Safeguarding Children in Practice

Every child has the right to achieve their best. Early intervention, commonly known as early help, can support children and young people to develop the skills they need to live happy, healthy and successful lives. It can improve the quality of children’s home lives and family relationships, by having a team around the family, increase educational attainment and support good mental health.

We will explore which children may benefit from early help and what does that look like, whether that a single agency or multi agency approach.

We will expand our knowledge about child in need and child protection plans. To fully understand what leads a child to be placed on a safeguarding plan, we will explore how social services complete a family assessment.

Assessing the family is essential to determine the range of services that are needed for the family system, determining potential level of compliance, the need for monitoring and support and to explore options and make suggestions and recommendations. We will go on to discuss the role of professionals in a child protection conference and a subsequent core group and provide you the skills to support a family who require a safeguarding plan.

A Serious Case Review should be carried out for every case where abuse or neglect is known or suspected and either a child dies; or a child is seriously harmed. We will look at the heart-breaking case of Victoria Climbie and how this had a fundamental impact on legislation and changed the way multiple agencies work together.

We will explore the latest safeguarding concerns according to Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) including, child sexual exploitation, county lines, gangs, sexually harmful behaviour and radicalisation.

‘Position of trust’ is a legal term that refers to certain roles and settings where an adult has regular and direct contact with children. We will explore what it means to abuse a position of trust and what should you do if you believe someone has abused their position of trust. This will include understanding the role of the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO/DO).

This course has been created and delivered by Milly Wildish, a child protection specialist who has worked in criminal and education settings. Milly is a national safeguarding panel member and is currently engaged in a large-scale independent investigation, into current and historical allegations of child abuse.

Your understanding of the course is tested though multiple-choice questions and you will receive a CPD accredited certificate, on the successful completion of the course.