Unit 8 Understanding Safegaurding Of Children And Young People

It emphasises the important principles to be followed when working with children and young people: settings must provide a safe and secure environment, if any children are identified as suffering from abuse or likely to suffer the appropriate action must be taken.

In order to not only promote the welfare of children within a setting but also to protect them from harm and abuse there are a number of pieces of legislation and statutory guidance that must be adhered to. Both laws and statutory guidance are mandatory and so legally enforceable and must act as a foundation of which policies and procedures within any setting can be based upon.

These policies have been made in response to legislations that have been passed. Schools are obligated to monitor the affect of these policies to see what changes they bring forth and to make sure they are for the better, by doing this they can sort out the week points of the policies and adapt them to work for the better.

1.1 outline current legislation, guidelines, policies and procedures within own UK home nation affecting the safeguarding of children and young people.

| Section 175 of the Education Act 2002 requires local education authorities and governing bodies of maintained schools and FE colleges to make arrangements to ensure that their functions are carried out with a view to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.All children deserve the opportunity to achieve their full potential.  The five outcomes that are key to children’s and young people’s wellbeing are: * Stay safe * Be healthy * Enjoy and achieve * Make a positive contribution * Achieve economic wellbeing The school should give effect to their duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of their pupils (students under the age of 18 years of age) under the Education Act 2002 and , where appropriate, under the Children Act 1989 by: * Creating and maintaining a safe learning environment for children and young people. * Identifying where there are child welfare concerns and taking action to address them in partnership with other

It is everybody’s responsibility to safeguard children – This means every single staff member within a setting; irrelevant of what role they may have there. This also includes non-staff members, such as volunteers, student’s third-party companies (visitors, service providers etc). Each setting should therefore adopt their own safeguarding policy, of which has to be kept up to date and followed at all times.

The extent or the severity of each case is determined by the time span of abuse, the more serious the abuse, the younger the child is and the relationship of the child to the abuser. Once sexual abuse has been identified the support of an adult who believes the child helps, starts to help the child understand the abuse and can therefore offer help and protection to the abused child.

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

M1 - Analyse how the above policy and procedures help children/young people and their families whilst the child is being looked after.

M1- Discuss how policies and procedures help children, young people and their families whilst the child is being looked after.

|As adults in positions of responsibility it is important to be aware of the importance of protecting children and young people from harm. While |

Risk assessments should be carried out regularly to make sure that there are no safe guard threats towards the children in the setting. Childcare settings need risk assessing for example is there entrances and exits to the building that an unauthorised person could use? Could a child leave the setting without anyone noticing? Could a child get seriously hurt due to a broken piece of equipment?

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

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

1 Understand the Policies, Procedures and Practices for safe working with children and young adults