Essay on Safeguard Children and Young People

SAFEGUARD CHILDREN AND
YOUNG PEOPLE WELL-BEING

1.1 & 1.3
In UK, all of the establishments who are working with younger people and children are
required to maintain safe and highly secure environment so as to consider welfare concerns
of the people. Safeguarding children & young people mainly targets at promoting well-being
and welfare of the people against abusing and neglecting activities. Various legislations,
protection policies and procedure aims at detection of abuse and neglect issues and prevent
children and young age people from such unfair practices and bullying and thereby promote
wellbeing. In UK there are acts that prohibit discrimination among people and ensured that
all people whether they are youngsters or old will be treated equally at workplace. In past
years lots of changes are made relevant rules and regulations as well as institutions now are
well aware about rights of people. It can be said that interests of youngsters and children’s
are safeguarded in UK.
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), 1989: It impose
mandatory obligations upon practitioners to protect children’s rights from abuse, right to
care and provide right to present opinion to the disabled children and others who are living
away from their families. It is not a single legislative framework in UK as there are different
laws such as Working Together to Safeguard Children 2010 in England, The safeguard of
Children Act 1999, Children Act 2004, Cooperating to safeguard children in Ireland,
Common Assessment Framework (CAF) applied for the protection and safeguarding of
children and younger people.
Children Act: UK Children Act consist provisions for children care, protection,
welfare, training, education and other key activities. It make provisions to safeguard all the
children against any abuse and negligent behavior to promote their wellbeing.
Childcare Acts and Every Child Matters provide equal right to all the children to be
educated. As per the law, children between 3-4 years have right to take free of cost education
in all the preschool settings. In 2010, its working hours extended from 12.5 to 15 hrs total of
38 weeks per year. It is universally accessible by any of the child to reap the benefits of
education in early years.
Data Protection Act 1998: This act secures confidential information about students so
that any unauthorized person cannot use it for illegal purpose. It mandates for all the
educational settings to keep their all the data in an encrypted software and locked cabinets
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for the security purpose.
Safeguard of children act 1999: It has impact on day to day practices as it can be
observed that under this act reflect actions that need to be taken to protect interest of
children’s. Children act 2004 assist local organizations to work for safety of interest of
children’s. Under this regulation, some guidelines are given which are very helpful to
relevant organizations. Thus, it can be said that these legislations heavily affect safety of
children’s. Childcare practices cover number of things like take care of baby, providing
safety to children’s in orphanage and providing safety to children’s that wandering in streets
for whom there is no responsible person. In order to promote children safeguarding and
wellbeing, there are following provisional set, presented below:
 Risk assessment procedure that clearly presented that unqualified staff must not left
children and younger people on places which are not deemed safe.
 Health & safety legislations and different safety guidelines and provisions also have
been applied to promote safeguarding of people.
 Trainings are being conducted to keep update the workforce with regards to
safeguarding issues.
 Observation helps to detect areas which need additional supports for improving well-
being of children and younger age people.
Early Years Foundation Stage: in UK, Statutory Guidance for the EYFS (Early Years
Foundation Stage) set out the standard regulations for the purpose of child care and
protection and their learning & development. It is applied especially for the children who are
below the age of 5 years. Moreover, common assessment framework is used across all local
areas in England for determining the additional requirement of children and young people
and accordingly creates service provisions to match up their need perfectly. It follows 4-step
procedure that covers identifying needs, assessment of requirements, deliver services and
review progress.
In nurseries, the legal requirement for the practitioners are stated here under:
 Maintain privacy & confidentiality through confidentiality policy
 Safe and secure premises both indoors and outdoors through opening & closing
check
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 Recording of arrival & departures by registers
 Taking initiatives to prevent intruders by ensuring proper safety maintenance
Leeds Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB): It is a statutory regulatory body in the
country that includes senior representation of all the organizations that are working
together for safeguarding & promote children welfare. The key objective of the authority
is to coordinate among all the agencies and individuals and ensure effective operations.
LSCB works with the localized communities and make provisions to safeguard children
and young people.
Equality and diversity Act: This is an important law that particularly emphasizes on
understanding learners actual requirement and meet the same. In practical, it is not easy
for the teacher to treat all children equally, more importantly, when they belong to
different race, nationality and have some disability. Thus, choosing the right learning
strategy helps to meet all the learners requirements very well. It differentiates children
according to their learning styles and knowledge. By applying such practice, people will
not feel discriminated and unfavourable treatment. It protect children against any misuse
or abuse.
Code of professional Practice: In educational institutions, all the teachers are liable to
follow their professional code to become a good teacher. In a rapidly changing world,
teacher role becomes too complex and in order to keep them update, they need to follow
highest possible standards for their teaching profession.
1.2
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Child protection simply taken as a means of safeguarding children from the unfair treatment
such as violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect. Child protection in today time period
become wider concept as it can be observed that government of most of nations of the world
is fully committed towards securing interest of children’s in terms of child labor and
protection of rights. There are many institutes in UK that are working for welfare of
children’s and youngsters so as to ensure that they are aware about their rights and safety
that government is providing to them. Within wider safeguarding concept, child protection
comprises practitioners duties and responsibilities to co-operate and coordinate with the
provisions of
Children Act 2004. In UK, UN 1989 defined children protection covering following aspects:
 Right from the unfair and unjustifiable treatment i.e. abuse, neglect, violence and
others
 Rights to individual to express their own opinion and views and to be listened by
others
 Maintaining proper service provisions for the benefits of disabled children
 Complying with the service provisions for the children who are living away from
their families
Children Act 2004 stated that any physical punishment to the child which cause
mental harm or skin marks will be considered as criminal offence as a breach of the
statutory provisions and such party will be punished.
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1.4
Answer:
Serious Case Reviews (SCR) will be conducted in such cases, in which, there is a
suspicion about neglect or abusing activities as a reason for child or younger people’s
death. If a child or young member faces any serious physical and mental injury just due to
abuse, neglect and violence, then in such situation, serious case reviews will be undertaken.
In such regards, local safeguarding children board (LSCB) needs to be contracted by
establishment for conducting SCR. Besides this, as per Violence Act, 2004, if a parent had
murdered their children as a result of domestic violence then domestic homicide review
(DHR) will be done. In UK, Community Safety Partnership needs to conduct DHR where a
person over the age of 16 years has been died due to domestic violence and neglecting and
abusing attitude of any family member, relative or someone else. It aims at getting lessons
and makes appropriate recommendations to prevent future homicides (Brett and et.al.,
2014).
SCRs investigates that what were the reasons for child death and who is responsible
for the same and in this way, it assists criminal courts to deal with such issues and make
suitable policy framework in order to prevent the occurrence of happening the same
situation in future and thereby safeguarding children welfare. It also identifies lessons that
needs to be leant regarding the ways how settings and professionals can work separately or
work together to promote well being of people. In addition, Childcare practitioners need to
adhere with the Safeguarding & Welfare framework, Early Years Foundation Stage
(EYFS) to establish a high-quality and safe environmental setting in the childcare setting.
1.5
Answer:
Childcare settings are very well-aware with the provisions of Data Protection Act 1998
applied to maintain privacy and confidentiality of the private information. Confidentiality
policy has been made and complied regularly in daily practices to adhere with the
confidentiality requirement of the client’s data. In these regards, children’s information has
been kept in registers that were kept away at a safe place to mitigate the reach of
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unauthorized person. By keeping password, confidential data can be protected and
prevented from any misuse by the other parties. It has been shared with the parents or other
healthcare practitioners only to maintain privacy. At the same time, parent does not have
access to other child’s private information as the registers and files have been kept in
locked file cabinets where only staff members can reach. Moreover, staff members are not
allowed to share children’s personal information with any other third party except parents
to give full value to the EYFS’s welfare and safeguarding requirements (Bradshaw, 2016).
In case, when an unauthorized party illegally access to the data and violate Data Protection
Act requirement then, offender can be prosecuted to prevent such criminal offense. In order
to ensure that data will be protected only reliable person are allowed to go in data center.
Apart from this, entire data is stored in SQL and under this for different sort of employees
in order to approach varied figures specific provisions are done. Due to this reason each
individual can approach only specific sort of data on systems with proper permission. This
ensure that data is safe from threat from side of employees.
Although DPA gives parent rights to access required information about their children
still, there may be some exemptions in which information can be withheld and do not need
to disclosure. For instance, if professional considers that a particular information should
not be shared because it can cause harm to the others then in such case exemption will be
available.
2.1,
Answer:
Refer to document ‘Working together to Safeguard Children’ You can also review the
Department for Education website or Department for Health website and other resources.
Use these documents as a source for information (can also be used for 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4)
Safeguarding children & young people is necessary so that they can feel safe & secure
from the unjustifiable treat such as neglecting and abusing behavior of others e.g. physical,
sexual and emotional. Moreover, in the society, everyone is responsible to protect others
from illegal act or misconducts. Without safeguarding and protecting them, their future will
be adversely affected due to emotional impairment, violence and other reasons. Thus,
promoting well-being assists children to grow safely without any fear and make them
confident member of the society. There is huge significance of safety or safeguarding
children’s. This is because at childhood stage and young stage it is very important to
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protect children’s from abusive and bad environment. Criminal type of people try to make
misuse of children’s and it is very important to make them aware about wrong things that
are happening around them and protecting them from approach of criminal type of people.
Thus, it can be said that there is huge significance of safeguarding of children’s.
2.2Explain the importance of a child or young person centred approach (150 words
approx)
Answer:
Childcare settings need to use process centered approach in the process of
safeguarding their children. There is huge importance of child or young centered approach
because to great extent criminal type of people misuses these children’s and specially
youngsters. Due to this reason it is necessary to follow child or young centered approach
because by doing so special emphasis can be given on children or youngsters in respect to
protecting them from wrong sort of people. Every Child Matters (ECM) is created to assure
that every child get the five decided outcomes from the safeguarding provisions covers
healthy, stay safe, enjoyment, positive contribution & promote well-being (Aveyard and
Sharp, 2013). The main motive of all the service provisions is to satisfy young people’s and
children's health care needs. Their requirements will be considered during the process of
policy formulation & decision making to provide them belonging sense, self-worth and
better feeling.
2.3
Partnership working in context of safeguarding means that government and private
agencies working together for welfare of children’s and youngsters. Government by
preparing rules and regulations and providing money support assist private organizations.
These private organizations in collaboration with government carry out task of protecting
children’s in the nation. Thus, it can be said that there is significant importance of
partnership that goes between government and organizations. Partnership with the
professionals and companies and grouping of all the services are the central point to
provide benefits to the children. It plays an important role to promote wellbeing of the
people because it helps to execute the legislative framework and regulation in a perfect
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