Module Title – Safeguarding

CONTENTS PAGE

Page 1 – Cover Page

Page 2 – Contents Page

Page 3 – 6 – Intro, Types of abuse

Page 6 – 8 – Current Legislation

Page 9 – Safeguarding Policy, Knowledge & Skills

Page 10 – Disclosure, Multi-Agency

Page 11 – Keeping children safe

Page 12 – Conclusion

Page 13 – References

Pages 14 – 15 - Appendix 1

Safeguarding

The topic of this assignment is safeguarding children and young people. First of all, it will look at the different categories of abuse and consider the short and long term effects on the child. This will include: the range of signs and symptoms, the physical and behavioural indicators and the models of abuse. It will then examine current legislation relevant to safeguarding and critically evaluate and review the safeguarding policies and procedures from the setting, including how to deal with the disclosure of abuse and the role of practitioner. Next, it will assess the knowledge and skills needed by the practitioner to work in partnership with children, families and multi-agency teams. Finally, it will look at how the practitioner can promote a child’s ability to keep themselves safe and protected.

What do we mean by ‘Safeguarding’? Lindon, J (2012), Pg 15 defines the term safeguarding as,

“The process of creating a safe environment for the whole younger generation, as well as protecting those children and young people who are vulnerable or have already been harmed.”

There are a wide range of professionals and services that share the responsibility of safeguarding young children from social workers, police, educational services, foster carers, health services to child-minders. Even though their roles on dealing with the children vary depending on the professional, the responsibility is equally as important. These professionals have a responsibility to be knowledgeable in the different types of abuse and the physical and behavioural indicators so we can recognise if there is something wrong with the children we have a duty of care for. According the Child-Help website (founded in 1959), child abuse can be defined as any damage done to a child which cannot be reasonably explained and appears to be non-accidental.

The Government’s guidance for England (HM Government, 2010) defines physical abuse in the following way,

“Physical abuse may involve hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or scalding, drowning, suffocating, or otherwise causing physical harm to a child.
Physical harm may also be caused when a parent or carer fabricates the symptoms of, or deliberately induces illness in a child.”

We can identify physical abuse from cuts, bruising, bleeding and burns. The short term effects on the child are: short attention span; refusal to undress for gym; wearing clothes to cover injuries, even in hot weather. The child may have a fear of physical contact, shrink back if touched and also have difficulties in trusting adults and peers. Also the child may have anger issues, lash out and have the inability to control their emotions. (NSPCC 2013)

Another form of abuse is sexual abuse. Sexual abuse is largely hidden and can be difficult to uncover. Victims wait years before telling anybody about their abuse. The NSPCC Website states that,

“The UK Government now split child sexual abuse between contact and non-contact abuse. Contact abuse is used to describe penetrative abuse or where an abuser makes physical contact with a child. Non-contact abuse covers other acts where the abuser does not touch the child. This includes grooming and exploitation such as coercing children into performing sexual acts over the internet as well as flashing.”

As competent practitioners we should be trained in noticing the indicators of sexual abuse. Physical indicators that we can see could be bruising, or bleeding on and around the genital area, bite marks, cuts and stained clothes. Behavioural indicators may show as the child