An inquiry into child abuse by Church of England clergy in Chichester has found many children suffered “abiding hurt and damage”. Child protection and safeguarding measures had been inadequate for 20 years.
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s office will now oversee clergy appointments and the protection of children and vulnerable adults in the diocese amid concerns that safeguarding procedures remain “dysfunctional”.
A care home assistant has been imprisoned for the neglect and ill-treatment of a vulnerable woman. The 89 year old woman was under the care of a residential home in West Yorkshire. However, the woman’s family were extremely concerned enough to conceal a camera within an alarm clock and recorded the abuse over a five day period. The care assistant was jailed for four months.
One of the seven themes in the NSPCC strategy through to 2012 is the prevention of maltreatment of children under one, and the importance of intervening during what is the most important developmental period in a child’s life.
The statistics are shocking:
The extent of abuse and neglect of babies is also almost certainly underestimated, as most child abuse goes unreported.
For further details, please visit the NSPCC website.
Children’s charities are warning that the number of children living in vulnerable families in Britain will rise to over one million by 2015, unless action is taken now.
A recent report has calculated the impact of the recession on vulnerable children for the first time. It paints a worrying picture of a large number of families struggling with problems like unemployment, depression, poor quality housing and poverty.
Action for Children, NSPCC and The Children’s Society are now calling on the Government to take action to better protect children from the effects of the recession, sharp cuts to public services, and major changes to the tax and benefits system, so children are not put at further risk.
A Gloucestershire Coroner has raised serious concerns about why it takes up to 15 days for an urgent Child Protection Case Conference to be convened.
While hearing the case of 3 month old Xanthe Tucker on Friday, assistant deputy coroner Tom Osborne said he couldn’t understand why something urgent was not arranged sooner.
Speaking at the inquest, Gloucestershire County Council service manager for Stroud Glenda Duirs explained the timing of 15 days was based on Government guidelines.
She said:
“A case conference is not a way of immediately safeguarding a child. It is where the child is placed on a particular multi-agency plan to help ensure its safety. Should immediate safeguarding be required we would use legal processes to get an emergency protection order for the child.”
A recent Guardian article highlights just how risky inappropriate use of the internet can be. As part of the research, a journalist (supervised by a police officer) pretends to be a 14 year old girl in a chat room. Within seconds, their are numerous male adults wanting to chat to “her”.
Although the article shows just how risky the online world can be, it also needs to be put in perspective. These sort of risks can be mitigated by educating children. E-Safety needs to be taught in the same way we teach children how to cross the road safely.
A recent article on the BBC website, asks the question “Does allowing a child to become morbidly obese qualify as child abuse?”. Some health and social care professionals believe it is an issue that requires further investigation.
A couple of months ago, a 19 year old girl had to be cut out of her house by firefighters so that she could receive urgent medical care. She weighed over 50 stone.
“It is my view that child obesity should be treated as a form of child mistreatment, as any type of under-feeding is,” says Joanna Nicolas, a child protection consultant who has been a social worker for 17 years.
“If a child is obese it is a form of abuse because of the physical impact on the child, the implications for their future health and the psychological impact,” she told Radio 4′s The Report.
A mother has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for leaving her baby daughter at home alone every day for a week while she went out drinking.
The 20 year old admitted neglect of the 15-month old child while she went out at Christmas. Neighbours raised the alarm when they heard cries.
The judge said: “You may have gone back to the house on occasions but the fact is you neglected her for a very long time.”
Disabled children are at risk of slipping through the child protection net, according to a new Ofsted report. The study found that many children and their families receive good multi-agency early support but too many children had child protection needs which went unidentified.
There is no formal definition of e-safety; a quick Google search will return many results with individual opinions. Essentially e-safety is about the education of young people to enjoy the safe use of technology.
But there are some important principles:
Educating and empowering:
In the same way we teach our children how to cross the road safely and how to swim, it is imperative that we also teach children how to stay safe online. It is not sufficient to show the children a video or two and expect this to suffice; e-safety is partly about empowering the children; most importantly we should teach this as a life skill. The earlier children understand this life skill the more beneficial it will be.
Raising the awareness:
Would you teach your child to drive if you can’t drive yourself? The same is true of e-safety. Everybody must understand this life skill; this includes all staff, voluteers, governing bodies and parents/guardians. In order to empower others and to be able to risk assess for yourself, you also need to have a good understanding of the risks and dangers.
Governance and liabilities:
In order for your organisation to be “e-safety compliant”, the governance model must be correct. This includes the liabilities to the organisation should an incident occur that the organisation has not foreseen. Governance includes such items as: e-safety policy; acceptable use policy (sometimes the two are combined); anti-bullying policy; behaviour management policy; disciplinary policy.
e-Safety is not about ICT – it is about safeguarding
Learning to drive is not about knowing the internal workings of a combustion engine; the same is true of e-safety. Many shy away from e-safety thinking that they don’t have the technical knowledge to understand it. Technology is not the problem (although arguably it is an enabler). Technology does not cause problems; behaviour, risk taking and lack of awareness cause problems. e-Safety is about safeguarding the child.
If you’d like to know more, please check out our online e-Safety training course.
