Safeguarding

What is Safeguarding?

Being safe and secure is fundamental to the well-being of all children and young people. And in achieving their full potential they need to feel loved and valued, and be supported by a network of reliable and affectionate relationships without the fear of abuse or neglect.

The government guidance on Working Together to Safeguard Children defines safeguarding as:

• Protecting children from maltreatment.
  
  
• Preventing impairment of children's health or development.
  
  
• Ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care.
  
  
• Enabling those children to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully.

All adults who come into contact with children and young people in their work have a duty of care to safeguard and promote their welfare. The Children Act 2004 places a duty on organisations to safeguard and promote the well-being of children and young people. This includes the need to ensure that all adults who work with or on behalf of children and young people in these organisations are competent, confident and safe to do so.

The recent report by Lord Laming, The Protection of Children in England: A Progress Report, highlighted that while good progress has been made, there is still a considerable way to go in establishing clear and effective processes for safeguarding across the country. (Read the Government's response to the Laming Review)

Organisational Requirements

The vast majority of adults who work with children, young people and families act professionally and aim to provide a safe and supportive environment which secures the well-being and very best outcomes for them. However, it should be recognised that there are adults who will deliberately seek out, create or exploit opportunities to abuse children and other vulnerable people. It is therefore essential that all possible steps are taken to safeguard children and young people and ensure that the adults working with them are safe to do so.

Safeguarding is therefore about ensuring that a relationship of trust is not compromised, preventing things from going wrong at an organisational level and having the right protocols and procedures in place to deal with the consequences of difficulties if and when they arise. This will include ensuring that:

• There are robust up-to-date procedures (including a whistle-blowing policy and recruitment checks) for avoiding and responding to actual or suspected abuse or neglect.
  
  
• Staff are trained in recognising and responding appropriately to suspected abuse.
  
  
• There are procedures to prevent staff from gaining personal benefit when working with vulnerable people.
  
  
• The policies and procedures are fully understood by all staff (paid and voluntary workers).
  
  
• Staff are made aware of and understand their professional boundaries.
  
  
• Service users are aware of the procedures for reporting abuse or neglect.
  
  
• Prompt action is taken in response to individual complaints or concerns from staff or service users.
  

The following documents can provide you with general guidance on the organisational arrangements required for safeguarding:

Are they safe? Guides from Safe Network - www.safenetwork.org.uk

Are they safe? Part A: This part will help you get safeguarding essentials in place.

Are they safe? Part B: Plan of action to put safeguards in place.

Are they safe? Part C: Information, resources and publications. 

Guidance for Safer Working Practice for Adults who Work with Children and Young People 

Positively Safe: A Guide to Developing Safeguarding Practices 

Safeguarding Children & Young People: Standards for Good Practice in the Voluntary Sector 

Statutory Guidance on Making Arrangements to Safeguard and Promote the Welfare of Children under Section 11 of the Children Act 2004 

Staying Safe: A Consultation Document 

In addition, there is some sector-specific support in this area available to VCS organisations:

Sound Systems - an accreditation scheme run by NCVYS to enable VCS organisations to critically examine their policies and practices around safeguarding, measure them against the recommended standards and work towards reaching those standards.

Keeping it Safe - a tool created by NCVYS to help VCS organisations work through the process of safeguarding. This resource includes information on ensuring that activities with young people are safe, that organisations have policies and procedures in place to deal with safeguarding issues and that staff and volunteers are safely recruited, managed and trained in order to work with young people.

SAFEchild - a registered charity dedicated to child protection. It provides child protection training, CRB checks, risk assessments and child protection policies.

Multi-Agency Working

The Children Act made it clear that the support and protection of children cannot be achieved by a single agency and that every organisation working with children, young people and families must play its part. Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children - and protecting them from significant harm - therefore depends on the effective co-ordination and joint working between agencies and professionals that have different roles and expertise (health, education, social care and VCS organisations to name but a few).

The Local Safeguarding Children's Board (LSCB) is the key statutory mechanism for agreeing how the relevant organisations in each locality will co-operate to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people, and for ensuring the effectiveness of what they do. It provides the strategic direction and operating framework needed. Within this, prevention is seen as the key to safeguarding and requires all organisations that come into contact with children, young people and their families to contribute.

Much of the co-ordination of preventive work takes place in the Children and Young People's Strategic Partnership (CYPSP) and allied thematic partnerships, such as those covering health and community safety. It is the role of the LSCB to work actively to influence and co-ordinate all of these multi-agency arrangements and ensure that they operate effectively.

Links to all of the relevant LSCBs in the East of England are set out below:

Bedfordshire

Cambridgeshire

Essex

Hertfordshire

Luton

Norfolk

Peterborough

Southend

Suffolk

Thurrock

Third Sector Safeguarding

The third sector of VCS and other organisations providing services and support to children, young people and their families is both large and diverse and there is much good practice within the sector that can be shared and built on. In order to provide effective safeguarding support, a National Safeguarding Unit for the Third Sector has been established by the NSPCC and Children England (see link). The unit works closely with and through a number of delivery partners, umbrella groups and existing national, regional and local networks and infrastructures. This includes Children Matter East.

The Vetting and Barring Scheme

The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 laid the foundation for a new Vetting and Barring Scheme aimed at stopping unsuitable people from working with children and/or vulnerable adults by improving screening procedures for potential employees or volunteers, i.e. vetting, and building a register of everyone, whether paid or unpaid, who is allowed to or is barred from working with children and/or vulnerable adults.

From 12 October 2009 there will be a single list of those barred from working with children and a separate, but aligned, list of those barred from working with vulnerable adults. The Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) is responsible for deciding who should be placed on these barred lists, i.e. who will not be permitted to work with children and/or vulnerable adults, and for keeping a record of those individuals. The Criminal Records Bureau will run the application process. No distinction is made between paid and unpaid work, and all rules will apply to both volunteers and employees (see attached factsheet).