Child Protection Within the Wider Concept of Safeguarding Children

1.1 Outline current legislation, guidelines, policies and procedure within own UK Home Nation affecting the safeguarding of children and young people.

Evaluate how the policies and procedures of the settings support children and young people to:

Law and guidance regulate the way you should work with children in your childcare setting to support and encourage their well-being and safeguard them from abuse and maltreatment. Legislation provides a comprehensive instruction on what must be attained in respect to child protection and safeguarding. Whereas Legal guidance is more precise and provides details on how the law ought to be applied and fulfilled in early years settings and services. Laws and statutory regulation are compulsory and should reinforce policies and procedures that are used in your setting.

There are many policies and procedures within the UK that outline the current legislation and guidelines to help with safeguarding children and young people.

Safeguarding is about keeping children safe from harm and abuse. It means proactively seeking to involve the whole community in keeping children safe and promoting their welfare.

Child protection however, is just one aspect of safeguarding and focusses on how children are protected from abuse and neglect.

1.1. Identify current legislation, guidelines, policies and procedures for safeguarding the welfare of children and young people.

Ensuring children and young people’s safety and welfare in the work setting is an essential part of safeguarding. While children are at school, practitioners act in ‘loco parentis’ while their parents are away. As part of their legal and professional obligations, practitioners hold positions of trust and a duty of care to the children in their school, and therefore should always act in their best interests and ensure their safety – the welfare of the child is paramount (Children Act 1989). The Children Act 2004 came in with the Every Child Matters (ECM) guidelines and greatly impacted the way schools look at the care and welfare of pupils. Children and young people should be helped to learn and thrive and be given the opportunity to

3.2 Explain policies and procedures that are in place to protect children and young people and adults who work with them.

Today we use the term safeguarding instead of child protection because it covers a much broader range. These changes were influenced by the first Joint Chief Inspectors’ safeguarding report 2002 and formalised in the Every Child Matters legislation outlined in the Children Act 2004. By safeguarding a child or young person we ensure they get the very best of the opportunities available to them for them to achieve the best of their potential while keeping them safe from bullying, crime, accidents, neglect and abuse.

Explain what is meant by child protection in the wider concept of safeguarding children and young people. 1.2

The main current legislation guidelines policies and procedures within own UK home nation for safeguarding children and young people.

To be able to safeguard children effectively we need to be aware of the following policies:

Legislation, guidelines, policies and procedures affecting the safeguarding of children and young people would be:-

1. Outline current legislation, guidelines, policies and procedures within own UK Home Nation affecting the safeguarding of children and young people.