An article in the Guardian discusses how school leaders deal with abuse allegations and looks at the statutory guidance which informs them. The article highlights some areas of confusion and lack of clarity in  the guidance to schools stating “schools are under no compulsion to inform the local authority designated officer (LADO) when an allegation is made, although they they are strongly advised to do so”.  School staff quoted in the article speak of the need for quality training and leadership in schools and express varying views on whether having discretion in reporting abuse allegations is a good thing or not.

The main guidance documents  for schools on safeguarding are:

•  Working Together to Safeguard Children
•  Dealing with Allegations of Abuse
•  Safeguarding Children and Safer Recruitment in Education

Working together 2013, the new statutory guidance issued by the Department of Education, defines child protection terms as applicable to the United Kingdom. Definitions include:

Child protection – part of safeguarding and promoting welfare. This refers to the activity that is undertaken to protect specific children who are suffering, or are likely to suffer, significant harm.

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children :

•  protecting children from maltreatment;
•  preventing impairment of children’s health or development;
• ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care; and
• taking action to enable all children to have the best life chances.

The Department of Education have published The young Persons Guide to the Children and Families Bill.  The Bill, which is not yet agreed, will include reform to systems for adoption, family justice and improved services for vulnerable children.

Taken for the DoE website the Guide is described as:

This Guide is a good summary of what young people need to know is in the Bill. It is not the law or the Bill itself. It explains what will change for children and families if the Bill gets agreed.

It includes:

• Introduction
• The Bill’s main ideas
• What the new law would change about adoption
• What the new law would change for looked after children at school
• What the new law would change about family courts
• What the new law would change for children and young people with special educational needs
• What the new law would change about helping parents by caring for children outside school
• How the new law would change the Children’s Commissioner
• What the new law would change for parents when they have a new child
• How the new law would help people fit their work times around other things in their lives
• What next?

This week the Department of Education have released the final version of the new guidance:

Working together to safeguard children: A guide to inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children

“This guidance aims to help professionals understand what they need to do, and what they can expect of one another, to safeguard children. It focuses on core legal requirements, making it clear what individuals and organisations should do to keep children safe.” (page 7)

The new guidance, which replaces Working Together 2010, will come into effect on the 15th April 201.  Over the next few weeks the child protection experts and staff at the ChildProtectionCompany.com will be busy reviewing and updating all our child protection training courses to ensure they remain fully complaint with the latest guidance.

You can access the Working Together 2013 document here

The International Center for Missing & Exploited Children has produced a comprehensive document entitled Child Protection Model Law.  The document has been produced following extensive work with international child protection expert and incorporates the law and best practice of 68 countries.  It highlights the best practices, from around the world, in the protection of children from neglect, abuse, maltreatment, and exploitation.

The Model Law highlights issues of child protection that need to be regulated and shows where there are gaps in current legislation. The Model Law is intended  to guide countries that are producing or amending their child protection laws.

The Charity Commission have published guidance on Protecting Children in charitable organisations. Some of the areas the Charity commission have highlighted as forming part of an organisations Child Protection Procedures include:

• Organisations having a named person (and deputy) with lead responsibilities for child protection.
• Procedures should include a description of what child abuse is and how to respond to concerns. The contact details for children’s services, police, health and NSPCC helplines should be available.
• A clear process for recording incidents, concerns and referrals should be known to all staff/volunteers.
• Requirements for trustees, staff and volunteers to learn about child protection in accordance with and as appropriate to their roles and responsibilities
• A code of behaviour for trustees, staff and volunteers. With the consequences of breaching the code being clear and linked to disciplinary and grievance procedures.
• Safe recruitment, selection and vetting procedures should be correctly implemented, including the appropriate DBS checks that include checks .
• Systems to ensure that all staff and volunteers working with children are monitored and supervised and that they have opportunities to learn about child protection in accordance with their roles and responsibilities.

All our safeguarding courses are written by experts in line with the latest government and sector guidelines including Working Together 2010, thereby assisting organisations to fulfill their safeguarding responsibilities.

The introductory level course is available in a general version, suitable for all, as well as specific versions for trustees and those volunteering and working in education, dentistry or sport, and soon to be released a version for people involved in the equestrian field.

The level 2 course is suitable for the person(s) taking on the lead and deputy roles in child protection.

For details of all our online child protection courses please click here

Are you in need of a child protection policy for your organisation?  If so, why not take a look at our child protection support package?  It is designed to provide you with everything you need so that you can quickly and efficiently setup and maintain your child safeguarding policies and procedures.

The benefits of the package include:

• A full range of child protection policies and procedures that can be used in your organisation.
• We’ll tell you when updates are required as legislation changes.
• Guidance from our team of safeguarding experts for any queries you may have with your policies and procedures.
• Access to our safeguarding experts for any general support queries you may have.
• Expert support and consultancy on any DBS/CRB or recruitment matter that may arise.
• Through accreditation you can not only verify your policies, procedures and practices but also demonstrate to others that you have sound safeguarding procedures in place.

Click here to find out more.

Parents might well believe that if a teacher suspects that a student is being abused by a member of staff, the allegation must be reported to the local authority or police for independent investigation but this isn’t actually the case. Safeguarding Children And Safer Recruitment In Education is the government’s current guidance document which suggests that any child protection concerns should be passed on to the local authority’s designated officer. The reporting procedures state that following any allegation any concerns “need to be applied with common sense and judgment”. This wording is obviously intended to prevent the relevant authorities being inundated with complaints.

The Government is due to produce a revised guidance, called Working Together To Safeguard Children, soon and this new guidance is expected to place even more trust in the people who work with children to use their own judgment as to whether an official complaint should be put forward. There will be no mandatory requirement for concerns to be passed on to higher authorities for investigation.

Campaigners say the lack of clarity surrounding reporting not only fails children, but also fails staff, who are left without any obvious course of action should they report suspicions to a headteacher who does not then take action. In this situation, their only current recourse is to become a whistleblower. But, by placing a mandatory requirement to report concerns, the relevant authorities would definitely become quickly overloaded.

Yesterday, I talked about the Carlile Report which had been published. Also published yesterday was the results of an unannounced Ofsted inspection in August. Inspectors spent 10 days examining the social services department of the Council and have now announced that child protection standards are inadequate. This was despite interim inspections showing signs of improvement.

Reasons for the downgrading have been cited as:

• a dramatic rise in the number of cases the Council is dealing with.
• the number of child protection investigations trebling and
• the number of referrals increasing by two thirds.

The Director of Children’s Services at Doncaster, Chris Pratt, said “It is clear that we have not yet fully recovered the systematically broken services that we previously had. The reports do acknowledge progress has been made but our progress hasn;t yet come far enough. As a result of better child protection work we are now actually working with an overwhelming number of children. Together with huge difficulties in attracting experienced social work professionals to work in Doncaster”.

Acting Chief Executive of the British Association of Social Workers, Bridget Robb, said “These unacceptable issues in Doncaster are exacerbated by the single biggest issue facing the majority of child protection professionals in England – that social workers are simply not getting time to see children. GPs are not expected to cure people by filling in forms instead of seeing patients, yet social workers remain chained to their desks unable to spend time with vulnerable children who need their support”.

Doncaster Council has in recent years been involved in a number of cases which have highlighted huge failings within the social services department.

The most high profile of these was where two brothers who had been known to social services for most of their lives were responsible for a shocking child protection case involving two younger children – known as the Edlington case.

Following that case and a number of other child protection issues within Doncaster Council, a “turnaround team” was sent in to carry out an inspection and oversee the work being carried out within the department.

Today, a report by Lord Carlile QC has been published, along with a report from Ofsted after their unannounced inspection back in August this year.

Lord Carlile’s report summarises more than 100 important events which affected the two brothers involved at Edlington where the authorities should have intervened but “failed to do co-ordinate any realistic attempt to address the problems caused by, and of course faced by” the boys.

Lord Carlile has recommended a radical look at the way interventions are assessed and dealt with in order to “uphold a key principle in the Children Act that a child’s best place is with the natural parents wherever possible” – a theory which is now being questioned.