Child Protection & Safeguarding

Lessons to be learned from child deaths and injury through abuse and neglect

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:58 +0100

The DCSF has recently published Analysing Child Deaths and Serious Injury through Abuse and Neglect: What Can We Learn? A Biennial Analysis of Serious Case Reviews 2003-2005.

Serious case reviews are carried out when abuse and neglect are known or suspected factors when a child dies (or is seriously injured or harmed). This is the third biennial analysis and involved a near-total sample of 161 cases.

Supporting parents and carers of children who have been sexually abused

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:53 +0100

Child sexual abuse: The family’s story

Legal case notes: Residence order

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:53 +0100

The facts
The parents separated when the child was one year old. He lived with his mother until he was eight years old, but had regular contact with his father. The mother continually sought to interfere with and frustrate his contact with his father, and there were several court hearings in an attempt to make contact work.

Improving children’s safety: new public service agreement

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:48 +0100

The government has recently published a public service agreement (PSA) specific to improving children’s safety. This document recognises the work that government departments are committed to and sets out the agreed expectations on LAs, local safeguarding children’s boards (LSCBs) and partner agencies. The government introduced PSAs following the 1998 comprehensive spending review, setting out for the first time what each department aimed to achieve in terms of targets for public service improvements.

Can parents smack their children?

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:48 +0100

The report, Review of Section 58 of the Children Act 2004, brings together findings on the effects of the legislation which limited the availability of the ‘reasonable punishment’ defence in cases involving alleged assaults by parents on their children. Consultations were held with parents, children and young people and other groups including, children’s charities, police and the crown prosecution service.

Every Child Matters? Disabled children not included

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:48 +0100

Priorities and Perceptions of Disabled Children and Young People and their Parents Regarding Outcomes from Support Services (for further details see p9) is essential reading for anyone who provides to children who are disabled or who have learning difficulties. It puts the issues for disabled pupils and their parents very clearly in perspective and will prove a useful tool in looking at how schools and services can interpret the ECM agenda.

Preventing internal trafficking in the UK

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:48 +0100

The United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre (UKHTC) is a multi-agency centre providing a central point for the development of expertise, operational and strategic coordination in relation to the trafficking of human beings. The centre is committed to developing and delivering a victim centred approach to combating all recognised forms of trafficking in human beings. As part of its remit UKHTC works closely with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) in order to tackle the abuse of children and young people through child trafficking.

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The new vetting and barring scheme

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:43 +0100
Update: The ISA has announced a 'go live' date of 12 October 2009 for the new scheme. Click here for more details

It is the situation we all dread as child protection professionals. A trusted employee whose CRB disclosure had caused no concern is discovered abusing children in their care. Of course, the best organisations do everything they can to prevent this situation occurring, including following safer recruitment processes and taking up references before appointments are made.
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Asking children questions about possibly abusive events

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:43 +0100
As part of my development role I co-train with a police officer, from our local child protection unit, on our investigating child abuse course. This course is run on a multi-agency basis and aims to help professionals to understand their role in investigations. For most professionals their role will be to share their information with the appropriate agencies. However, professionals can only share their information once they know that it is information that needs to be shared.
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Legal case notes: care order and parental contact

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:43 +0100
The facts

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Legal case notes: interim care order

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:39 +0100
The facts

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Coping with stress: working with children who have suffered abuse

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:38 +0100
Named persons for child protection have to be on the management/leadership team. The level of decision-making involved in the role demands a high-level response. Often in primary schools it is the head who takes on the role and I know many heads who say they do not want to put other members of staff in the role because it feels unfair to expect others to take it on.

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Managing allegations against staff: your area's procedures

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:38 +0100
Safeguarding Children and Safer Recruitment in Education came into force in January 2007. This guidance brought together two previous pieces of guidance, Safeguarding Children in Education and Safer Recruitment in Education. A major part of it is about new procedures to follow where an allegation is made against a member of staff. You may have missed this as so much emphasis seems to have been placed on getting recruitment right. This article seeks to offer an understanding of the new procedures.

Significant harm

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How clear are you about the new safer recruitment guidance?

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:36 +0100
Over the last few months I have received a series of emailed questions that suggest people are still finding some aspects of the guidance confusing and I thought it would be useful to share the most common questions that I am receiving. I hope that by doing so I will show readers that they are not alone in their confusion! (I also hope to address some of the questions.)

Do we have to check all existing staff?

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Should schools support young sex offenders? A case study

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:36 +0100
Jo is 15 years old, he has a conviction for sexual assault on two nine-year-old boys. His upper school excluded him when the police investigation started at the time he was 14.

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Legal case notes: Special guardianship

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:36 +0100
The Children Act 1989 has been amended, by the Adoption and Children Act 2002, to provide for special guardianship. Special guardianship was introduced by a white paper in the following terms:

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Legal case notes: Emergency care orders

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:33 +0100
An Emergency Protection Order (EPO) authorises a local authority to remove a child to accommodation provided by the local authority and keep him there. The court may make an EPO only if it is satisfied that there is reasonable cause to believe that a child is likely to suffer significant harm if he is not removed immediately to accommodation provided by it.

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Tools to ensure healthy relationships

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:33 +0100
Healthy relationships are at the heart of lifelong emotional wellbeing, good mental, physical and sexual health. Schools and colleges can be places where young people can talk openly, share experiences and get the support and information they need as they and their relationships grow and change.

Positive relationships

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Do 16-year-olds qualify for protection?

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:32 +0100
All childcare law defines children as people aged between 0 and 18, child protection guidance for education offers the same definition and the latest edition of Working Together to Safeguard Children also refers to this age bracket. So why are schools finding it increasingly hard to make sure their concerns for older young people are taken seriously?

Intervention under section 47

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Safeguarding children from abuse linked to a belief in spirit possession

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:31 +0100
The guidance starts with a number of key principles:

Child abuse is never acceptable in any community, in any culture, in any religion, under any circumstances.

Everyone working or in contact with children has a responsibility to recognise and know how to act on evidence, concerns and signs.

Standard child safeguarding procedures apply and must always be followed in all cases.

Child abuse linked to a belief in spirit possession sometimes stems from a child being used as a scapegoat for family problems and deprivation.

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Legal case notes: Section 37 report and youth advocacy

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:29 +0100

The facts

The parents of two boys, D aged nine and E aged seven, separated. The father took the boys to his brother’s home. The police were involved, and E was returned to the mother. Proceedings were commenced, and the father was ordered to return D to the mother, but D refused to return to her.
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Information sharing: has the new guidance lifted the fog?

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:28 +0100

We all know that sharing relevant information about children is essential, not only to protect them from harm, but also to promote their welfare and to ensure that children and young people with additional needs get the services they require. The government appreciated the importance of information sharing and made it the cornerstone of its Every Child Matters strategy.
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Searching pupils for weapons

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:28 +0100

In the light of the recent news of the stabbing of very young people by other very young people, what can schools do to try to prevent knives and other weapons coming into school?
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Should non-photographic visual depictions of child sexual abuse be outlawed?

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:28 +0100

A Home Office consultation seeks views on proposals for making non-photographic visual depictions of child abuse an offence.

What is a non-photographic depiction of child sexual abuse?
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A light-hearted look at child protection work

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:25 +0100

Forgive me if I indulge in a little humour. Child protection work is such a serious business but every so often something will happen at work that just makes me smile. Forgive also if my humour is a little warped – most social workers’ humour is! Seeing the funnier side of things is one of the ways we all keep sane in a world that can seem very distorted indeed.

‘I’ve got a penis on the roof!’
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What is ContactPoint?

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:25 +0100

The government intends to introduce a new way of sharing information about children who are receiving a variety of services. This new system has previously been referred to as the ‘Information Sharing Index’ but will now be known as ContactPoint.
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Legal case notes: Care order

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:25 +0100

The facts
A 6-year-old female child was made the subject of a care order. She was placed first with foster carers, and then with prospective adopters. With the approval of the local authority, her 17-year-old half sister (the girls shared a mother) had contact with her three times a year while she was with the foster carers, and contact with her three times during her first year with the prospective adopters.
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Domestic violence and parental substance misuse

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:24 +0100

There is a considerable body of research which shows children who grow up in families where there is domestic violence and/or parental alcohol or drug misuse are at increased risk of significant harm.
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Legal case notes: Re M (a child) (care proceedings: witness summons) [2007] FCR 253, CA

ewtemp — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:21 +0100

The facts
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Integrating children's services through schools

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:16 +0100

New requirements for professional practice and managerial action often spring from the political reaction to public scandals. In Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss’s 1988 Cleveland inquiry the failure of professional collaboration was pinpointed. The 1989 Children Act that followed required professionals to ‘work together better’. It took the shocking results of Lord Laming’s inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié, and the 2004 Children Act, for parliament to prescribe professional integration as the cure.
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Young people at risk of abuse through prostitution

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:15 +0100

The sad events in Ipswich, at the end of 2006, brought the issue of sexual abuse through prostitution into sharp focus. The press photographs of the five murdered young women, all reported to be selling their bodies for sex, tell little of their lives.
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Effective treatment for children who sexually abuse others

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:15 +0100

Introduction
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Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006: an overview

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:14 +0100

The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act, which came into force in November 2006, heralds very significant changes in the way that people who work with children or vulnerable adults are vetted. Indeed the reforms are so substantial that the government intends to phase them in over the next two years, as it fears teething problems. Therefore the new regime will not be fully in place until 2008 at the earliest.
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A new emotional health programme for young people

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:11 +0100

DEAL (Developing Emotional Awareness and Learning) is a new programme for schools that aims to improve the emotional health of young people across the UK and Ireland. It has been launched by Samaritans, the charity that provides confidential emotional support for people who are experiencing feelings of distress or despair.
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Child abuse and its affect on brain development (part two)

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:11 +0100

The first part of this article (click here) addressed a growing body of research about how childhood abuse can bring about physical changes in the way that the brain functions. Research shows that repeated experiences of abuse will cause a child to develop coping mechanisms as an act of survival. It suggests that the regions of the brain that deal with anxiety and fear responses may be overdeveloped in people who have been subjected to abuse.
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Recruitment matters

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:10 +0100

Undoubtedly the key asset and investment in any school is its population, both staff and students. Therefore, it makes sound financial sense to ensure that everything possible is done to safeguard their welfare, a fact which is recognised in the DfES document Safeguarding Children: Safer Recruitment and Selection in Education Settings. In this article, we review the major features of the document and suggest how ignoring its content can have serious financial implications for your school.
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How can your school help victims of domestic abuse?

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:09 +0100

Background

Domestic violence accounts for a quarter of all reported violent crime: it is a crime which takes place largely unseen but which has tremendous costs to family and community life and to local services. The reality is that women are more at risk of violence from men they know than from stranger attacks and street violence.
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How safe are your school trips abroad?

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:09 +0100

After consulting on a draft of the standard, it is now working on a final version which should be ready for publication in March or April of 2007. The draft version contains a section on the protection of children and vulnerable adults.

The BSI surveyed parents across Britain and found that they had many concerns about their children participating in school trips abroad and that they wanted a national safety standard to be established. It found that:
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Helping adults abused in childhood

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:08 +0100

Whenever I’m asked to write something about NAPAC (National Association for People Abused in Childhood) I experience excitement and fear in about equal proportions. Excitement because it gives me the chance to tell others about our amazing and unique charity and fear because it conjures up the possibility of making a fool of myself by trying to tell people things they probably already know and that puts me in touch with my childhood… where it all started!
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Child protection, schools and the media

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:07 +0100

There probably isn’t a day that goes go by without a child protection story in the press and such reports often give a negative view of how professionals have handled a case.
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Report exposes gaps in sex offender legislation that allows abusers to go abroad

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:07 +0100

It describes how some British sex offenders have gone to great lengths to set up orphanages or schools in poor countries in order to abuse children – and money to support these orphanages was raised in the UK.

Dozens of British nationals have been arrested or convicted abroad in the last five years for the sexual abuse of children.
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Sexual exploitation: signs to look out for

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:07 +0100

Schools are often the first agency to recognise that a young person may be at risk of sexual exploitation through prostitution and the parents of these young people may approach school for help. Sometimes it is the school that approaches parents to find out why their child’s attendance has dropped, or to discuss behaviour that is causing concern. The parent may be at the beginning stages of recognising that something is desperately wrong, or may be at the end of their tether, not knowing where to turn.
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Overhaul for school records of staff vetting

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:05 +0100

Following the publication of Ofsted’s report, the government introduced new measures to improve record keeping and revised guidance was issued over the summer for consultation.
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Managing the transition from pre-school to the foundation stage

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:59 +0100

The girl walks down the street holding her mother’s hand. She has a bubbly, excited feeling in her stomach; she wants to run home but does not want to miss what is ahead of her. She cannot speak because she is so scared and anxious. She walks through the gates with her mother and is met by a skirt, a tartan skirt. She hears her mother say ‘She’s a little bit nervous, will she be all right?’ The next thing the girl knows is that the skirt has become a face with a smile, whispering in her ear:
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Every Child Matters: the Common Assessment Framework

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:52 +0100

The thinking behind Every Child Matters is not new and it should not mean any radical shifts in policies or drastic changes. It is really about rationalising how we work with pupils and their parents and bringing together all the other agencies that can be used to help.

This is where the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) comes in. The CAF is being introduced in all LEAs between April 2006 and December 2008. You may be familiar with the process because your school may already be piloting it.

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Legal case notes: Interim care order

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:51 +0100

The facts
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Peer mentoring and self-harm

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:50 +0100

Self-harm has often been considered a rare occurrence, but in fact it is becoming increasingly common. Although there are no national statistics available, surveys suggest that one in ten children self-harm.

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Support line for adult survivors

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:50 +0100

NAPAC, the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, has set up a support line for adult survivors.

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New campaign to help children and their parents get help for alcohol addiction

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:50 +0100

Most schools are only too well aware of children whose parents misuse alcohol. According to the charity Turning Point, there are up to 1.3m, or one in eleven children, in the UK living with parents who misuse alcohol. Despite the fact that so many children are affected, it remains a hidden problem.

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Helping pupils to understand the risks of alcohol abuse

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:50 +0100

A recent survey of 11-16 year olds found that 55% reported that they were more likely to receive education on drug misuse than on drinking and 43% said they had received more sex education than they had on safe drinking. The survey, commissioned by the Drinkaware Trust, the education arm of the safe drinking organisation, The Portman Group, asked questions of 572 male and female pupils aged between 11 and 16 from a range of secondary schools across the UK.

The survey also revealed that:

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