The Importance Of Safeguarding Children

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Children and young people are most vulnerable and they need to be protected from any kind of maltreatment and physical harm which may affect their childhood and adulthood. Some experiences could lead in taking life threatening actions or involve in criminal activities. The child protection legislation first came into action in 1889. Which identified the need of protecting children from ill-treatment or cruelty towards them. Since then legislation is ever evolving to overcome the potential threats and protect children and young people’s health, safety and well-being.

Legislation and guidelines related to safeguarding children and young people

 Children Act 1989
This act identifies the responsibilities of every individual who works with children
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• Roles and responsibilities of all agencies to make arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
 The Education Act 2002
The aim of this act is to protect the children in education setting. It shares the responsibilities of Local Education Authorities (LEAs), governing bodies, head teachers and all those working in schools to ensure that children are safe and free from harm.
 Children Act 2004
After the tragic death of Victoria Climbiè in 2000, it was highlighted how the services which were set out to identify, protect and safeguard vulnerable children failed to identify the advancing danger. In 2003, the Lord Laming Report criticized the approach to protecting children. This resulted in a green paper, known as Every Child Matters, which then led to the Children Act 2004 in England, and other similar bills in all four UK countries.
It states the process for providing services to children to ensure that every child can achieve the five outcomes set out in the “Every Child Matters” green paper:
• To allow children to be healthy.
• Allowing children to remain safe in their environments.
• Helping children to enjoy and achieve.
• Help make positive
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It also looks at the actions which all adults working with children should take if they are concerned.
The guidance states that any incident meeting the criteria for a Serious Case Review will have met the criteria for a notifiable incident. However, it stresses that not all notifiable incidents will proceed through to Serious Case Review.
Seriously harmed includes, but is not limited to, cases where the child has sustained, as a result of abuse or neglect, any or all of the following:
• A potentially life-threatening injury
• serious and/or likely long-term impairment of physical or mental health or physical, intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural development.
The guidance makes it clear that this definition is not exhaustive, and that serious harm can still have occurred if a child recovers from the incident. It states that LSCBs should ensure their considerations on whether serious harm has occurred are informed by available research evidence

Keeping children safe in education 2015