is important that they communicate and work in partnership to ensure the safety and protection of children. Each area of expertise may need to have an input in any one case and each should be considered when discussing issues around safeguarding. A working party or ‘team around the child’ meeting may be called involving a number of agencies in order to discuss how to move forward in the best interests of the child. Different organisations involved in safeguarding are: social services, the NSPCC, health visitors, GPs, the probation service, the police, schools, the psychology service. When it comes to safeguarding, children are best protected when professionals know what is required of them and how they work together. This means that everyone who works with children has a responsibility for keeping them safe which involves identifying concerns, sharing information and taking prompt action. To carry this out effectively professionals need to work in partnership with each other.

When dealing with suspected or actual abuse it is important that we don’t make premature judgments and try to deal with the situation without having all information and evidence required. Just because (for example) a child comes into school regularly with cuts and bruises, this does not mean that they are being abuse. Observations can play a key role into getting actual evidence. By making premature judgments and proceeding to accuse parents/carers of abusing a child can cause a lot of unnecessary upset to both parent and child and make your workplace look inadequate.

In 2006 a revised version of this document provided an update on safeguarding and national framework to help agencies work individually and together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. It also reflects changes to safeguarding practice in recent years, especially in the light of the Laming and Bichard Inquires, where these two cases made a number of key recommendations for improvements to services and the formation of the Independent Safeguarding Authority.

Adult safeguarding was defined as, a range of activity aimed at upholding an adult’s fundamental right to be safe at the same time as respecting people’s rights to make choices. Safeguarding involves empowerment, protection and justice. In practice the term “safeguarding” is used to mean both specialist services where harm or abuse has, or is suspected to have, occurred and other activity designed to promote the wellbeing and safeguard the rights of adults. Following the Civil Service rapid evidence assessment methodology1, having formulated the questions to be addressed by the review and developed a conceptual framework, inclusions and exclusion criteria were agreed. Articles published in 2002 or later, relevant to the review questions were included. Studies were excluded if they were not relevant, for example: health focused, concerned with children rather than adults. A wide range of databases, web-sites and grey literature were searched and screened, using search terms related to adult safeguarding, adult protection and workforce, staff and training. Experts in the field were also asked to identify relevant resources and guidance. Results Overall, much of the evidence on workforce and adult safeguarding is based on a limited number of studies and cases. Much of the work reviewed was of little specific relevance to the social care workforce. Most

The UK Government has defined the term ‘safeguarding children’ as: ‘The process of protecting children from abuse or neglect, preventing impairment of their health and development, and ensuring they are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care that enables children to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully.’

Safeguarding vulnerable group act 2006 is an Act that protects vulnerable people from abuse. Legislation policies and procedures for safeguarding groups have made health and social care staff much more aware of what is regarded as abuse and how to identify that abuse may have occurred. This rule helps to know what to do and how to do it if you suspect any kind of maltreatment or abuse or if an individual tells you that they are being abused. (Stretch, Whitehouse, health and social care level 3 books 1 P105).

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.