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Explain Child Protection Within The Wider Concept Of Safeguarding

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Safeguarding involves everything a setting does, including their procedures and policies etc, to ensure children are kept safe and healthy, and that the risk of them coming to harm or being involved in an accident, is minimised. Child protection however, is just one aspect of safeguarding and focusses on how children are protected from abuse and neglect. Safeguarding is defined in ‘Working together to safeguard children 2013’ as: • Protecting children from maltreatment • Preventing impairment of children’s health and development • Ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care and • Taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes. The main policies involved in safeguarding …show more content…

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. If any professional becomes concerned that a child might be at risk of abuse, be it physical, sexual, emotional or neglect, it is their legal duty to pass on such concerns to the appropriate professionals who can assess if and what action should be taken. In cases where it will not put the child at greater risk or danger, the parents / carers of the child will be informed that such action has been taken. Settings also have a legal duty to contact Ofsted if an allegation of abuse is made against any of the staff members; regardless of their position, hours worked or whether they are in paid or unpaid roles. The main policies / procedures which specifically cover the topic of child protection include: Sex Offenders Act

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